The Art of Asking Questions
Asking questions is an act of choosing. What will you choose to create?
As children, asking questions was always a way to learn, explore, and engage with the world. But as we grow older, asking questions starts being penalized. We fear judgment, so we stop asking and start pretending we understand everything.
I always felt uncomfortable asking questions—not just because of potential judgment but also because it felt like an inconvenience, taking up someone else’s time. As a self-starter, I usually exhaust all my ideas and resources before finally asking for help.
However, in the personal development world, I’m learning to embrace the act of asking questions because it allows me to:
Learn something faster.
Open new opportunities for myself and others.
Focus and choose among possibilities.
Create (art, solutions, value).
Learning Something Faster
How long would it take me to search for this on Google or YouTube? How many web pages would I need to sift through to finally find the answer—if I even find it? And most importantly, why am I making my life more difficult on purpose?
If someone knows the answer, they’re usually happy to share their knowledge or experience. People LOVE to share, and we seem to have forgotten that with technology. We connect with each other by offering something others need, and in turn, someone can offer something we need, too. Let’s keep that dynamic alive.
Opening New Opportunities
In the last few months, I’ve met people offering different services or platforms. When I ask about specific opportunities, they often say, “No, we don’t do that,” or “Not yet, maybe later.” But then, a few weeks later, those very opportunities become available—and other people start taking advantage of them!
Maybe it was something they were already considering but hadn’t acted on yet. Then one day, they ask themselves, “Why not?” They see there’s interest. People want it. But it all starts when someone decides to ask!
Focusing and Choosing
Asking a question means making a choice. If you go to a new restaurant and ask, “Do you have fish?” you’ve already decided to eat fish. Whether it’s because you love it or just feel like having it that day doesn’t matter—what matters is that you made a decision and focused on it instead of getting lost in the other 50 dishes on the menu.
Our time, resources, and energy are precious. Making choices and asking questions aligned with those choices help us focus on the life we want to create.
Creating By Asking Questions
For years, I’ve followed and learned tools from Access Consciousness. One of my favorites is asking, “What else is possible?” It made me uncomfortable at first because I felt like asking meant I wasn’t grateful for what I already had. I was wrong—yet many of us feel we shouldn’t ask for more.
The thing is, every creation starts with a question.
What can I write today?
What can I paint?
How can we make this opera beautiful?
How can we solve this problem?
Can you imagine how many works of art, literature, music, technology, and resources exist today because someone decided to ask a question and then acted on it?
This also applies to life. I was born and raised in El Salvador and always wanted to live abroad. I tried more than once, to no avail. Then, in January 2024, I asked if there was a way I could work and live in Germany. So, I sought coaching, refined my resume, and started applying for positions. One company interviewed me, and I was thrilled! The connection with my interviewer was fantastic, and she wanted to pass me to the next stage.
But there was a problem: the time difference was too broad. The timezone didn’t work. She said, “If you relocate to Europe, let us know.” After the initial disappointment, I asked myself, “How can I solve this? Is there a way I can live in Europe and work remotely from there?”
That’s how I found the Spanish Digital Nomad visa. I checked the requirements, hired lawyers to help with my application, and organized everything. Less than six months after that interview, I was living in Spain—where I am now.
And I love it!
So much so that now I’m asking myself if I’d like to live in Germany after all!
Thanks to these questions, I started creating the life I have now. So, what can YOU create? What do you WANT to create?
Why “The Right Questions” Mindset Doesn’t Work
If you’ve read this far, you might wonder why I never use the term “right questions.” Isn’t asking the “right” questions what ensures favorable outcomes? This used to haunt me—I was paralyzed by the need to make the “right” decision to avoid mistakes.
But the truth is, you don’t know if a decision is the best one until you make it. You can’t predict the future or prepare for every possible outcome—because life has a way of surprising you, sometimes for the worse, but often for the better!
What’s considered “right” or “wrong” varies by person and circumstance. Something “right” for you might be “wrong” for someone else, and vice versa. That’s why I prefer to focus on asking “aligned questions”—ones that help unlock what’s right for me at this moment in my life.
Sometimes, things work out as expected; sometimes, they don’t. But regardless of the outcome, asking questions awakens something even more powerful: hope. And with hope, we can make the best of every situation.