I’ve decided to take my public speaking and writing seriously this year.
Especially writing.
And I know improvement comes down to 2 things:
Practice.
And feedback.
If you only practice and never get concrete feedback from someone who can name what’s working and what’s not, you’ll improve… but slowly. You’ll get stuck often. You’ll repeat your blind spots.
But practice still comes first.
Without practice, there’s nothing to give feedback on.
Just like reflection doesn’t work without actually living the life, doing the imperfect work first.
And then the most important question becomes,
What exactly should I practice? And how do I make it consistent? To get the results and my growth?
This is what I help my clients figure out.
And it’s what I need to do for myself and my writing.
Over the past 18 years, studying coaching craft, reading over a hundred books on behavior change, I’ve learned 3 very simple questions that help you figure out what exactly you need to practice and how to make it happen consistently faster.
1. The Miracle Question
Often used in therapy:
Imagine a miracle happened overnight and you got what you wanted. How would you notice? What would you see?
Let’s take writing.
If the miracle happened, I’d see more engagement.
People sharing it. Commenting. Saving it.
Telling me it was useful.
When I read it back, it would feel clear.
Easy to grasp.
It would stir something.
You’d want to do something after reading it. And you'd have all the tools to take action.
That tells me what to practice.
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Storytelling to evoke emotion
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Concrete examples to stay relatable
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Bringing it back to the reader: why it matters to you
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Clean structure, clear takeaways, next steps, simple tools
Now I have something specific to model.
Something I can ask ChatGPT or a good writer to critique.
Something I can break into sub-skills.
And, most importantly, something I can measure, to see whether what I do works or not.
2. The Constraint Question
Why don’t you already do it?
This one shifts your brain into systems thinking.
Very often, once you remove the REAL constraints, the desired behavior often happens on its own.
Writing?
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Being too abstract → not relatable
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Being too wordy → hard to grasp
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No through-line → scattered focus
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No skimmable structure → hard to act on
Eating well?
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No healthy food available
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Not knowing how to shop or cook
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Family habits pulling in the opposite direction
When you list the obstacles, you usually find something surprising:
It’s rarely a personal flaw.
It’s usually a system design flaw.
The problem isn’t you.
It’s what's around you that makes your habits happen.
So you don’t need to reinvent yourself.
You need to redesign the environment so the new practice can win.
How do I make the new action easier than the old?
3. The "Bright Spot" Question
Where is it already working?
This is learning from your accidental successes.
That email someone sent saying your piece was helpful.
What worked there?
That week you were consistent with eating well.
What did you do differently?
Those few nights you actually went to bed on time.
How did that happen, even with the workload, racing thoughts, and not being a good sleeper?
Your own small successes are clues.
Proof that the capability exists.
Your job is to reverse-engineer them. That's the best map of your growth journey.
I’m applying these 3 questions to my writing habit.
Not to become some polished, flawless version of me.
But to build systems that help me get better as I already am.
Over to you dear reader, what do you want to get better at? Try asking these 3 questions to help you build systems to succeed as you, not some miracle version of you.
