Most problems are easy to solve; yet the many variables which
enter our thinking would make us believe otherwise. We are apt to cultivate
complexity and irrationality where utter simplicity would otherwise triumph.
While we waste mental energy trying to retrieve or synthesize
an answer, we may fail to quiet the noise of too many choices or see the
straight path through a tangle of decisions.
In my own research on choices and problem-solving, I have
devised a set of four easy to remember guidelines to solving problems and
dealing with difficult choices. They are:
Release what you cannot control
Control what you can control
Solve
Rethink
For many of my readers, these may immediately invoke personal
meaning. Nevertheless, I'd like to elaborate on these guidelines to establish
clarity in each of these factors.
Release what you cannot control
I recently spoke with a friend who was troubled with her
relationship with her mother. Meanwhile, she was stressing over decisions she
needed to make about her other family members and other minor details in her
life. I had this friend step back and evaluate her situation in terms of
control.
The only things over which we have control are the set of
things that come as a result of us. In fact, not even that is true. While we
can control (to some extent) how we behave and the choices we make, we may not
necessarily have direct control over how we will react emotionally or what we
believe about a situation.
Much more, my friend does not control her mother. It is
imperative she release what she cannot control. Understand by "release" we do
not mean "abandon," at least not in a tangible sense. My friend has more
control over her ability to cope with her mother than the mother herself.
Stressing and deliberating over why her mother does "this" or "that" is a
non-activity. This is a way of entering the problem-solving process and
standing absolutely still.
When we face difficult situations, we can reserve our rational
decision-making abilities and mental energy by releasing ourselves from things
we know we cannot control.
Control what you can control
At any moment, you cannot "do nothing" because by "doing
nothing" you are not "doing." When we become obsessed with our perception of
the problem being difficult, we become determined to believe the solution must
also be difficult. By this process, we are apt to hold off on actually making
any decision in patient reverence of the imagined perfect solution which may
never come.
This is the plague of a perfectionist-type personality. In
everyday usage, we commonly attribute this label to people who are very
detail-oriented in everything they complete. Realistically, completion itself
is a big problem for perfectionists. Perfectionists suffer an extreme case of
what psychologists call "loss aversion." In a nutshell, this means a
perfectionist would rather drop out of a class than risk a B+. Anything to
avoid the failure of making an A+ is worthwhile to the perfectionist.
Perfectionist tendency is heightened when we are faced with big
decisions. We can hold back this temptation first by realizing we are doing
it. From there, we can focus on what we can control and actively control it
without obsessing over imagined negative consequences.
Solve
This step is deceptively simple. So much so, I am afraid my
readers will assume I included it as a mandatory linking step between other,
more meaningful guidelines.
Plenty of my readers are familiar with management in the
workplace "doing" but not actually "solving." For instance, I once worked at a
department store in which a member of the management was quite fond of making
visits to office supply stores, taping up clipboards with unclear uses,
arbitrarily color-coding various minutia, and getting trigger-happy with label
guns. At the end of the day, this individual did quite a bit, but solved
nothing.
At any time, we can ask ourselves if we are "doing" in the
sense of "solving" by checking the tense of our thinking. Are we thinking about
the past or the future? The past is about our present disposition to what
already occurred. The future is about choices. We solve by making choices.
Understand there is nothing necessarily wrong with considering the past, but in
the "Solve" step of problem-solving, we should already be past this.
Unlike buying clipboards and label-makers, solving should be
based on some sort of causal logic: "doing (this) will solve (that problem)
because..."
Rethink
Devising and applying a possible solution is a pleasant
activity--almost too pleasant. Decision-makers are prone to a phenomenon called
"commitment bias" which inhibits them from rethinking a decision simply because
they have committed themselves to it. Commitment bias is so strong, the bias
can exist even when the commitment is a mental rather than monetary or physical
investment.
If we have chosen a strategy, it's also likely the case we have
some faith in it. Having this faith inhibits us from honestly evaluating
whether or not it solves the problem effectively. Everyone wants to believe the
choices they are making are rational. We must allow ourselves to question this.
Actively make a choice to test a solution based on a rational
strategy but do not be afraid to kill a non-working strategy to move to
something else. Investors call this mistake "chasing losses." A wise investor
would sell her stock when it continues to drop. The loss chaser will tell
herself to wait until the stock goes back up just a little bit in order to
recover some of the loss. She only ends up letting the stock drop further and
further.
Release, control, solve, and rethink. Easy solutions can be
wrapped up in difficult problems. These guidelines can make the process easier.
Addendum
I'd like to add as a final thought: This minimalistic approach
is not meant to say "do all of these things and all your problems will be
solved." Those approaches sell books but not solutions. A significant weight
of problem-solving involves dealing with the uniqueness of the situation and the
input of intelligent rationale. These guidelines serve not only to make this
process happen smoothly, but to happen at all.
