April 1997. A crisp spring morning like any other in New England. I was living in a dorm room at the college where I was a religious studies major. The dorm room itself was sizable enough, in that, simply by standing in the middle of the room, you could touch the walls on both sides.
It was the morning of The Shower That Changed My Life.
The night before, Iâd been looking around my diminutive dorm room and realized that I had posted lots of sayings or affirmations around the room to make myself feel better. If youâve read a self-help book or been to a success seminar in the last forty years, chances are youâve heard of affirmations. Why? Because nearly every traditional success teacher tells you to use them!
As you know, an affirmation is a statement of something you want to be true in your life. So, examples of traditional affirmations are, âI am happy, healthy, and wealthy,â âI am good enough,â and âI am rich.â Now, since Iâd spent so much time and money studying traditional success literature, and since every traditional success teacher tells you to use them, Iâd been writing and saying affirmations for years.
But, for some reason, my life still sucked.
THE SHOWER THAT CHANGED MY LIFE
That morning in The Shower, my mind wandered. I began asking simple but profound questions about the nature of lifeâmy life. Questions like:
âIf Iâve been doing what they told me to do, and saying these affirmations for so many years, how come my life still sucks?â And:
âIf Iâve been saying these positive statements to myself for years, how come I still donât feel good about myself?â And:
âThere must be a better way to get me to believe something good about myself. But what is it?â
Thatâs when it hit me. (No, not the soap.)
I realized that the human brain is always asking and searching for answers to questions. In that moment, I realized that thought itself is the process of asking and searching for the answers to questions.
If thatâs true, I reasoned, then a simple question formed naturally in my mindâThe Question That Changed Everything:
âIf human thought is the process of asking and searching for answers to questionsâŚ
Why are we going around making statements that we DONâT BELIEVE?â
I couldnât think of a good answer to that question.
Thatâs when everything changed for meâand for my tens of thousands of Students (who call themselves The Faithful) around the globe whoâve since learned how to apply what I discovered in The Shower.
Let me show you what I meanâŚ
WHY AFFIRMATIONS DONâT WORK AS ADVERTISED
We all know that an affirmation is a statement of something you want to be true. So an example of a traditional affirmation might be: âI am rich.â
All right, letâs try it.
Say to yourself right now, âI am rich.â
Try it again. âI am rich.â
Did you hear what just happened in your mind?
A voiceâŚa voice that said something like:
âYeah, right!â
Let me ask you a question. Tell the truth. Do you honestly believe your own affirmationsâor do you doubt them?
The plain and simple truth is that most of us doubt our own affirmations. Why? Because weâre trying to convince ourselves of something, and our minds donât believe that itâs true.
Now, traditional success teachers (most of whom, remember, are unconscious at allowing themselves to succeed) realized that you may not believe your affirmations. So they told you, with good intentions, that all you had to do was repeat your affirmations a thousandâŚer, millionâŚuh, kajillion times until you eventually, um, believe them.
Letâs say you realized you were holding onto negative thoughts (for example, âIâm poor, Iâm lonely, I donât have enoughâ ). You decided you wanted something betterâŚsaid positive affirmations (for example, âI am rich, Iâm happy, I have enoughâ )âŚand then hadâŚ
Absolutely nothing happen?
Me too. And about a gazillion other people. Hey, we were only given chainsaws, so what else were we supposed to use?
But why? Why didnât affirmations work for most of us? If it were as easy as the traditional teachers said, why did nothing happen for the rest of us? Were we simply incapable of thinking a positive thought? Were we not smart enough, motivated enough, educated enoughâŚor did we just not try hard enough?
The answer is: none of these.
The answer is: You were given the wrong tool to do the job.
You were told you could change your mind using statementsâŚwhen your mind responds naturally to questions.
You were told you could overcome negative beliefs using statementsâŚwhen itâs so much easier to overcome them using questions.
You were told to tellâŚwhen you should have been shown how to ask.
What in the world do I mean?
WHAT EVERY PROBLEM YOUâLL EVER FACE REALLY IS
We typically fear, try to avoid, ignore, or get away from problems. But really, a problem is simply a question that hasnât been answered yet.
Any problem, from the trivial to the tremendous, is really a question searching for an answer. Here are a few serious global problems and their associated questions:
Global warming: âHow can we stop destroying the Earth and still live the lives we want?â
Poverty: âHow can we equally distribute the wealth of the world so that people donât have to go without the basic necessities of life?â
Unemployment: âHow can we get everyone working in jobs that produce wealth for themselves and help society function better as well?â
(Notice I didnât say these were easy questions. Thatâs why we havenât found all the answers yet!)
What about the problems people face on the personal or professional level?
Wanting to be more successful: âHow can I be more successful in my life and business?â
Lack of organization: âWhy canât I find what Iâm looking for?â
Wanting companionship: âWhy canât I meet the person of my dreams?â
If you want to change any of these, you could use the traditional affirmation method by saying things like: âI am a success, I am organized, I am good enough,â and so on.
You may believe these statements, and you may not. Now, if affirmations work for you, thatâs great. If, however, you find yourself not believing your affirmations (like most of us), and youâre not totally satisfied with the results, why not try something so simple, yet so powerful, that the traditional success teachers skipped right over it on their way to breakfast:
Rather than making a statement you donât believeâŚwhy not ask a QUESTION that can transform your life?
HOW YOU CREATE YOUR LIFE
The staggering realization I made in The Shower on that fateful morning in 1997 was that you are creating the reality of your life at this very moment in two ways: by the statements you say to yourself and others, and by the questions you ask yourself and others.
Traditional success teachers have focused a great deal of energy telling you to change your statements. But until The Shower, no one had fully realized, or shown how to harness, the awesome power of what happens when you change the questions.
Your mind has what you might call an Automatic Search Function, which means that when you ask yourself a question, your mind automatically begins to search for an answer. (Psychologists have referred to this function of the human brain as the embedded presupposition factor.)
The greatest teachers throughout history have taught the truth of the statement, âAs you sow, so shall you reap.â This is often called The Law of Sowing and Reaping (Emerson called it First Law) or The Law of Attraction, which means that what you focus on (the thought-seeds you continually plant) will grow and bear fruit.
Traditional teachers told you to change your thinking if you want to change your life. And thatâs quite correct. What they told you, however, was almost exclusively to change the statements youâre makingâwhile almost completely ignoring the questions youâre asking.
Yet even as far back as Biblical times, weâve been reminded, âYou have not because you ask not,â and âAsk and you shall receive.â
If you only change the statements you say without changing the QUESTIONS you ask, youâre missing out on the fastest, easiest way to change your life thatâs ever been discovered.
HOW A 13-YEAR-OLD GIRL CURED HER COMPULSIVE WORRYING
I got a call one day from Mary, a professional salesperson from Wisconsin who had attended one of our Secret Code of Success workshops. The first words out of her mouth were, âYour work has been life-changing to me!â When I asked her what she meant, she told me the following story: