Answer the Miracle Question to Overcome Your Fitness Downturns
The Miracle Question is a thought experiment used in short-term solution- oriented therapy . It’s designed to shift your focus to how helpless you are, the ability to see positive decisions and the good things that happen. Here’s how it might work.
I first heard about the “wonderful question” from Chip and Dan Heath’s The Switch: How to Make a Difference When Change Is Hard , and since then I’ve repurposed it for many aspects of my life, including fitness, to help me overcome my tendency to think. in black and white. My modified fitness wonder question goes something like this:
Imagine a miracle happened in the middle of the night while you were asleep so that you no longer obsess over your ideal weight (for example). But since you were asleep, you do not know this. When you wake up in the morning, what is the first little sign that makes you think things are different this morning?
Here, you need to reject your first likely answer, which is probably “I don’t know.” The idea is to think very deeply about why you are interested in achieving your ideal weight, size, physique, and so on. I found that writing this out smoothly helps. An example of a “little change” might be something like, “I have more energy in the morning to want to have fun talking to my kids / spouse.” or “I no longer worry about thinking I want fluffy pancakes for breakfast and then giving up myself.”
This “wonder question” is not meant to solve anything on its own, rather it will help you to identify some hidden motivators and possible conflicts with your goal, as well as to rethink your opinion about the bottom point or problem. Then you could spend more time figuring out how to keep moving forward instead of thinking about what is holding you back.