The miracle question... (+a bonus!)

Suppose a miracle happened and one of your dreams came true (or a challenge suddenly disappeared).... What would be different for you and how would you know it had happened? 
 
 That's exactly what the miracle question invites you to consider! 
 
 And if you think this is a waste of time because miracles never happen to you, I hope you think again about that after listening to this episode and realising all the powerful benefits in this miraculous question. Enjoy!

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the eleventh episode of the powerful questions podcast. My name is David Shaked. In this episode of the podcast, we might create some miracles together as we explore another powerful question, the “miracle question”.

How do you feel about miracles? 

Do you believe in them? 

Actually, it is not necessary to believe in or even to like miracles to use the miracle question – but of course it might help.

What is the miracle question? It’s a special powerful question that I came across with when I learnt about Solution Focus coaching. That is a particular strengths- and resources-focused approach to coaching people and teams. The approach emerged out of an area of practise called “brief therapy”.  When brief therapy was introduced to the world, it turned upside down many traditional approaches to therapy that, based on my own personal experience, aren’t brief at all. If you are curious about this approach, I recommend you to read more about it, or experience brief therapy or solution-focus coaching on yourself with a topic you would like to explore. 

In this episode, I will concentrate on the miracle question itself, which is one of the tools brief therapists or solution-focus coaches use quite often.  I, too, like using it and think it can unlock many possibilities. That’s why I would like to share it with you. 

In a nutshell, the question starts with a short opening that raises the possibility of any of the following possibilities:

·       A miracle happening to you, or

·       Something you really want to happen simply happens somehow – typically it is something you want to achieve but perhaps consider impossible or feel stuck with, worried about or unsure of.  

·       And finally, it can also be about a challenge you are facing which suddenly and unexpectedly disappears

Whatever the case might be, the opening allows you to just assume it has simply happened. Now you continue exploring from that point onwards by asking additional powerful questions based on that miracle. Those questions will focus your attention on what is DIFFERENT around you now, having just had that miracle occur and with your challenges having somehow vanished. 

The follow-on questions won’t focus directly on the thing you want to achieve or experience or the miracle itself nor would they focus on how it all happened.  Instead, they will help you explore what will be different for you and others once you have realised something has changed through that miracle. In a way, through that question you bypass all the perceived blocks and challenges that stand between you and achieving something and instead focus on “life after having achieved it”.  It might sound strange to you if you’ve never experienced it. Especially if you believe you really need to understand, or plan, how to achieve what you want to achieve. However, it has the potential to open up and imagine so many great ideas that will enable you to find creative ways to actually achieve your miracle. 

To begin with, let’s choose something you would like to achieve or become…. What might that be for you? Taking a different job? Gaining qualifications or credentials in a particular area? Writing a book? Starting a new business? Moving abroad? Whatever it might be, start by identifying something specific you’d love to have happened.  

Let me give you a few seconds to think about something real and tangible you would like to achieve. Feel free to pause here if you need a little longer. 

What would you love to happen for you?

Once we express something we want to achieve, many of us go down a path of immediately identifying all the real or perceived barriers to achieving it.  We are simply used to justifying why it might not be possible to achieve what we want. 

Instead, I invite you to suspend that urge for a few minutes and follow me on a different path – the path of miracles.  

For example, suppose that you would really like to be able to write a book but so far have not been able to find the time, inspiration or focus to get started or maybe you’ve started but are struggling to continue writing that book and are experiencing what is called a “writers block”… 

One way of posing the miracle question in that case would be:

“Imagine you went to bed tonight and fell into deep and relaxed sleep…. While you are asleep, the fairy godmother comes to visit. She knows you hope to write a book, so she taps you gently on your shoulder with her magic wand… suddenly, a miracle happens – the book you were hoping to write one day is published… just like that with the touch of her magic wand! However, as you are asleep you don’t know all of that has just happened….

When you wake up in the morning, you still don’t know what exactly happened overnight but you KNOW deep down and CAN SENSE that something IS different! 

What is noticeably different straightaway for you as you open your eyes? What are the first signs or clues you notice that tell you something has changed?

What else is different? 

What do you notice next? 

Who else, around you, might notice that something is different about you? 

What do they notice?” 

Etcetera. 

The follow-on questions are totally focused on the DIFFERENCE the miracle has made to you (and to others around you if relevant) – what you focus on are the details of what has changed and what is better now as a result of this miracle. 

By the way, the parts of the question focusing on you being asleep and the fairy godmother visiting are entirely optional. You could easily omit either and simply declare, with conviction, that a miracle suddenly happened. Alternatively, you could be creative and come up with another scenario. For example, while walking down the street, you come across Aladdin’s magic lamp. As you pick it up and rub it, the genie comes out and in no time makes all your challenges disappear. 

It might also be a situation where you have travelled in time to the point in the future when you have achieved what you were hoping to achieve. 

