10 Questions You Can Ask When Going Through Tough Times

4 min readAug 10, 2018

We all go through tough times and how we respond to the tough times defines who we are as a person.

In recent years, especially after the global financial crisis, a lot more people experienced tough times financially, emotionally, physically, mentally and relationally. There are people who thrived during that time and there are people who really struggled.

Going through tough times can bring up our beliefs about ourselves, others and the world. It also amplifies the little voice inside of us that tries to protect us and keep us safe.

common questions to ask to solve problems

It can be very easy to ask disempowering questions or have thoughts like:

Why do things like this keep happening to me?
Why am I not surprised that I keep failing?
I always lose just when something good is about to happen for me. I must be a loser.
My mother/father (add person here) was right, I’ll never amount to anything.
My life is such a mess.

Having negative thoughts is automatic during tough times because we have been exposed to so much negativity throughout our lives. Wouldn’t it be nice to have the ability to be able to look at any experience differently and turn it around by asking ourselves more empowering questions?

Here are some questions that you can ask yourself whenever you’re in an unpleasant situation or having an experience you’d rather not have so that you can quickly turn the situation or experience around and respond accordingly.

What’s the opportunity in this experience?
How could I look at this experience differently?
What’s something good that can come out of this?
What lesson do I need to learn from this?
Even though this is happening, what are some good things that are happening right now?
What am I giving my attention to?
What am I grateful for right now even though things may seem to be going against me?
Five or ten years from now, as I look back on this experience, how do I want to remember it?
Why is this experience necessary for me to become the person I want to be?
What is one small step I can take today to start turning things around?

Being able to look beyond all signs that may be indicating that things are not going well or avoiding getting caught up in a negative experience takes a respectable amount of courage.

In order to be more empowered and to be able to turn around any situation, asking these questions will force us to have a different perspective on what we’re currently experiencing. And there is high possibility that what we’re experiencing is not that bad anyway.

Question: What is another question we can ask whenever we’re in a tough situation?

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