Awakening the Giant Within had a nice set of questions you could use if you were in what felt like a terrible situation, in order to reorient yourself to make the best of it:

• What is great about this problem?
• What is not perfect yet?
• What am I willing to do to make it the way I want it?
• What am I willing to no longer do in order to make it the way I want it?
• How can I enjoy the process while I do what is necessary to make it the way I want it?

The author gives an example of a situation where he was exhausted after traveling for four months, and had countless of urgent memos and phone calls that he had to answer as soon as possible. Noticing that he was asking questions like "How come I have no time? Why don't they leave me alone?" that were just demotivating and depressing him further, he instead asked himself the above questions.

What is great about this problem?

My first response, like so many other times, was "Absolutely nothing!" But I thought about it for a moment and realized that just eight years ago I would have given anything to have twenty business associates and friends who wanted to visit with me, much less 100 people of such national impact and caliber that this list of friends and business associates represented. As I realized this, it broke my pattern, and I began to feel grateful that there were so many people whom I respect and love who wanted to spend time with me.

What is not perfect yet?

My schedule obviously needed more than a little fine-tuning. I felt like I had no time to myself, and that my life was out of balance. Note the presupposition of this question: asking "What is not perfect yet?" clearly implies that things will be perfect. This question not only gives you new answers, but reassures you simultaneously.

What am I willing to do to make it the way I want it?

I decided then that I was willing to organize my life and my schedule so that they were more balanced, and I was willing to take control and learn to say no to certain things. I also realized that I needed to hire a new CEO for one of my companies, someone who could handle some of my workload. This would give me more special time at home and with my family.

What am I willing to no longer do in order to make it the way I want it?

I knew that I could no longer whine and complain about how unfair it was or feel abused when people were really trying to support me.

How can I enjoy the process while I do what is necessary to make it the way I want it?

When I asked this last, most important question, I looked around for a way to make it fun. I thought, "How can I enjoy making 100 calls?" Sitting there at my desk did not turn up the mental and emotional juice. Then I got an idea: I'd not been in my Jacuzzi in six months. I quickly slipped on my swim trunks, grabbed my portable computer and speaker phone, and headed for the Jacuzzi. I set up shop out in my back yard, and started making the calls. I called a few of my business associates in New York and teased them, saying, "Really, it's that cold? Hmmm. Well, it's really tough out here in California, you know. I'm sitting here in my Jacuzzi!" We all had fun with it and I managed to turn the whole "chore" into a game. (But I was so wrinkled that I looked around 400 years old by the time I got to the bottom of my list!)

That Jacuzzi was always there in my back yard, but you'll notice that it took the right question to uncover it as a resource. By having the list of these five questions in front of you on a regular basis, you have a pattern of how to deal with problems that will instantly change your focus and give you access to the resources you need.

Related post on Less Wrong: Your Inner Google:

I just heard a comment by Braddock of Lovesystems that was brilliant: All that your brain does when you ask it a question is hit "search" and return the first hit it finds. So be careful how you phrase your question.

Say you just arrived at work, and realized you once again left your security pass at home. You ask yourself, "Why do I keep forgetting my security pass?" [...]

But you are not rational, and your brain is lazy; and as soon as you phrase your question and pass it on to your subconscious, your brain just Googles itself with a query like

why people forget things

looks at the first few hits it comes across, maybe finds their most-general unifier, checks that it's a syntactically valid answer to the question, and responds with,

"Because you are a moron."

Your inner Google has provided a plausible answer to the question, and it sits back, satisfied that it's done its job.

If you instead ask your brain something more specific, such as, "What can I do to help me remember my security pass tomorrow?", thus requiring its answer to refer to you and actions to remember things and tomorrow, your brain may come up with something useful, such as, "Set up a reminder now that will notify you tomorrow morning by cell phone to bring your security pass."