Whatever your imagination comes up with, the point is to focus on what happens RIGHT AFTERWARDS. As another example, I once created a magical extra day in the week for someone who was struggling with not having time to work on their project. And with that extra eighth day, I asked them what would be different then.

You might wonder, why focus on what happens after the miracle and not on your challenges or on how to actually achieve what you would like to achieve? Firstly, it helps you relax and regain a sense of lightness and possibility rather than stuckness. Secondly, focusing on life after the miracle has happened helps you take a step away from a “problem stance” to a “solution stance” – that is, instead of getting bogged down by everything that stops you, fresh thinking opens up about how to actually get to where you want to be and also about what is possible for you already.  

You can use this question to enable yourself to get unblocked, but it is particularly powerful when you use it to help others get unstuck. If you are using it with others, let me share a few tips with you.  

Firstly, before I start, I sometimes qualify the question by saying to the other person that I am going to use an UNUSUAL question.  I find that when I say that, the person I am talking to becomes curious and is more willing to “play” with me.

Secondly, it is important to pace yourself as you ask the question. 

Slow down, 

breathe, 

allow time and space to stretch,

and let the miracle scenario unfold gently. 

It would help the person you are posing this question to enters a more reflective state of mind.   

Thirdly, pay attention to the answers you are getting. If need be, gently direct the other person to talking about what is different with the miracle having just occurred. Connect your probing questions to help them gain clarity about that difference, how they will notice that, who else might notice the difference and what might be better because of it.  When you do that, you help them enter into a “solution-building” mindset. 

For example, if they mention a particular challenge they struggled with before having gone, help them find what is now present instead of what has gone. Knowing what is present after the miracle is much more helpful than noticing what has disappeared. 

It is possible that, while they are responding to you, they might go back to one of the challenges or blocks they had perceived earlier on or they may even raise a new challenge. In that case, help them to reframe it by reminding them that the fairy godmother has already taken care of all these challenges for them or that the challenge has long gone.  

And another, even better, possibility is that the person you have posed this question to might start to mention some exceptions. In solution-focus coaching, exceptions are brief moments or unique situations when the challenge we normally have doesn’t actually occur, or still happens but not with the same intensity. For example, if the person you were taking through the miracle question wanted to change their job but was struggling with selling themselves and their qualities in interviews, they might suddenly mention that they found it easier to do so in one specific interview … noticing those exceptions gives them some clues about what could help them in the future. It’s as if the supposed miracle had actually happened to some degree before. This in turn provides a treasure trove of possibilities for future job interviews, if we probe further.

And finally, it is very possible that the person you have asked this question of becomes aware of new ideas and possibilities they had not thought about before because they were stuck in a very different mindset.

Most importantly, whatever you do, DO NOT be tempted to offer solutions or to tell the other person what should or could be different when the miracle happens. As an inquirer asking this question, you are simply creating time, space and awareness for the other person to do all the thinking for themselves. 

So, now that we have gone through this exploration of the miracle question, what feels different to you? What possibilities to use this question have emerged for you? What are you looking forward to when you first try it out with someone?  What is now different about miracles for you?

Before I leave you to create new miracles in your life and with others, let me throw in a special bonus… Another little question that can create miracles. It is called the “incisive question” and I learnt about it when I read the book “Time to Think” by Nancy Klein. In her book, Nancy Klein focuses on how to create what she calls a thinking environment for another individual or for a group of people.  The incisive question is proposed as a way to overcome certain blocks that are typically based on an assumption we or others are making. 

There are similarities between the miracle question and the incisive question – that’s why I chose to bring it into this episode. While the incisive question is different and perhaps simpler than the miracle question, it too focuses on what would be different when the challenge you or others are facing is somehow removed. 

With the incisive question, we first focus on removing the limiting assumption and exploring what would be different, how we would be different and what we would do differently. I use it occasionally – especially when I notice or suspect that someone is holding on to a limiting assumption that prevents them from pursuing something they otherwise would like to. 

For example, if you want to learn a new hobby but are struggling to find the time, there is a chance that many assumptions you have made in the past (and are no longer aware of) are driving the choices you make about your time or what you perceive to be impossible. An incisive question in that case could be:

Suppose you had some free time to pursue a new hobby, what would you do?

Or 

If you knew how to free up some time for a new hobby, what would you do?

The incisive question simply helps you jump the hurdles you are facing, and begin to imagine what you would do differently. The impact this question would typically have is raised energy levels, with new ideas being generated about what you could do to find the time, and along the way either make you aware of some of the assumptions you have been making about how to spend your time, or even help you bust through those assumptions. 

You see, we simply need to be transported somehow beyond our perceived challenges and blocks to be able to think about how to actually overcome them. What I love about the miracle and the incisive questions is that, in a very elegant and simple way, they do just that… transport us beyond our perceived limits! 

I hope you have enjoyed listening to this special episode and feel inspired to create new miracles!