Problems in life arise in the life of every person all the time, but, unfortunately, not everyone knows how to cope with them. There are those who prefer to stand quietly in a trench rather than a heroic battle, waiting for the enemy to leave on his own or for someone to come to their defense. This position is fundamentally wrong, and this approach to problems must be decisively combated.
How, instead of hiding from them or waiting for someone to solve them for us, experts in human psychology know. In view of the increasing general stress of modern life, psychologists willingly share with others valuable advice on overcoming life’s difficulties. They all agree that every person should, at all costs, learn to independently solve problems that arise.
Identify a specific problem and its importance
A problem can be considered the loss of keys and dismissal from work, tooth loss, and Sometimes a person can classify as a problem a life situation that he has never encountered and which forces him to take actions that are unusual for him, knocking him out of his psychological comfort zone. Therefore, before driving yourself into stress, it is worth considering whether the problem is far-fetched.
At the same time, it is important to clearly highlight existing problems. You may even have to make a list listing them. The next thing to do is to determine the weight and urgency of solving each problem. It is important to understand which ones should be resolved first and which ones can wait. You should not rush to solve everything in one fell swoop, as you may simply not have enough strength for this, and the quality of such a solution is greatly reduced.
Develop the Right View
Once the true problems have been identified and the order of their resolution has been lined up, it is necessary to move on to the next step - forming the correct view of them. Of course, the complexity of situations varies, however, before you begin to resolve each of them, you need to think about what useful things can be learned from it. Does this sound strange? Not at all.
Solving every problem requires you to demonstrate one or several qualities at once. This means that the development or training of certain character traits can be considered a positive aspect of each of them. In addition, in difficult situations we can become more active and quick-witted, we learn to think and behave outside the box. According to scientists, leaving the psychologically comfortable zone is the best path for a person to personal growth.
Calm your emotions and make a plan
Before solving problems, you need to pacify your emotions. Panic and anger do not allow us to soberly assess the situation and our actions; under the influence of feelings, we tend to act illogically. Almost everyone who has at least once made a decision based on emotions immediately and later regretted it more than once.
To successfully solve various problems in life, you need to draw up a detailed plan of your actions. It is worth starting to compile it immediately after emotions have subsided and the ability to think sensibly and rationally has returned. Do not forget that a plan to overcome a problem is just an outline consisting of proposed actions. It is necessary to prepare in advance for the fact that it will have to be adjusted. Moreover, this can happen both before the start of its implementation and during it.
Confront the fear of failure
Often the biggest obstacle to how to solve problems is fear. It paralyzes and prevents you from seeing clearly what is happening. Usually our greatest fear is failure, we are afraid that the plan we have drawn up will turn out to be a complete failure or that additional unexpected difficulties will arise. How to solve the problem associated with your own fear?
First, try not to get hung up on the idea that something won't work out. Drive away these thoughts like your most terrible enemy. There is only one way to overcome fear - by accepting it and doing what you are afraid of. Try to imagine in the opposite direction. Imagine that everything worked out for you, feel in your imagination the taste of success and the satisfaction that you have achieved your goal and the problem is left behind.
To understand how to solve problems yourself, in some situations it would be useful to talk about what is tormenting you with those you trust. Sometimes this alone can help, because while you present the whole essence of what is happening, highlighting the main thing and trying to convey it to the listener in an understandable language, everything will also become clearer in your head and fall into place. It is possible that after this a decision will suddenly dawn on you.
If this does not happen, then a loved one whom you have initiated into the essence of your problem, firstly, can help you emotionally, and secondly, can give you advice full of love and sympathy. It would be especially good if this person ever faced a similar problem in his life. Or maybe you can find someone who can provide practical help?
Picture your downfall
A great psychologist advises to get rid of the panicky fear of failure by looking straight into its eyes. In other words, you need to believe in success, but at the same time clearly realize that no one in this world is completely immune from anything. Why think about failure, isn't it discouraging?
Dale Carnegie explains this by saying that in a problematic situation, a fiasco for many means the end of life. They are terrified even for a moment to imagine that everything will end in the worst way for them, and they have no idea how they will live after that. According to the psychologist, having thought through our actions in advance if everything does not go as we hope, we protect ourselves from panic fear of such a turn of events and will not be completely confused if everything happens.
Assess the problem globally
When you need to solve a problem, try to look at it from a different perspective. For example, if you have nothing to wear, look at your problem through the eyes of a legless cripple. And if you are upset because you quarreled with your husband, look at your problem from the perspective of a recently widowed woman. If you are not satisfied with the quality of your life, go to the cemetery. A bit gloomy? Believe me, this will help move your problem at least a little from the central place in your life.
Or you can try this - look at the Earth, at yourself and at your problem from space. Can you imagine how small she will seem then? Imagination, it turns out, can be used for such useful purposes. Also, when a problem that has arisen puts too much pressure on us, we can try to imagine how we will remember it in a year or five years. Maybe then it will turn into a funny story from life that we will amuse our friends with?
Don’t forget about rest and don’t “saw sawdust”
Psychologists who know better than others how to solve problems with the least possible losses for themselves advise not to forget that the body always needs rest. Experiencing stress, which absorbs the lion's share of the energy produced by the body, a person loses strength. Adequate physical and emotional rest will help increase their number.
A person is especially weakened by constant regrets about something that caused a problem or prevented him from successfully overcoming it. You shouldn’t “saw sawdust,” that is, return your thoughts to the past again and again in order to properly regret it. This doesn't make any sense. If your pressing problem concerns something that cannot be changed, try to distract yourself from it and not constantly scroll through it in your head. You will no longer influence what happened, but your thoughts greatly influence what can happen to your health.
Armed with expert advice, you can safely fight your problems. It would be foolish to expect some kind of miraculous end to this fight, but you can count without a doubt that thanks to the right approach, problems will be solved much easier. Remember, everyone is capable of solving their problems on their own, and no one is assigned to do this dirty work for you.
What to do if you don't know how to solve the problem. Hopeless situations.
When difficult life circumstances arise in our lives, we, as a rule, plunge headlong into our experiences, asking questions: “Why do I need this?”, “Why did this happen to me?”, which do not help us at all, but on the contrary , worsen our psycho-emotional state.
We concentrate even more on the problem that bothers us, become immersed in negative emotions, devote most of our time to searching for solutions, and still cannot find one. We get upset and lose faith in ourselves. Most people, not seeing a way out of the situation, gradually come to terms with negative changes and continue to go with the flow of life, hoping that over time everything will be resolved and the current will take them to a more favorable shore.
Remember, when we are fixated on a problem, we look at the world and perceive it through the prism of this problem, and do not notice the rest, and this may be the key to overcoming this difficulty.
You need to realize one truth: there is always a solution, and we know about it.
Eat 2 important points
, to which I would like to draw your attention:
– there are no hopeless situations, there are solutions that we don’t like
– due to the fact that solving a problem may require leaving your comfort zone, overcoming your fears, working on yourself, we often block the awareness of such a solution, and can walk in circles for a long time in search of a way out.
WHAT TO DO IF YOU CAN'T SEE A WAY OUT?
1. Answer questions honestly:
– How do you perceive your role in organizing your own life?
– Do you think that you can have a decisive influence on your future?
Listed below are some possible reactions to difficult life circumstances. Your task is to determine to what extent they are inherent in you:
“life is cruel/unfair to me”;
“I can’t do anything about it, it’s not in my power”;
“I want changes, but they are impossible under such circumstances”;
“no matter what I do, it’s all in vain, tomorrow something will go wrong again”;
“This is a punishment from above, apparently I was guilty of something.”
If you recognize your reactions in any of the statements listed, ask yourself how often do you resort to them? Answering these three questions will give you a deeper understanding of how much control you really have in your own life and how much responsibility you take for what happens.
2. It is necessary to distance yourself from the problem..
When difficult circumstances arise in our lives or, as it seems to us, hopeless situations, we become completely involved in them emotionally and our attention is narrowed so much that we notice almost nothing other than the immediate problem. When we step out of the role of the actor, that is, the subject to whom something happened and take the position of an observer, we can learn a lot of new things about this problem. Our vision of what happened changes, emotions subside and we are now able to notice those nuances that we did not pay attention to before.
3. The “advice to a friend” technique works great.
Ask yourself:
– What would I advise a friend who found himself in a similar situation?
This is another way to distance ourselves from the problem, reduce emotional involvement and partially relieve responsibility for the solutions we propose. It is the unwillingness to bear responsibility for the consequences of our choice that prevents us from realizing how often there is an obvious way out of the situation and causes delay in making a decision. I recommend you watch my video on how to learn to make decisions.
4. Fear of making the wrong choice – another reason why the situation may seem hopeless. As I said, there is always a way out, but we are afraid to make the wrong decision, and therefore we often begin to ignore the problem, try to find ways to escape from it, some escape from reality, immersing themselves in entertainment, computer games, watching TV series, and others finds comfort in alcohol, drugs, and so on.
It is important to realize that the right and wrong decision is a myth; we cannot know in advance how our choice will turn out until we set foot on the chosen path. I talk more about this in my video “Why is it so difficult to make a decision?”
5. Another recommendation for finding the best solution is give freedom to your creativity . Take a piece of paper or a voice recorder, whichever is more convenient for you, describe your problem situation and then you need to do the following. Time yourself, say 5 minutes, set an alarm, and start writing down all possible solutions. The main condition is not to criticize yourself and the options that will flash in your head. Your goal is to capture as many ideas as possible, and in this case, limited time will force you to focus as much as possible on finding solutions. The next step is to choose the best of all options for solving your problem.
6. If none of the methods I suggested help you find a way out of the situation, then just give yourself time. State your question and let your unconscious find the most suitable solution. At first glance, such a recommendation seems somehow magical and smacks of esoteric teachings. However, if you understand the process from a psychological point of view, everything falls into place and the picture becomes clearer. Our behavior, daily choices and actions are determined largely by our unconscious. In addition, often some ideas and desires are rejected at the level of consciousness as unrealistic, delusional, difficult to achieve, inappropriate, and so on. And the amount of information that we are aware of is very, very limited.
I like the analogy of an iceberg, where the tip is our consciousness, and everything that is hidden under the water, that is, the main part of the iceberg, is the unconscious. The technique that I offer works great if you begin to trust yourself more, are open to new information coming from the external and your internal world, and are attentive to what is happening around you in order to notice prompts in time and take advantage of them.
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Perhaps for someone it will be on time and will help a lot!
What makes a problem unsolvable?
A problem looks unsolvable when a person 1) does not know how to solve it 2) knows, but cannot.
Let's deal with the first point first.
A person does not know how to solve a problem, does not see a solution.
This is the most difficult, nervous and unpleasant state. When you already know, but can’t, it’s easier, it’s clear what to do, the task is to gather your strength. And not knowing how, a person rushes about and looks for someone who could help him see these paths. He goes to friends, looks for an answer on the Internet, and makes an appointment with a psychologist.
I have already given a universal recipe on how to discover ways to solve any problem. To do this, when considering this problem, it is enough to change the external locus to the internal one.
The explanation for this miracle is simple. A person does not know “how” when the description of the problem is beyond the boundaries of his influence. Once you place the problem within your own boundaries, a solution will appear.
Look again at examples of how the locus changes and problems are reformulated.
Problem: “the woman I love doesn’t love me.”
This problem is unsolvable, because its solution is outside the boundaries of human influence; we are talking about what another person does or does not do, in this case, does not love.
How can we reformulate this problem by changing the locus?
There are several options. “I worry because a woman doesn’t love me” - and then the problem is worry. You can work with feelings, you can work with suffering self-esteem, bitterness and fear of the collapse of relationships. “It seems to me that they don’t love me” - and then the problem is to figure out whether they love me. Although in the latter case it is important to understand why you need to understand? What will he do with this knowledge? Will he leave and try to restore balance? If it’s the first, it makes sense to find out, but if it’s the second, you can work on balance without this knowledge.
There is a more or less general formulation for such problems, which requires an understanding of the concept of imbalance: “I am at a disadvantage in this relationship” - and then the problem is its own disadvantage, you can work with it. This work is about reducing your dependence on a person and forming your persona in his field, more significant than it is now. The second is the opportunity to even go a little beyond the boundaries, remaining in the internal locus (from the point of view of psychology, this is “magic”, but has a scientific explanation, that is, it does not concern anything supernatural).
The internal locus is a spacesuit that allows you to go into any airless space and visit alien planets. Within the limits of one’s own planet (its own borders) the locus is already internal, the spacesuit is replaced by the atmosphere.
Let's look at another problem: loss of a job (any loss of anything or anyone, even a wife)
In the internal locus, this problem will look like “worries about loss” and (or) “search for a replacement.” You can work with both problems, and even both at once. There's just nothing you can do about losing your job. The job has already been lost, this is beyond human influence. But a person can do something with his experiences: he must find ways to switch, compensate, console, cope with the trauma inflicted on him (raise self-esteem, restore his integrity, renew his defenses, and so on)
By the way, about injury. Having a problem with trauma, it is very important to again stay in the internal locus. The injury has already been caused (or so it seems, it doesn’t matter), you can’t go back, the task is to remove all the negative consequences and recover. (Or you need to formulate the problem not as “my injury”, but differently, for example, “the fight for the rights of other injured people”). When treating trauma, “revenge” or “forgiveness” are different ways to restore internal integrity, it is important to find the method that will be most effective, but do not forget about the future. Some people believe that without revenge, integrity cannot be restored, but this is not always the case. Some are sure that if you try to take revenge, you will always lose more. This is not always the case either. It is important to consider your situation and carefully understand why you want revenge, what exactly it will restore or not restore, very often this gives only the illusion of restoring “justice” and “self-respect,” but sometimes not only an illusion, and then the only question is finding adequate ways.
But this is a separate topic, and if everyone is very interested in it, I will tell you in more detail later.
The locus always needs to be shifted, even when it seems impossible to shift it inward. There is always at least part of the problem that can be shifted within one's own boundaries. Everything that is beyond the borders is unsolvable, inaccessible, and does not deserve long-term attention, since nothing can be done.
Of course, knowing the solution is still very little to solve the problem. There must still be strength. That’s why I wrote at the beginning of the post that the problem is unsolvable when a person does not know how, or knows, but cannot. In order to find means to solve a problem that is located in the internal locus, that is, within one’s own influence, it is important to understand what is blocking the forces. As a rule, this is either 1) frustration (apathy), or 2) fear, aka uncertainty.
I will tell you how to overcome or cheat frustration and how to cope with fear and self-doubt to solve a problem.
In the meantime, there are problems for you on the topic “changing an external locus to an internal one.”
Reframe the following problems so that the locus changes from external to internal. There may be not one wording, but several.
1. “My colleague is annoying me with stupid conversations at work.”
2. “Mother constantly interferes with unnecessary advice”
3. “The child does not want to do his homework”
4. “My husband gets offended because sex is too infrequent and boring”
5. “Nothing interesting happens in life.”
6. “My wife is constantly nagging about money.”
7. “The boss is a fool”
Many people often face the fact that they cannot solve one or another problem in their life. This can be either a simple, everyday task or a really very important issue. Of course, we won’t be able to give answers on how to solve your specific problem, but we will reveal some secrets on how to independently find the answer to all your questions and solve the problem. To do this, we will give you 12 important rules for your edification.
Well, let's not waste time and get started right away.
- Set your priorities . That is, decide what is more important to you in a given life situation. Solve all problems one by one. Trying to do everything at once often ends in failure.
- Identify the problem itself . Be sure to think about what will be an indicator for you to solve this problem. If it is positive, then the problem can be solved, but if there is no result at all, then you are not faced with a problem at all, but only a trifle that can easily be overcome.
- Make a plan to solve the problem . Moreover, it should be detailed, describing possible consequences and different solutions. In simple words, foresee, if not all, then most of what can await you on the way to solving the problem.
- Estimate the time to complete each item of the plan . This is very important, because sometimes it is necessary to solve a problem as quickly as possible, and we simply forget about it.
- Keep a problem solving diary . There, write down in detail your plan for solving the problem, time to solve it, possible consequences, etc. This will help you see your problem and its solution clearly.
- Think about the cost of delay . What are the consequences of your delays? What are the consequences of not solving the problem at all? Such thoughts will give you a good incentive to act, and as quickly as possible.
- Conduct a time analysis of your life . Where can you find time, what tasks can be combined, how much time do you need to solve? This is very important to take into account so that one problem does not affect other areas of life.
- Act decisively . If you decide to change something in your life, then you need to do it. Otherwise, the effect of the unfinished action will torment you for a long time.
- Don't be afraid of anything . Only those who do nothing, who wait for the problem to solve itself or lead to even greater failure, are afraid. And if you are solving a problem, then believe me, there is nothing to be afraid of. A negative result is also a result.
- Always think about how to solve the problem effectively now . You shouldn’t dream and think that the answer will be found by itself – you need to be realistic. And act, here and now.
- If you solved the problem, then look at the consequences . They will help you find out whether you have found the right solution. And even if your decision is not correct, do not be upset. Now you know exactly what not to do, and this will help you avoid mistakes in the future. Be that as it may, life goes on! This is also very important to remember.
- Praise yourself . If the decision is correct, then do not forget to praise yourself that you did everything as it should. This will help both your self-esteem and problem solving in the future.
These tips will help you solve the problem. Everything depends only on you, don’t forget this.
So let's begin:
1. Solve problems as they arise. This means that you should not scatter your attention, but, on the contrary, it is necessary to concentrate on one subject. Then, perhaps, the remaining difficulties will resolve themselves.
2. In fact, there are no problems, there are situations - simple and complex. And, as they say, there are no hopeless situations. A problem is a problem as long as you consider it a problem.
3. The biggest problem is fear. He is the one to be feared most of all. The only effective method to dissolve fear is to enter into it and stay in it for a while. You may have to repeat it several times, but each time there will be fewer and fewer traces of fear. It’s not for nothing that they say: “Fear has big eyes.”
4. Everything in this world exists relative to something and someone. The same applies to problems. It is necessary to assess the situation globally; perhaps this is not even a problem, but some little thing that should be forgotten.
5. Try to find those who have already had a similar situation with a positive ending, seek advice and act in a similar way, at the same time saving time.
6. Try to treat any problem as a puzzle or obstacle. Some obstacles can be easily avoided, and the puzzle can be solved together.
7. In difficult times, remember the parable of King Solomon.
King Solomon had a ring that helped him out in difficult times. It said: “Everything will pass.” One day, King Solomon became so angry that he took the ring off his finger and threw it aside. But I caught a glimpse that there was also something written on the inside of the ring. He walked over, picked up the ring and read: “This too shall pass.”
8. And finally, here is an excerpt from the book “There’s Another Customer Born Every Minute” by Joe Vitale:
“Imagine that you live in the middle of the 19th century, for example, in America.
Four-fifths of the American population are farmers. There are only three big cities in the country; the largest is New York, which has barely 400 thousand inhabitants. Many of the technical wonders we are so familiar with today have not yet been invented. You cannot enjoy radio and television because they simply do not exist. You cannot use a computer, access the Internet, make phone calls, call a taxi, or simply drive. And before the Civil War, it was impossible to reach some remote settlements in America even by railroad, because there was no railroad there yet either.
No electricity. Most people don't even have a bathroom at home, and they wash once a week - this is considered normal. And once they got sick, most of them eventually died, because surgeons in those days tended to wash their hands after surgery, not before. People still live in fear, fearing attacks from Indian tribes. There is shooting and death everywhere. During the Civil War, the lion's share of the human population was wiped off the face of the earth.
And you and I still complain that we live in stressful times!
And in those distant years, people thought about how to at least simply survive."
