In her recent article in this magazine, Lindsay Tighe advocated that readers should do more self reflection by asking themselves some Better Questions. In this column she has provided some Better Questions to ask yourself in your self reflections, on the basis that if you ask yourself a better question you will find a better answer.

Do you find yourself wishing that you could change and develop a different way of being? If so it is time to ask yourself some better questions as better questions will enable you to find better answers that challenge you to change!

The first step to change is to become aware of your current practices and to do some honest self-reflection about the way that you are approaching life. Whilst we very often espouse certain values or behaviours the reality is that no one would know that we held those values or behaviours as important because they get no actual sense of them from what you are doing on a day to day basis.

In your honest self-reflection you need to ask yourself what others might say about you if they were giving a third party four or five adjectives to describe you. If you have high self awareness there is a good chance that you will be fairly accurate with this. However, if you genuinely have no idea and are courageous enough to ask, then why not ask some people informally how they would describe you. It can be an enlightening experience!

The good news is that when we do become aware of how you would like to operate it is possible then to work on this to become a reality. Not that long ago I became aware of a person that I knew that consistently demonstrated kindness to people she interacted with. I was suddenly struck by the realisation that if I went to people that knew me well they were most unlikely to describe me as being a kind person.

Whilst I admit that this awareness did not make me feel good initially, I always remind myself that whenever I become aware of something, even if it's things I don't like about myself, I should celebrate because now that I am aware I can choose to change. If I had continued on, potentially for the rest of my life in ignorance, I would always keep doing what I had always done and the potential for change would not present itself. So HONEST self-reflection, whilst initially can be uncomfortable; can be an amazing thing to enable us to consistently learn and grow and to enable us to be the best that we can be.

When I became aware, then, of my current underperformance in this skill and the desire to be described as kind I recognised that something had to change in the way I was going about doing things - my behaviours. It was no good simply having an awareness of the need or a desire to change - it meant I had to take action. My approach to this then was to start a reflection journal that I completed on a daily basis whereby each evening I would ask myself honestly the question about how I had demonstrated kindness that day. I have to say that at the outset of doing this I was really quite disappointed in myself because I couldn't think of things to write down.

Quite magically when you start to focus on something you suddenly start to see and identify opportunities to do something different. So as I journeyed through my day I started to identify opportunities for me to be a kinder person - often in the simplest ways. Within a matter of days I was feeling great that I could write things in my journal at the end of the day that really did demonstrate that I was being a kind person.

I continued this journaling for about three months on a consistent basis. What I found really amazing was that I automatically started to do kinder things during the day without having to think about it - it became a new habit and what a nice new habit to have! What is even more lovely is the fact that when people talk about me nowadays they will often refer to me as being a kind person, so that reaffirms with me that I am being more of the person that I want to be in the world and have changed!

Better Questions to change myself:
• What aspect of myself do I want to change?
• What can I do to develop this in myself?

Then on a daily basis ask this question:
• How did I demonstrate being or doing this skill/characteristic today?

Lindsay is the founder of Inspirational Coaching and is a successful and highly regarded speaker, business woman, author and coach who is passionate about inspiring others to improve their own lives and the lives of others by asking better questions.