So we all know we need deal with hard questions. But what about when you have to ask hard questions? Why doesn’t anyone have a crash course on how to ask hard questions in a helpful way to someone else?
A few weeks back on a Friday evening when my mother-in-law had our kids (which she does regularly and is awesome), Eric asked me a hard question. A really hard one. About me and who I wanted to be and whether that version of me was really mine or just what other people had always told me I was supposed to be.
Hard. Questions.
But I was really glad he’d asked. And I did a lot of thinking about it after I’d given him my best answer. At random times, I’d repeat the question to myself … and I learned some things about what I really wanted and really thought.
Hard Questions are Hard
But it’s not like Eric’s the first person who’s ever asked me a hard question. Moms are totally great at asking. I’ve had advisors who did. Friends sometimes got up the nerve to ask, too. My sister regularly called me on my crap over the years.
Some of those interactions went well. Some … went less well. And of course, there were probably many instances where I needed someone to ask me hard questions, but my cranky, thanks-but-I’ve-got-this persona strong-armed them into silence.
But what makes the difference? Why did I react well when some people asked and terribly when others did? What makes a hard question sit softly instead of crashing into me? And how could I ask someone else hard questions without doing more harm than good?
How to Ask Hard Questions
Everybody needs to be asked hard questions at one point or another. And we all need someone who’s willing to do the asking.
And as I’ve thought about this, I’ve come to a single conclusion. The only way to ask a hard question well is this: The asker cannot have a vested interest in the answer.
So what the heck does that mean?
Well, simply that when you ask someone a hard question, you can’t care what the answer is. Their response has to be entirely theirs. No pressure from you one way or the other.
That’s why Eric’s question was actually helpful that night. It was startling. I wasn’t expecting it. But I quickly realized, as we chatted, that he didn’t care what my answer was. He had no vested interest in the outcome of the question, so I was free to answer it in the most honest and helpful way possible … for me.
Taking Our Hands Off
Taking myself out of the equation of someone else’s answer is surprisingly hard to do, though.
- I ask my kids what they think, all the while leading them to the answer I want them to have. (And while this can be good, particularly with young children, too often we forget to give older kids room to learn to think things through for themselves.)
- Or, when we question someone who thinks differently than we do, but we really just want them to come to our preferred conclusions.
- Or, it seems so obvious to me what someone else should do, so I can’t help but nudge them in that direction. For their good, of course.
If we want to ask a hard question, though, we have to take our hands off their lives. And this isn’t easy.
Eric’s question was about my writing, or more precisely why, if I want to be a writer, I don’t write more than I do. It was a good question. But he didn’t care what my answer was. If I’d looked at all the things and said “Nope, I think people just told me to be a writer, so I thought I had to,” he would’ve shrugged and said, “Great, what do you want to do then?”
And when I came back and said, “No, I think I’m a writer, just a very badly disciplined one who lets her fears and perfectionism scare her away,” he just shrugged and said, “Okay, what are you going to do about it?”
His world wouldn’t change much one way or the other. But he knew my world needed the challenge.
This One Time
Near the end of college, my good friend was newly engaged. The wedding was tentatively set for the summer, just a few months away, and they were fighting constantly. And my roommate and I were concerned.
So we took a deep breath one evening and knocked on her door. We laid out our concerns. And then we asked the hard question: would she ever consider pushing back the wedding?
I thought she’d get angry. But I wasn’t prepared for her to cry. I wasn’t prepared for her to take the fact of our concern so seriously or to thank us for our perspective on some of the patterns they’d fallen into.
I’m convinced that the conversation went well because we didn’t care what they did. If they pushed back the wedding, great. And if they went ahead as planned, we would have stood up with them no matter what.
They ended up postponing the wedding. And a few months later, when my roommate casually mentioned that they were now talking about a late-fall wedding, I said, “Is it good, do you think?” She said, “Yeah, he suggested it.” And she was right.
Those friends have been married now for almost 20 years. They have a good relationship and two kids. And I take none of the credit for the hard work they’ve done for all these years. But facing down a hard question that we were willing to ask set them up for a much better beginning than they may have had otherwise.
Hard Questions = Respect
And that’s really the heart of the matter. Eric’s question set me up for growth and some personal insights. It was about me, not him. Our question set my friend up to see more clearly some bad habits. It was about her (and them), not us.
To ask hard questions without needing to be considered in the answer is a mark of respect.
It says to the other person, “This is the question I need to ask. But you are a mature enough person to handle this. You are capable of thinking this through. It doesn’t matter to me; I know you’ll make a good choice.”
Of course, more often than not, I have an opinion, and I’m hard-pressed to keep it to myself. My friends’ wedding plans may have been the only time I can honestly say I asked a hard question well.
But I need to learn to do it better, and more often. Because my need for someone to do what I think is best tells them I have no faith in them, that they need me to survive. It is the epitome of disrespect.
People need us to let go of their lives. Not disengage from their lives–they need us to help them face the tough questions. But we have to choose to stand beside them while they decide instead of trying to bribe, argue, or force them into our way of thinking or living.
Sometimes they will make wrong choices. Sometimes, so will I. Most times they’ll come up with a possible solution I never even thought about. Good for them.
We need to be willing to ask hard questions, but in nearly every situation, we also need to remove ourselves from the equation. It’s incredibly hard to do, but it’s the most effective kind of help we can give.
