Make Your Own Miracles Happen - The Miracle Question

A Simple, but Powerful Intervention... Click here for 4x one-hour therapy session time slots each month in available areas!

This solution-focused technique has been around a long time. It has a focus on the future - on what somebody will do, rather than what they will not do. This helps a person focus on alternatives to a difficult situation, and helps us to get un-stuck from whatever behavioral patterns that do not work that we have been repeating. It goes like this: "You finish the work (or school or other tasks) for the day. You go home, and wrap up any things you have to get done. You shower and brush your teeth and get ready for bed. You fall asleep, but something happens overnight. A miracle happens. Something changes while you sleep, and when you wake up, whatever problems were previously going on in your life have disappeared. It's a miracle! You wake up and the problems are gone. You had no way of knowing this would happen overnight. How is your life different now?"

After asking yourself or your client this question, try to focus on these aspects:

• What would you do differently?

• Would you feel different? If so, how?

• Would you think differently about your situation?

• Would you have different beliefs? If so, how would they be different?

• How would the day after this miracle be different?

• If you were to rate a normal day on a 1 to 10 scale, and the Miracle Day is a 10/10, what would a normal day's number be?

• What will it take to get from the number of a normal day, to the number of the Miracle Day?

• Focus on things that you can change that are within your scope of control and influence. For an exercise on control, influence and responsibility, check out my post on Responsibility Pie here.

Here are some examples of the types of responses we are going for here:

• "I won't get mad when people at work are incompetent."

• "I would be able to look at myself in the mirror and like what I see."

• "I wouldn't be so lazy and be able to do what I need to do."

• "I would be able to get along with ______ better."

• "I would be able to go to school without being scared."

• "I would be able to do my job without worrying so much."

• "I could focus more easily."

This intervention requires a fair bit of imagination. It requires us to get out of focusing on negative aspects of the past, and gets us into a future focused mindset. It gets people un-stuck.

Wouldn't the world be great if we could all together imagine a desired future?

For clinicians: If you are asking this to your client, it is important to slowly state the question and monitor nonverbal responses of your client to gauge how they are absorbing the question. Try to maintain a future focus with empathy and compassion, and follow with an adequate amount of respectful silence after your client initially says "I don't know" (which is okay). Take your time in co-creating experiences with your client, and help them imagine a desired future. This intervention is a great technique to use early in therapy or life-coaching to set goals and scale/measure progress. For more information on solution-focused brief therapy origins, look up Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg, as they were originators of this theoretical orientation.

Click here for 4x one-hour therapy session time slots each month in available areas!