Working on my skills

So one of my classes is counseling skills.  Our assignment this weekend?  Practice listening and asking open-ended questions, you know, "how" and "what."  I think our prof envisions:

"How did it feel when you did that?"

"What would succeeding look like to you?"

Unfortunately I already ask a lot of how and what questions, but around here they sound more like:

"How could you DO that??!!"

"WHAT were you thinking??!!"

Maybe I just need to drop the exclamation points.