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However, it is important to remember that not solving a problem can lead to more anxiety than trying to solve it, no matter how anxious you feel. The following are some guidelines that can help you find the best solution to your problem.
The goal is to find the best solution to your problem, NOT the perfect solution. The costs of this solution seem to outweigh the benefits. There is no perfect solution, so when you are judging each potential solution it is unlikely that it will meet all four criteria. You are looking for a solution that BEST meets the criteria, not perfectly. This is often the most difficult step because you now have to actually start carrying out the solution you chose.
Most people are afraid that they might have picked the wrong solution, or that perhaps there is a better solution if they just think about the problem more. This is not helpful thinking: To help you carry out your solution, you can make an action plan. If you know how you are going to carry out your solution, you are more likely to follow through. Your plan should include all the steps that you will need to take to carry out the solution, and it should be as specific and concrete as possible.
Now that you have carried out your solution, you need to make sure that it is working. For example, with the work problem, you might use your workload as a marker for tracking your solution. If you notice that your workload is going down, then your solution is probably working. The best thing to do is to recycle through the different steps and ask yourself the following questions:.
If you work through these steps, you might find that you went wrong somewhere, and then you can fix it and try again. Solving the difficult problems in life is hard work, so make sure to reward yourself afterward for a job well done. Skip to main content. Is there a problem? Get in the habit of writing out a list of the problems in your life.
It is easier to work on a problem if you have written it down. This approach will also help you to see how certain problems seem to come up again and again. When a problem causes you anxiety, it is best to use a pen and paper and to work it out in written form. But what are problems really? Well, problems are nothing more than decisions that need to be made. Mind you, they might not be simple decisions, and you may very well need to make a chain of decisions to get your desired outcome, but nevertheless, they are still nothing more than decisions.
Making effective decisions , of course, can take some research, support and other resources. It may even require that you become a little more resourceful in certain situations in order to reach the right decision moving forward. If we see problems in this light, then just maybe you will eventually figure out how to invite the uninvited stranger back out of your home.
When it comes to handling our day-to-day life problems, many people unnecessarily exacerbate these problems with their thoughts and imagination. As a result, it makes the situation worse than it should be. The interpretations you make of any situation determines your perspective of that situation. Therefore if you make poor interpretations of the problem you are currently facing, then you will see it in a very negative and limiting light that will actually hold you back from finding an effective solution to that problem.
They instead see opportunities as these wonderful things that will immediately improve their lives and circumstances. However, this is rarely if ever the case. Success from Point A to B is never a straight line. Moving from Point A to B might require many loops, twists, and turns. And at times there will be forks in the road where one path might be more optimal than the next. And that is of course where making effective decisions comes into the picture. We learn, develop and grow from every experience. In fact, looking back on your life you will typically have fonder memories of your journey and all the obstacles you faced , then you will have of achieving your desired goal.
All-in-all, your problems make your life more meaningful; they make the journey you are traveling on more meaningful. In fact, they make achieving your goal more meaningful. Have a think about all the goals you have achieved over a lifetime.
I would bet that the goals that have been most meaningful you have had to work the hardest for; overcoming a tremendous amount of problems and adversity along the way. That is in essence where we gain the most satisfaction from life: Yes, that is when true happiness and fulfillment comes into the picture. However, we do need to become a lot more resourceful in order to solve these problems most effectively. In a nutshell, when faced with a typical life problem, it should immediately alert you to the fact that a something is not working. This, of course, presents an opportunity for you to step back and see the landscape of your problem for what it is, and then make better decisions moving forward.
You may, in fact, need to alter your approach and do something a little differently this time around.
Life An Odyssey: Solutions to Life's Problems - Kindle edition by Dr. Manish Maladkar. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Life – An Odyssey: Time Tested Mantras Providing Solutions to Life's Problems, is the selective collection of 35 musings by Dr. Manish Maladkar. The musings in .
This is of course all about approaching all your problems with a flexible and open mind, as well as a willingness to try new things when opportunities present themselves. Now, of course, you might be thinking that some problems may very well resolve themselves. The uninvited stranger who took over your home might just one day decide to pack up and leave through the front door. This is, of course, a possibility. It could very well happen and the problem will be out of your life for good, right? So now with the stranger leaving your home, you feel good about yourself and about your life.
You have your home back once again and everything seems to be back on track. This is a typical scenario that many of us experience. Your problems will come and go. However, they will always tend to come back again-and-again in a different form until you eventually decide to face them head-on. Moreover, when you learn the lessons a plethora of opportunities will be revealed to you that can help you get whatever your heart desires.
With a curious nature , you will be less concerned with the inconvenience of suddenly facing a problem, and more interested in the possibilities that this problem has potentially brought to the surface. And of course, in order to cultivate curiosity, you must be willing to ask some tough questions that will help you view the problem from a number of vantage points. We instead ask questions , which make us feel as though we are in control of the situation.
