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Today you will discover the reason why you feel your life is full of problems and never-ending challenges. And then I am going to share with you the 5-Step Method to Solve Your Problems and become a Problem-Solving Expert. Stay tuned.
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When I step out of my home and go to a place like a hairdresser or a beautician I get to listen to other people talking to each other. And I am shocked and saddened by what I hear. Most of their focus is on the problems or challenges they have in their life. And conversations mostly are exchanges about who has the bigger problems.
That was me just a few years ago, too. I am not any different, I am not better than other people – I just have changed since then and I am not the same person anymore.
And everyone can do it. I am giving you today first of all the reason why you are feeling overwhelmed by constant problems in your life and then I will share with you a method that you can apply to start changing yourself in relation to problems and solve your problems more easily. If you are willing to apply it, it will change your life.
You can decide to change your current situation if you feel like you never get a break, that there is always something that is going wrong. I still remember that problems or challenges back then felt so heavy and overwhelming. It felt like one disaster after another. Like I was just not able to get away and have some peace and quiet.
And then there is the ruminating about those problems. Playing out all the worst-case scenarios in my head. Never really focusing on a solution because I was so busy feeling sorry for myself. As if the world was against me. Try to be honest, do you feel like this sometimes? Do you feel like you are just waiting for the next shoe to drop or the next thing to go wrong?
When I look back at my old self or listen to the people next to me at the hairdresser, I know exactly what is going on. But the sad thing is that they don’t know. Nobody is doing this to themselves consciously. And that applies to you, too.
So let’s talk about what is really going on.
When you feel overwhelmed and worried, you are trapped inside a loop of seeing problems and challenges everywhere in your life. You are just not aware that you keep feeding the loop and keeping it alive with the thoughts and feelings that you keep having about the problems and challenges.
As long as you are not finding a way out, like the method that I am going to share with you, this loop will just keep going and nothing will ever change or get better. Stopping the cycle, and disrupting it is necessary for something to change in your life and for you to feel better.
If you keep giving this loop of thinking and feeling about your problems more energy, it’s just going to get bigger. How would that show up? Well, either the problems are getting more in quantity or they are getting more in quality as in the problems will be more devastating or harder to solve.
So we want to find a way to take the energy that we currently spend on thinking and feeling about the problems and divert it to a more solution-based space. That will have a double positive impact. First, you take the energy away from the problems so they will get smaller and will appear lesser and lesser in your life and you give more energy to solving the problems so you will get better at solving issues and it will feel easier to you to find solutions.
Just to recap – you are caught in a loop of thinking and feeling about challenges and problems and you are not aware of it. Because you are not aware, you never have a chance to step out of that loop and stop it. Good news, now that you are aware of this loop going on inside of you can make a different choice and move towards more useful and helpful thoughts and emotions. So let’s talk about how, with the 5-step method.
1st step: Breathing
First, we need to get out of the loop. So we need to interrupt the pattern and that cycle of thinking and feeling. There are many pattern interrupters that you can use, but I like to use breathing. It’s a great tool because you always have it with you. You can never forget it at home.
When you become aware that you are in one of those loops of mulling over a problem, stop what you are doing and take a minute to focus on your breathing. Just follow your breath for a couple of minutes until you feel calmer and less agitated.
If you want you can even choose to bring up a positive emotion while you focus on your breathing. I teach it to my students like this:
2nd Step: Perspective Shift
We want to now create new thoughts so we don’t fall back into the loop that we just disrupted. And that is best if you have it prepared beforehand. Because when we are in the middle of mulling over the problem we are not in the best place to come up with a powerful thought that can help us shift our mindset. So go ahead and take some time to create a thought that can help you to move from a challenge mindset to a solution mindset.
I am giving you here 3 examples. The importance is that you create yours as it has to work for you and you need to believe it.
Maybe I should write mantras professionally. I think these are awesome. But you need to do you and create one in your language and words. So go ahead and complete step 2, creating a powerful thought that shifts your perspective and mindset when you need it.
3rd Step: Observation
You want to now observe the problem or challenge from a neutral place. You want to collect all the facts and what helps is asking yourself this question: What exactly is the challenge that I am facing? If you can it’s best to write it down to open your subconscious mind to receive solutions. Writing down things is always more powerful and enlightening than just going over them in your head.
Try to take a neutral and objective role in describing the problem. You can imagine being an observer, looking at it from the outside, as if you are watching a movie. That will help you to stay in a calm and positive mindset that will help you to discover possible next steps and solutions.
And that moves us to Step 4.
4th Step: Select
After you have brainstormed on all the possible solutions that you can think of and that are acceptable to you, you want to pick the one that speaks to you the most and is achievable. So ask yourself the question: Which solution is the easiest and most likely to succeed? How can I best solve my problems?
So create an order for the solutions from the best to the least likely to succeed or most difficult to implement. that will help you to make a decision and move forwards. When you are ready to move forwards, let’s talk about Step 5.
5th Step: Actions
As you can imagine, the last step of this method and solving a problem is to take action. We want to go ahead and follow the solution that we select in step 4. Here are a few tips that will help you to take action and keep going.
The first few times you apply this method are the most important. They will feel more difficult and clunky and it will be the hardest time to break that cycle. But like with everything it will get easier the more often, you do it until it becomes more natural to you.
So how could you make sure that you do use the method in the first place by making sure that you are checking in with yourself if you are currently in one of those loops. You can put post-its in areas where you see it several times per day to remind you to stop and assess. Or you set yourself reminders on your phone or computer for you to stop and check-in.
Don’t let this happen by chance. Because it won’t be likely to work like that. Set the intention to change and become a problem-solving expert.
So to recap what you learned today:
Great, you are all ready to go with this 5 Step Method. I wish you all the best and I believe in you. You can do it!
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