Staying on Top When Your World's Upside Down

“Success begins the moment we understand that life is about growing; it is about acquiring the knowledge and skills we need to live more fully and effectively... Any joy and exuberance we experience in living are the fruits of our willingness to risk, our openness to change, and our ability to create what we want for our lives.” 
David McNally: Even Eagles Need a Push: Learning to Soar in a Changing World

The Direction Deflection Question (DDQ) is one of the tools that you can use to carve that statue of your ideal self that I mentioned at the beginning of this book. The quintessential DDQ is this: Will what I am about to do or say help me be my ideal best self?

If you really think about it, you’ll see that the DDQ is really three questions in one. The first question is some variation of “Who am I (or what am I doing) when I’m being my best self?” Using the DDQ challenges you to think about your best self as a parent, as a professional, as a time and money manager, or any other dimension of your life that you want to change.

The second question is an adaptation of the “stop, look, and listen” routine that you learned in kindergarten. Before you shout at your kid, blow your paycheck on the annual sale at J.C. Penney, waste a day watching television when you know you’d be better served getting outside and exercising or networking, you ask yourself whether that action will help you be your best self. If you’re being honest (often harder than you’d think it is!), you will hear “no” a lot more than you hear “yes.”

So the third question is the “what would I do if I were being my best self” question. If you listen carefully, you will hear a soft voice whispering an answer: “Put away the donuts, turn off the television, and go to the gym.” You will know that you are listening to your authentic best self if what that voice is telling you to do is more difficult than what you were about to do. Why? It’s human nature to take the path of least resistance, the easy way out.

Especially when our world is upside down.

The DDQ is infinitely adaptable and can be used to help you change your thinking, change your behaviors and habits, and ultimately change your life. Here are several examples of how people I’ve worked with have adapted the DDQ:

Will what I’m about to do for the next hour help me achieve my primary goal?

Is what I’m about to spend my hard-earned cash on going to help me achieve my dream of being debt-free and financially independent?

Will what I’m about to say to this person help build a more trusting relationship?

I have seen people use variations of the DDQ to get out of debt, get in shape, lose weight, overcome fears, become more loving parents and partners, and change many other facets of their lives.

Here’s the kicker: you are most motivated to effectively use DDQs when your world is upside down, because that is precisely when it is most apparent that what you have been doing is not working for you.

Click here for my 6-minute video on DDQs: