Category: Problem Solving

It is becoming increasingly evident to me, with each day I consciously focus on it, that problems are almost always made better with the following ingredients:

1. Calm. Unless there’s an emergency, I do my absolute best not to run, speed, rush, yell, or spiral. All of these are inside my control and when problems hit that are outside my control, controlling these things and maintaining a calm demeanor helps tremendously. Not only does it keep the mind clear and free of unnecessary chaos so that I can focus on coming up with a solution, but it stops the problem from becoming worse. Which is always the first thing you should do when you find yourself in a hole… stop digging.

2. Collected. Acting too quickly on problems without a full survey of the land often leads to wrong turns and major detours. Once you’ve calmed yourself down and are thinking more clearly, it’s essential to clearly identify the problem, trace it to the root of its cause, and brainstorm a complete list of possible solutions. Oftentimes knee jerk reactions turn into big pains in the butt.

3. Collaborated. You’re never as smart alone as you are when you’re thinking with other trusted brains. It’s best to enter this stage after you’ve successfully managed to complete the previous two. Otherwise, “collaborated” often turns into vent session, cursing, and exacerbating the problem (causing you to dig a deeper hole). But, when you’re calm and collected and have a proper inventory of the problem and possible solutions… collaboration becomes a powerful equation that turns 1+1 into 3.

Man. It can be tempting to just throw your hands into the air, curse your circumstances, and blame everyone and the world for not teaching you this or preparing you for that.

Anxiety. Addiction. Discipline. Depression. Relationships. Kids. Property. Taxes. Insurance. Medications. Death. Disease. Loneliness… Each curveball feels like it comes with avengeance, always from new angles, and only with increased intensity.

And you know what?

Nobody is coming to change that.

Nobody is coming to save you.

Nobody is coming to knock on your door and offer you the Living With Ease 101 Guidebook.

And while this might sound grim or deflating… you know what?

At least it will get you out of the mindset of waiting.

Because too many of us are waiting for somebody to come along and do exactly those things… change our frustrating circumstances for the better… save us from curveballs of life… knock on our door and give us the answers to all of our current problems.

The sooner we can acknowledge that we’re waiting to be saved… the sooner we can snap out of it and begin saving ourselves.

Because while, sure, you hopefully have people in your life who are helping you out… ultimately, they have their own curveballs to figure out. And waiting for them to figure out theirs and then figure out yours, too, isn’t a good long-term strategy.

The long-term strategy that works is taking ownership, taking action, learning from errors, and repeating forever onward.

It’ll take just as much time as waiting.

…And return a helluva lot more on your time invested.

When dealing with a problem, it’s helpful to list clearly what’s within your control and what’s outside of your control in regards to its resolution.

Then, with everything that’s within your control, an excellent second step is to do your part and, as Ryan Holiday would say, start the timer on doing those things.

It’s likely that after you do your part, there’s going to be another part that’s outside of your control, that’ll take time to unfold, which is exactly the timer being referred to.

Today, for example, I’m having an issue with my phone bill.

I’m getting charged for a phone that was supposed to be covered by a promo.

What’s outside of my control? Fixing the bill myself.

What’s inside my control? Talking to a representative who can fix my bill.

The longer I wait to do my part and act on what’s within my control, the more the problem will linger and agitate my mind. I also know that getting problems like these resolved can be royal pains in the butt:

“Please hold while we transfer you 5x to the proper representative.” “What was your order ID? What was the location ID? Did you take a picture of that promo?” “We can’t help you with that problem here, you need to go to this other store.”

…And procrastinating is a highly tempting option.

But, if we want the problem resolved, we need to start the timer. And looking at problem resolution this way can help. The longer we wait to act on what’s within our control, the more our problems will compound. Keep it focused. Get the ball out of your court. Start the timer.

Today, the credit card machine at the school I teach at started printing blank receipts.

It’s a problem I’ve never solved before and my instinct was to pass it off to the person who set the machines up in the first place.

…That person, however, is out of town.

And we obviously can’t take credit card transactions without being able to print receipts, so back into my court the problem came.

My initial troubleshooting resulted in me not even knowing how to open the damn thing. So, needless to say, I was off to a blazing start.

Fortunately, there was a support number. So, I called and she walked me through the process of getting it fixed, which, of course, was hair-pullingly simple.

But you know what? Now I know.

And it’s a good reminder that time invested into solving problems—even when they’re not yours—are exactly that: investments.

…Investments into building skillsets and knowledge that save you time long-run and make people very much appreciate having someone like you around.

…Before you go dishing off problems onto someone else’s lap… ask yourself, is there an opportunity for investment that you actually might prefer to have versus just giving it to someone else?

Whenever I feel redundancies in my writing, I take it as a sign worth looking deeper into.

Either a) Like a re-occurring dream, there’s some deeper message or meaning worth exploring that requires some extra unpacking time or b) Like a broken record, I need to put on some “new music” and get my head wrapped around or expanded by something else.

This helps guide my next actions so that I can either break the cycle or break into new territory.

If you don’t write, it might be worth considering how this relates to your thinking.

Redundancy can carry as much weight as, if not even more than, the substance of the thoughts themselves. Pay attention to what your mind repeatedly flashes as being worth your attention. Ignoring it will only continue to prompt it. Understanding it is the only way you might (finally) grow from it.

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P.s. 37 Robert A. Johnson Quotes from Inner Work To Convince You Dreams Aren’t Arbitrary

I have a metal awning covering the front door of my house.

It has been making an awful creaking noise whenever the wind picked up for the past few weeks.

It’s definitely not new and is something my mind started budgeting for as soon as I started hearing the screech. I figured I would first budget time to see if it was something I could fix myself. I could call over my handyman dad and see if whatever was loose could get tightened and we could clean her up—leaving her good as new.

If that didn’t work, I figured I would budget money for a new one and I started thinking about different colors and styles I might choose to replace it.

This went on and on in the background of my mind since I started noticing the reoccurring sound several weeks ago.

It wasn’t until I actually went outside today and took a closer look that I realized all of that horrible creaking… and screeching… and reoccurring annoyance…

…Was from one singular, oh-so-tiny bush branch—no bigger than my pinky—that was rubbing up against the front of the awning in such a way and at such an angle that it made that obnoxious noise.

I reached up, broke off the branch, and voila… problem solved.

How often is it the case that we do silly things like this? Make something oh-so-tiny into something way bigger than it needed to be? Something that could’ve been solved at the outset with a little up front investigation and energy… but got delayed and blown out of proportion instead…

Oh, how much energy I (we) could have saved…