The question that feels like an accusation
We learned that there are five ‘W’ and one ‘H’ questions – who, what, where, when, why and how. Yet, one of these questions has somehow become a statement. In fact, not just a simple statement, it has become an accusation. Say someone asks you: “”Why isn’t it done yet?”. You don’t hear a question. You hear an accusation: You should have this done by now. Since it’s not done, you are at fault.
And the response often is apologetic (“Sorry. I’ll finish it quickly.”), defensive or offensive. Rarely neutral and factual. We start defending ourselves, because we’re answering the feeling of being blamed, not the words.
I’ve been thinking about this. The word “why” is the key to curiosity. I feel so happy (and sometimes exhausted) whenever my son asks “why” about things I never bothered to question. He keeps asking follow-up ‘whys’ until eventually I reach a stage of “I don’t know.” Probably tangential, but I’ll share an example:
Son: Why are the leaves on trees green in colour?
Me: Because they contain a thing called ‘chlorophyll’ that makes them green.
Son: But why does chlorophyll make the leaves green?
Me: Light contains multiple colours. You know how when we see light passing through a prism, we see multiple colours at a surface? The normal light contains all those colours. When light falls on a leaf, it absorbs all the other colours and reflects back green. That’s why they appear green.
Son: But why do leaves not reflect back some other colour?
Me: Hmm that I have no clue about.
“Why” is a beautiful word. It helps people figure things out. (Or helps people like me become aware of our ignorance.) But it has turned it into a tool to point a finger, to accuse someone.
And I believe because we hear “why” as an accusation, we lose the curiosity associated with the word.
Let’s take the word back!
So what’s the problem? The problem is you can’t learn anything from an accusation. If “Why” is just a way to beat yourself up, you’ll never actually use it to figure out your mistakes.
So I have a suggestion. What if we just decided to take the word “why” back? What if you heard it and, no matter how it was said, you just treated it like a real question?
Answering the question, not the subtext
Think about it. A friend asks, “Why aren’t you done with your prep yet?” One way is to get defensive. To hear what they’re not saying. In such a situation, I might give an answer like: “So what? Are all your affairs in life sorted? Haven’t you been looking for a job switch for over 6 months? Why haven’t you been able to switch yet?”
Notice – I gave a fairly long reply. But actually, I never answered the question. Instead, how about something like: “Oh, I underestimated how difficult the GMAT would be for me initially. It is taking longer than I had anticipated. Plus my work has become extra hectic too of late, so I’m not able to take the kind of time for GMAT that I would like to. These things are causing a delay.”
That’s it. It’s just information. No apology. No defense. No retaliation. It works if they were curious, and it works if they were taking a shot at you. You just took all the power out of it.
Now, do this with yourself too.
The real place to practice this is inside your own head.
You get a “simple” question wrong. The voice in your head might say: “Why’d you get such a simple question wrong?” Subtext: You’re so dumb! That doesn’t help. If anything, it reduces the enthusiasm to prepare.
Let’s try the new way. Ask “Why?” like you actually want to know the answer.
You: “Okay, why did I get such a simple question wrong?”
Yourself: “Well, first off if I got it wrong, maybe I shouldn’t be calling it silly. There was something about the question that tripped me up.
You: “Hmm. What happened?
Yourself: “I made a calculation mistake in the second step.”
You: “Why did I make that mistake?”
Yourself: “I was trying to do too much in my head.”
You: “Why was I doing that?”
Yourself: “I felt rushed. The timer was ticking, the question looked easy, and I got anxious.”
You: Aaha! I see. The problem isn’t that I’m “bad at math.” I saw that the question looked easy, decided to finish it quickly, got anxious when it was taking longer than I wished to, and then ended up making a simplistic calculation mistake.
Yourself: Ok, so my takeaways are:
– A question might seem easy, but in reality it could be difficult. Moreover, even if the question is simple, I tend to make simplistic errors on “easy” questions when I feel rushed.
That’s something you can actually fix.
So how do you fix the anxiety? You ask again. What all made me anxious?
Was it the timer? Okay, you can get used to a timer. You can practice strategies to save time elsewhere so you don’t feel that pressure.
Was it the topic itself? Maybe it was a probability question, and you hate probability. So, two choices. One, go back to the basics. Really learn it, from the ground up, so it doesn’t scare you anymore. Two, just accept it. “I’m not great at this topic, so it will take me longer.” Knowing that helps you decide: do I spend the extra time, or do I bookmark it and come back later? The goal isn’t to get every single question right. The goal is to get the best overall score you can.
This works for fears, too.
Like the fear of taking a mock test.
You keep delaying taking a mock test. You fear taking one. You could explore:
You: “Why am I afraid to take a mock test?”
Yourself: “Because a low score will make me feel awful.”
You: “Why?”
Yourself: “It’ll feel like all my hard work I’ve put in has been for nothing.”
You: “Why? Is that the only reason for a low score?”
And there it is. You just found the broken thought. A low score doesn’t mean your work was wasted. It could mean a hundred other things. Maybe your stamina isn’t there yet. Maybe you’re not good at letting a hard question go. Maybe you’re just having a bad day. The score isn’t a judgment. It’s just information. It’s data telling you what to work on next.
So, here’s the job for this week
Here’s what I want you to do. For this next week, every time you make a mistake, just stop. No beating yourself up over it. Instead, just ask, “Okay, why did that happen?” You’re not looking for who to blame. You’re looking for what went wrong. And you’re trying to understand why that might have happened. Because then you can figure out how to not repeat such mistakes in the future. That’s it. That’s the whole job right there. Just do that.