And of course, as your self-confidence grows you will naturally become more optimistic that you can successfully solve this problem. And so you continue to ask questions that help you explore the problem at ever deeper levels; your self-confidence grows and you become ever more optimistic about a positive outcome.
And so the cycle continues. In addition to this, cultivating a curious mind requires being open to different perspectives, ideas, approaches, and opinions. However, other people may certainly have those answers.
After all, it is very possible that someone might have already solved this problem. All you would then need to do is model their decisions and actions down that same path. However, do bear in mind that what worked for them might not work for you in this particular situation. Finally, a curious nature requires a lighthearted, proactive and adaptive approach to your problem. Only in this way will you gather the insights necessary to help you move through the problem successfully. The optimism you generate through curiosity alone can be a tremendous motivator.
However, curiosity alone might not be enough to provide you with a positive outlook. In such instances, you need to instill three key beliefs that can help you move through the problem successfully. In order to instill these beliefs, you must become a possibility thinker. This means that you are constantly looking forward at the possibilities of what you can do or gain from this situation instead of looking back at your circumstances with disappointment and regret.
If you keep this idea at the forefront of your mind at all times, it will help guide you through the difficulties along your journey. Every problem you come across comes about in a very specific way. What I mean by this is that every problem has a distinct set of patterns that shape the problem.
But how do we do this? Manish Maladkar joined the group Keep Turning Pages. When it comes to handling our day-to-day life problems, many people unnecessarily exacerbate these problems with their thoughts and imagination. Once a wise woman who was traveling in the mountains found a precious stone in a stream. To trust yourself to test your limits — that is the courage to succeed. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Manish Maladkar is now following Jaye C.
The key then, of course, is to look for cause-effect relationships between people, things, and events. In other words, there will be trends in the form of similarities and differences that you must look out for. These patterns will provide you with deeper insights into the problem. However, in order to spot them, you must maintain a curious nature throughout the process by consciously probing for details.
And of course, to do this you will need to ask questions such as:. Given all this, what patterns am I seeing here that could help me deal with this problem most effectively?
There are literally an infinite combination of questions you could potentially ask about your problem that will encourage you to think about it from a multitude of angles and perspectives. Some of these guidelines require you to do something specific, while other guidelines require you to refrain from doing something.
Furthermore, some guidelines will be quick and easy to implement, while others will require more effort and attention. You are of course free to choose what methods you might like to use to solve your life problems. These guidelines are only here to provide you with some direction. You can use one or two of them, or a multitude of them in combination to help you work through a problem successfully. The choice is completely up to you. Sometimes the greatest insights can be found in the unfamiliar and untried methods.
These are the methods that may surprise you and help you gather the necessary feedback needed to solve a problem successfully. I would, therefore, recommend to keep an open mind to the possibilities and to never underestimate the simplicity of an idea. You just never know how effective something can be until you try it. And then, of course, there are those regrets of what you should, could, and might have done. Dwelling on all the negatives in this way will certainly not help you find a solution to the problem, in fact, it might actually exacerbate the problem even further.
We must instead learn to accept how things are in the moment. Whatever you can control, that is where you must begin; that is what you must focus all your attention on. However, only through acceptance can you move forward in an effective way toward solving the problem. When faced with a problem we will typically look to the past for reference to help us in the present moment. This is of course fine. We can learn a great deal from our past that can help us make better decisions today. Past experience should only be used as a guide for the present predicament you find yourself in.
This is a typical assumption all of us often make, however, the present circumstances might not be an ideal match for what happened in the past. Keep your mind curious and open to the possibilities because there might very possibly be an even better way to work through this problem when compared to how you handled things in the past.
No matter what the problem is, there will always be an opportunity here for you to either make a connection with someone, to discover something new, to explore a new path, to see things in a new light, to gain some clarity, or it might simply provide you with the opportunity to make a pivotal decision that could one day turn into an unexpected fortunate occurrence that will help you solve your problem.
Following this process will help you to make the most of the multitude of opportunities that life brings your way. However, it is important to note that many of these opportunities can come disguised as further problems or more unnecessary work that most of us will tend to shy away from.
This is, of course, a mistake. Instead of trying to avoid these things, gravitate towards them by embracing everything that comes your way with an open and curious mind. Solutions to your problem can, of course, be found by reading books or by simply talking with other people about your problem. Everyone will have their own unique take and perspective about your predicament and can offer some worthy advice that can help lead you down the right path. In fact, you should think long and hard about what other people tell you before doing the same.
Moreover, what worked for them might not work in your specific situation today. The decision you make in the end should not be based on what one person told you but based on a combination of credible sources that can help in your particular situation.