Seneca’s Three Questions
I have been accused of overthinking. I’d rather overthink than underthink though because I believe that harnessed and molded thoughts are a necessary and powerful force needed to make progress. Seneca was a first century Roman Stoic who I think had one of the best ways of harnessing thoughts. Like us, the ancient Stoics were very interested in making progress. Although they were concerned with improving their character, I find their exercises and overall process to be very transferable to any kind of goal. One of those exercises was Seneca’s Three Questions.
Before bed every night Seneca would sit down and answer three questions in his journal.
What did I do well?
What could I have done better?
How will I do better next time?
If we want to make progress in something then it’d be good to keep doing what’s working, do less of what’s not, and mentally prepare to make better decisions when the same moment comes again in the future. This process works for anything. I think this is a wonderful exercise for a post race report and have been doing it for quite some time. It can be used with a wider lense as well. If we want to come back and be even better next year we can answer these questions about our preparation in the months that preceded the event. Seneca said that if someone doesn’t know which port they are sailing to then no wind is favorable. This process will help us figure out what we need to work on and which port to set our sails towards.
For whatever reason this can be hard to do. Sometimes we don’t like to think about our fallibility or admit our mistakes. Maybe it is our ego trying to protect us because we have learned that doing things wrong is not good. There can be a lot going on psychologically. If facing our fallibility is hard or impossible to do then it’s definitely something that can stand in the way of making progress. Talking with a professional about this sort of thing could change a life. One simple thing that may help is to remember you’re only reflecting to yourself. There are no friends or family to judge you. There is no external negative reaction!
Writing in the third person can help as well. Ever notice how you are way more empathetic to a friend? How you can see the light at the end of the tunnel for their problems a lot easier than your own? Taking a third person approach can help this part of the process. Write in your journal like you’re writing a letter to a friend. Seneca said, “What progress, you ask, have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself.”
Of his Three Questions he wrote, “I make use of this opportunity, daily pleading my case at my own court. When the light has been taken away …… I examine my entire day, going through what I have done and said. I conceal nothing from myself, I pass nothing by. I have nothing to fear from my errors when I can say: ‘See that you do not do this anymore. For the moment, I excuse you.”
One last thing to remember is that we may not know what we did and didn’t do well. This could actually be an answer to question one. Maybe we did this but that would’ve been better. When I was younger I didn’t really ever consider that what was true today might not be true tomorrow. Wisdom isn’t always attained by going forward to something new. The Stoics admired Socrates. Socrates, after being accused of being the wisest person alive, said, “I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.”
Seneca’s Three Questions goes backwards and forwards. It’s about evaluating what has happened and what was in order to dream up and achieve what could be.