Ask yourself questions, then question your answers.

By Derek Sivers

Whether in your daily diary, or the “Thoughts On” journals, I find the single most useful thing has been using it as a place to ask myself questions, and answer them.

我发现不管是日记还是思考笔记，对我唯一非常有用的事情是把它当成一个回答问题然后对答案提出疑问的地方。

If I’m planning on doing something, I ask myself what I hope to get out of it, why, and whether there are other ways to get what I want.

如果我计划做一件事，我问自己我不应该做什么，为什么，以及是否有其他途径来达成它。

When I’m feeling conflicted, especially, I’ll ask myself a bunch of questions to work through my feelings, looking for the source of the conflict, then ask myself more questions around the clash in values, and work through other alternate ways I’d like things to be.

尤其当我感觉很矛盾的时候，我会问自己一连串的问题来处理我的情感，寻找冲突的根源，然后问自己更多关于价值观冲突的问题，用我喜欢的替代方式去解决它。

I answer with my initial thought first, but then question it afterwards with skepticism, and consider different perspectives.

我先用自己最初的想法来回答，然后带着怀疑的眼光对刚才的答案进行提问，而且从不同的视角来考虑它。

 I hear this is similar to cognitive behavioral therapy — and I’ve been meaning to learn more about that. But whatever you call it, I think it’s been the single most important thing to my intellectual and emotional development.

我听说这个很像"认知行为疗法"——我正打算学习更多关于这方面的知识。但是不管你叫它什么，我认为它是我的思想和情感发展的唯一最重要的东西。

Almost all the thoughts I have on any subject are the result of writing in my diary and journals, then questioning myself and working through alternate ways of thinking about it, and finally returning to the subject days or months later with a clear head and updated thoughts, seeing how they’ve changed or not over time.

几乎我对任何主题的所有想法都是我把它们写进日记的结果，然后对自己提问并通过思考找到可替换的方案，最后过几天或几个月之后带着清晰的头脑和更新过的想法回到这个主题上，看看它是否随着时间的流逝发生了变化。

注解：

1.thoughts on=thoughts about sth.

2.get out of ssth.= to avoid doing sth. that you should do or that you said you would do.

3.work through= to deal with sth. such as a problem or a strong feeling by thingking and talking about it.