The Fine Art of Problem Solving
I've had an amazing realization! Well, not really... more like a little insight. It's about problem solving.
I've never really paid much attention to problem solving. Now I know that it was a big mistake that I have to correct immediately.
Tony Robbins said that you should focus only 5% of your attention on the problem and 95% of your attention on the solution. That got me thinking. Wait, so problems are not solved by thinking about them? Oh. That explains why it never works.
(I have to point out here that I'm talking about emotional problems and not, for example, technical problems. I'm not one of those people who get an error pop up on their computer screen and think they have to buy a new computer.)
Anyway. Then came M. Scott Peck, a psychiatrist and a writer of a brilliant book The Road Less Traveled. The question of problem solving is where the book starts. Peck says that life is hard and everybody has problems. Our happiness depends on our ability to solve those problems. Wow. Again, that explains so much! I have finally reconciled the paradox that I've been struggling with for years.
I'll try to explain the paradox here. I saw myself struggling more than most and I kept asking, do I have more problems than other people or am I just weaker and more sensitive than them? Thinking I had more problems made me feel isolated and like a victim. Thinking that I was just weaker and more sensitive to the problems didn't make sense, because dealing with all of these problems has made me actually emotionally strong and resilient.
It never occurred to me that maybe I have all the same problems and I'm just as weak as everyone else (or possibly even stronger) but my problem solving skills are just not that great! This just blows my mind!
My realization was underlined by Peck's list of necessary problem solving skills: ”the ability to delay gratification, accepting responsibility, a dedication to truth and balancing (i.e. reconciling complex and conflicting factors that impact on an important decision).” (Wikipedia) If you want to know more, I highly recommend the book. It's a gem.
The more Peck talks about these skills, the more OMG moments I get. Like the fact that you cannot be a skilled gratification delayer if you don't value yourself and your time. Or if you don't feel safe in the discomfort of delayed gratification. Or if you don't understand that problem solving takes time. Wow. What I love about this is that, unlike with many self-help articles, I feel like Peck really appreciates the difficulty of developing these skills.
My mind was blown by this (self-evident?) fact that you cannot solve a problem if you don't think that it's yours to solve. It's so simple and so true. I wonder why I've never understood this before. I spend a lot of time complaining about problems that I think are other people's problems, but of course if I complain about them, they're my problems. Whatever a person complains about, it's their problem by default. Peck says that he has watched people go to extremes to avoid admitting that they have a problem. I've seen it too. I've been that person so many times. It's weird.
The list goes on and everything is mind blowing.
How am I not better at problem solving? How is it that I never learned? Partially it's that many problems that I had as a child had something to do with immigrating to another country with a different culture. My parents didn't know how to solve those problems either. I didn't know other immigrants or anyone who could help me solve them. So I just assumed that those problems were unsolvable.
This was accompanied by the fact that I was always very gifted at school. People said about me ”she's so talented, everything is so easy for her”. Teachers, for example, wouldn't help me in classes because ”she's so talented, she can manage”. When I would encounter a problem I couldn't admit I had one because I didn't want to disappoint all those people. I pushed all the problems away, not realizing they could be solved.
And that's what I've been thinking ever since! Whenever I encountered a problem I would automatically think that it was not an obstacle or a hindrance, but a dead end. As years went by, those unsolved problems would get bigger and bigger, until they just became unbearable and I had to do something about them if I wanted to keep on living.
Now, thanks to Tony Robbins, M. Scott Peck and others, my world view has been dramatically broadened. I feel like I can do anything now! I'm almighty!
I've never really paid much attention to problem solving. Now I know that it was a big mistake that I have to correct immediately.
Tony Robbins said that you should focus only 5% of your attention on the problem and 95% of your attention on the solution. That got me thinking. Wait, so problems are not solved by thinking about them? Oh. That explains why it never works.
(I have to point out here that I'm talking about emotional problems and not, for example, technical problems. I'm not one of those people who get an error pop up on their computer screen and think they have to buy a new computer.)
Anyway. Then came M. Scott Peck, a psychiatrist and a writer of a brilliant book The Road Less Traveled. The question of problem solving is where the book starts. Peck says that life is hard and everybody has problems. Our happiness depends on our ability to solve those problems. Wow. Again, that explains so much! I have finally reconciled the paradox that I've been struggling with for years.
I'll try to explain the paradox here. I saw myself struggling more than most and I kept asking, do I have more problems than other people or am I just weaker and more sensitive than them? Thinking I had more problems made me feel isolated and like a victim. Thinking that I was just weaker and more sensitive to the problems didn't make sense, because dealing with all of these problems has made me actually emotionally strong and resilient.
It never occurred to me that maybe I have all the same problems and I'm just as weak as everyone else (or possibly even stronger) but my problem solving skills are just not that great! This just blows my mind!
My realization was underlined by Peck's list of necessary problem solving skills: ”the ability to delay gratification, accepting responsibility, a dedication to truth and balancing (i.e. reconciling complex and conflicting factors that impact on an important decision).” (Wikipedia) If you want to know more, I highly recommend the book. It's a gem.
The more Peck talks about these skills, the more OMG moments I get. Like the fact that you cannot be a skilled gratification delayer if you don't value yourself and your time. Or if you don't feel safe in the discomfort of delayed gratification. Or if you don't understand that problem solving takes time. Wow. What I love about this is that, unlike with many self-help articles, I feel like Peck really appreciates the difficulty of developing these skills.
My mind was blown by this (self-evident?) fact that you cannot solve a problem if you don't think that it's yours to solve. It's so simple and so true. I wonder why I've never understood this before. I spend a lot of time complaining about problems that I think are other people's problems, but of course if I complain about them, they're my problems. Whatever a person complains about, it's their problem by default. Peck says that he has watched people go to extremes to avoid admitting that they have a problem. I've seen it too. I've been that person so many times. It's weird.
The list goes on and everything is mind blowing.
How am I not better at problem solving? How is it that I never learned? Partially it's that many problems that I had as a child had something to do with immigrating to another country with a different culture. My parents didn't know how to solve those problems either. I didn't know other immigrants or anyone who could help me solve them. So I just assumed that those problems were unsolvable.
This was accompanied by the fact that I was always very gifted at school. People said about me ”she's so talented, everything is so easy for her”. Teachers, for example, wouldn't help me in classes because ”she's so talented, she can manage”. When I would encounter a problem I couldn't admit I had one because I didn't want to disappoint all those people. I pushed all the problems away, not realizing they could be solved.
And that's what I've been thinking ever since! Whenever I encountered a problem I would automatically think that it was not an obstacle or a hindrance, but a dead end. As years went by, those unsolved problems would get bigger and bigger, until they just became unbearable and I had to do something about them if I wanted to keep on living.
Now, thanks to Tony Robbins, M. Scott Peck and others, my world view has been dramatically broadened. I feel like I can do anything now! I'm almighty!
Kommentit
Lähetä kommentti