Questions That Make Your Therapy Clients Feel Good About Themselves

Have you ever done anything that at one point you wouldn’t have thought you could ever do it? Something that, you heard about it or thought about it or whatever, and you’re like, “Oh, man, I could never do that.” Well, I’m doing something like that now. And there’s something about the Solution Focused approach that I want to share about it.

I hear about things all the time. Like, you see somebody running a triathlon, like, “Oh my God, I could never do that.” Or I remember hearing someone talk about their diet and the way they eat, like, “I could never eat like that.”

Well, a few years ago, and actually I had a client and they were in my office, they were drinking some sort of a green drink. And I was like, “What is that?” And they said, “Oh, it’s a juice, a blend of different vegetables and fruits.” And they said they were doing like a juice reset of their diet. And they were doing it for like three or four days, whatever it was. And I was like, “Oh, my God, I could never do that.” Like, give up food for that length of time.

I was in Japan recently, and before that I was in Arizona. Before that I was in Syracuse. Before that I was in L.A.

My body just felt off. I didn’t know what time to be hungry. I didn’t know what I should be eating at different times. I tend to be a very kind of regimented eater. And it was just like, I’m super starving at 2am and just because my body thinks it’s, you know, it got crazy.

So I was like, “I need to do a reset.” And I decided to do one of these cleanses.

Now I had done one before for two days, but I was like, I wanted to just kind of flush my body out. I felt kind of inflamed. I felt off. So I started a juice cleanse three and a half days ago.

I’m literally right at the midpoint, and I found myself thinking, there was once a time I never thought I could do this. I give up solid food for literally days? I never thought that would be possible, but here I am doing it. I’ve got three and a half days to go. I’m three and a half days in, right at the midpoint. I literally, over the course of these days, I’m going to drink 42 drinks and I’m 21 in, so halfway.

And I find myself thinking, “What does this say about me, and how did I do this?” And “Look how far I’ve come.” Because I once didn’t think I could do this at all.

And I think, how often do our clients do things without realizing they’ve done something that they previously didn’t think they could do? How often do people do brilliant things, wonderful things, amazing things, and they give themselves no credit for it because they don’t even realize they’ve done this remarkable thing?

How often do people push themselves, test themselves or challenge themselves, and succeed and live up to the challenge and live up to the test, but don’t give themselves the appropriate credit for doing so?

I think at its core, one of the greatest things Solution Focused Brief Therapy will do for people, is help them get in touch with who they are in their most brilliant, and help them realize who they are even in difficult moments.

I think this approach helps people really come to terms with who they are at their very, very best. And by asking questions that are simply like, “How did you do that? What role did you play in that? What went into decision to doing that?” Even thinking about those questions, about the current challenge that I’m doing, and I don’t mean challenge in a bad way, and shockingly, I’m not having too too much of a hard time with it.

Giving yourself credit for the successes in your life is massive.

Now I think this is a really important lesson. So many people email me and they say stuff like, “What do you do with your clients who’ve never had any success?” That’s a literal impossibility. Literally being born is a success, you’re like one in a trillion winner when you’ve been born. Did you get from kindergarten to first grade? That’s a success. Have you ever made one single friend? That’s a success.

There’s literally no such thing as no success, and you have to truly believe that. And when you’re practicing Solution Focused Brief Therapy, and doing it well, you’re going to ask the kind of questions that help your client to feel good about themselves by giving them credit for the successes they’ve had in their life.