Coaching practices for The Morning Questions as a Caregiver

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Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

  • When I check in on myself it’s always "how did the day go," and the answer always seems to ride on things outside my hands
  • I’m hitting every productivity target and somehow feeling emptier by the week
  • I’ve tried other people’s checklists and they always track things I don’t actually care about right now
  • My one-on-ones always open with a status check
  • Some of what I’m tracking has quietly become just who I am now

Practices that may help

  1. The Morning Questions
    Marshall Goldsmith’s morning questions are a daily active question routine in which you score yourself each morning on whether you "did your best" to pursue specific values-based commitments the previous day. The practice reframes self-monitoring from passive measurement ("how did X go?") to active responsibility ("did I try?"), which research on active questions suggests produces greater engagement and honest self-assessment. The evidence base is practitioner-clinical; large-scale trials are limited.
  2. Reframe passive questions as active questions
    Ask "did I do my best to...?" rather than "how was my...?" — the word "try" changes what the question measures.
    The Morning Questions
  3. Include a happiness question — not as an outcome goal but as a signal
    Add "Did I do my best to be happy today?" to the list — not as a target, but as a daily quality-of-life sensor.
    The Morning Questions
  4. Design a personal question list that matches your current growth goals
    Build a short list of active questions that track the behaviors most relevant to your life right now — not a fixed template.
    The Morning Questions
  5. Open with "What’s on your mind?"
    The best opening question is also the most open — it invites exactly what the person most needs to talk about.
    The Coaching Habit: Seven Questions to Be More Coach-Like
  6. The Coaching Habit: Seven Questions to Be More Coach-Like
    Michael Bungay Stanier’s seven questions — from "What’s on your mind?" through "What was most useful for you?" — are a practical system for coaching conversations that takes less than a minute to learn and a career to master. The framework is practitioner-derived from behavioral coaching practice; its mechanisms are grounded in autonomy support, self-determination, and the generation effect. The questions work because they shift the cognitive labor back to the person who owns the problem.
  7. Graduating a question when the behavior becomes automatic
    Retire a question from the list when it scores consistently 8 or above — mastery earned is bandwidth freed.
    The Morning Questions
  8. Coping Questions
    When things seem terrible, ask how the person is managing at all — acknowledging and excavating their resilience.
    Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: Building On What Works
  9. Ask "And what else?"
    The first answer is rarely the most important one — "And what else?" pulls out the one that actually matters.
    The Coaching Habit: Seven Questions to Be More Coach-Like
  10. Silence (meditation or stillness)
    Start the day with a few minutes of quiet — meditation, breathing, or prayer.
    The Miracle Morning, Made Practical

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