The Intermittent INTERROGATION Technique

In this article, I will teach you one technique you can use to help you identify where in your thinking there is a lack of clarity. In everyday life, it can be very easy to fall into routines or just “go through the motions”, effectively acting like a zombie—walking spaced-out through life. Sometimes, people can feel a lack of passion or motivation in their lives. Maybe they even have depression, clinical or otherwise. This can often be from a lack of purpose or a lack of goals. They’re just drifting through life.

Or, as can be the case with many people, their lives are filled with reactions to what happens throughout the day. And, to make this worse, for many people these reactions are emotional in nature. They aren’t reactions that have been deliberately thought through. Effectively, the reaction is whatever bursts out from the subconscious. Did my boss just tell me I had to work an extra hour today? Oh well, just send a message to the spouse and let them know I won’t be home to make dinner tonight and to deal with it themselves. Or, worse yet, say, “I guess I will just have to spend the money I hadn’t budgeted on getting fast-food take-out.”

Note: the following article is an excerpt from my eBook "Clearly Thinking" (learn more about it below)

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Interrogate Yourself

The technique I created for helping gain clarity in these situations I call the Intermittent Interrogation Technique and it is incredibly simple to use. It consists of asking yourself two questions: “What am I doing right now?” and “Why am I doing it?”. This is the interrogation part of the name. The second part of this technique is the intermittent part—to keep asking yourself these questions over and over, intermittently throughout the day.

You might be thinking, surely this sounds too simplistic. Maybe even stupid. But when you ask yourself “What am I doing right now?” I mean that literally. This is not some deep, philosophical or spiritual question. When you use this technique I want you to ask yourself explicitly “What am I doing right now?”, and answer yourself explicitly, “folding the laundry”. Now, you do not need to do this out loud. It is fine if you only ask and answer in your head. But, if you are at home and nobody will think you crazy, saying it out loud can help.

The second question is the harder one—and that is the focus of this exercise...

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…and now, back to the article!

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