There is a difference between sitting with a question and getting stuck in it.
We need space to pause and think through complex challenges. Leaders need it when facing a difficult decision. Teams need it when they’re trying to understand what they’re seeing. Organizations need it when the familiar way of doing things no longer seems to fit. That pause can create room for reflection, but for so many of us, it can so easily become rumination.
Reflection and rumination both have intentions behind them. When we reflect, our intention is to understand something more deeply, learn from what’s happening or see what we may be missing. Reflecting allows us to consider what we haven’t seen yet.
With rumination, the inner critic enters the conversation. It can often sound like: Can I really do this? What if I get it wrong? I’ve never done this before. The thinking starts to circle, and instead of discovering something new, we begin reinforcing what we already fear or believe.
The inner critic can also act like an authority. It draws from old experiences and assumptions, and because the voice is familiar, we can mistake it for the truth. Noticing that voice gives you the power to move away from your inner critic and toward more expansive and innovative thinking.
This is part of what makes living in the question so valuable. An open-ended question gives us room to explore without requiring an immediate answer. The challenge is recognizing when we’re trying to understand something versus when we’re simply going in circles.
When the question changes everything
I experienced rumination during a difficult challenge when I found myself awake at 2 a.m., going over the same thought again and again: How am I going to fix this problem? I had taken on the sole responsibility to solve it, and I couldn’t see beyond that.
What helped me shift away from rumination and towards more expansive thinking was asking myself a high-impact question: What if it’s not all my responsibility?
This moment shifted everything for me. I started to differentiate what I actually needed to take on myself versus how others could get involved. While I still didn’t have the whole answer, I did create an opening that allowed me to see a way forward that I hadn’t seen before.
An open-ended question may not give you the whole answer, but it does shift your trajectory towards a completely new perspective.
Why the pause matters
During a think tank, I had to remind someone, Don’t rush the route. Don’t try to land on an answer too quickly. It’s easy to jump to a quick solution and forget that taking time to reflect allows ideas and powerful insights to emerge.
Often, someone raises something no one thought of. A new piece of information changes the direction. The group realizes it may have been asking the wrong question all along. All of this is productive reflection. And you must hold space for that to occur.
Knowing when you’re spinning
The difference between reflection and rumination isn’t always obvious in the moment. One place to start is by noticing what is happening while we pause. Are we becoming more curious, or are we returning to the same fear, assumption or concern, again and again? When we recognize rumination, it’s a cue to ask a high-impact question. This is how you change your trajectory.
Living in the question isn’t about delaying a decision or searching endlessly for certainty. It’s about creating enough space to understand what’s in front of us before deciding what comes next. Sometimes, this pause is where the better question — and eventually the better decision — emerges.