One Question that Can Change Your Life

3 min readOct 21, 2021

I remember when I was in the circus, watching a particular flying trapeze act practicing.

The artists recorded every practice on video because one of them was attempting a quadruple summersault. They wanted proof he had done it, when he did achieve it; but in addition to that, they would watch the footage after each practice session to figure out what he needed to change and improve on to achieve the trick, moving forward.

You may know that sports athletes do the same thing. After a game, they’ll watch the video footage, to analyze their performance so that they can improve for the next one.

What could I have done differently?

Here’s How YOU Can Use This Question

Using “What could I have done differently” — strategically — to change your life:

1. When you’re triggered, or something doesn’t go the way you wanted it to, start by doing whatever it takes to feel better in the moment. Reassure yourself, answer using logic, play new childhood memories.

2. Later, when you’re feeling better, ask yourself: What could I have done differently? And what will I do next time? Think of yourself as an athlete — analyzing your performance of that game, and working out what you can do strategically, to improve the next one.

For example:
You receive an email from someone that triggers you. You feel frustrated and hurt. For the rest of the day, you’re emotionally triggered, replaying the email in your mind over and over, talking about what it means, and you end up not achieving what you wanted to get done that day.

When you’re feeling better, you ask yourself: What could I have done differently? At what point could I have made a different decision that would have led to a different result?

You may realize that you could have caught the trigger right in the beginning — as soon as you read the email and started to feel the emotional reaction, maybe you could have “pressed pause” in your mind, walked away, and used some of the Remmert Method tools to keep the stress chemicals down and produce feel-good chemicals — to keep access to the cognitive -thinking part of your brain.