Problem solving

As a student you are likely to be involved with a wide range of activities on campus, at work, in your home and with your friends. At times during these activities challenges or problems will arise. Often you would resolve these automatically, however sometimes you may experience a significant problem which you find difficult to solve as quickly or as automatically as you may under other circumstances.

The aim of this resource is to assist you to develop the skills you need to become an effective problem solver when facing challenging or difficult situations.

What is problem solving?

Problem solving is a process and skill that you develop over time to be used when needing to solve immediate problems in order to achieve a goal.

“Problems are to the mind what exercise is to the muscles, they toughen and make strong.”
Norman Vincent Peale

“Every problem has a gift for you in your hands.”
Richard Bach

Do you have a problem in your life right now?

If so, maybe these six quick tips can help you solve a little easier.

1. First, ask yourself: Is there really a problem?

Often created problems in our own heads – as I said a bit a few days things can be easier than you think – they are not out there in reality. So relax a little. And to think if this is really a big problem.

Is it something that matters in 5 years? Or even in 5 weeks? Life becomes so less stressful when you stop making mounds mountain (or just nothing).

2. Accept it.

By accepting that the problem exists and stop resisting then also fail to put more energy into the problem and “feed.”

Now there’s only (well, more or less, you can still feel a bit down about it). You can use the energy that has fueled the problem – the energy that probably made the problem seem bigger than it was – to find creative solutions to the challenge.

3. Ask for help.

You can ask people for advice on what to do and what they did in similar situations. But you can also ask for more practical help. You do not have to solve all the problems on their own and sometimes it feels better to have someone by your side, even if only for emotional support.

If you just ask people may often be willing to help.

4. Use 80 percent of their time to find solutions.

And only 20 percent, to complain, worry and complain. You can not always be easy, but focusing your energy, time and thoughts in this way is much better for you and others to do the opposite.

5. Divide the problem into smaller parts.

Solve a problem that can sometimes seem overwhelming and impossible. To reduce anxiety and think more clearly the problem of breaking down. Identify the different parts that compose it. Then to find a practical solution that can take for each of the parties. Use the solutions.

They can not solve the problem immediately. But these solutions can start and could solve some parts of it.

6. Find the opportunity and / or lesson in the problem.

I found there is almost always a positive side to a problem. We may alert a great way to improve our business relationships. O teach us how our lives are perhaps not as bad as we thought.

Find the most positive part of the problem is reducing its negative emotional impact. You can even start to see the situation as a great opportunity for you.

When you are faced with a problem, ask yourself:

What’s good about this?
What I can learn from this?
What I can find hidden opportunities within this problem?

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Question (s):

Written by: Martin Winkler
First version: July 22, 2008. Last reviewed: 24 Aug 2008.
How I can learn to solve my problems? What troubleshooting techniques do you recommend? Dscribe a systematic approach to solving problems.
Answer:
One of the most effective strategies to improve the quality of life of a client is a systematic approach to problem solving

At the beginning of any psychotherapy, clients often expect the therapist to find the answer to all possible problems in life. However, in the course of therapy clients learn to find their own solutions to their problems. He or she must use previous experiences in life and adapt the strategies used to find appropriate solutions in a structured and systematic problem-solving strategies.

It is always a useful approach for thinking about success strategies for the problems in the past. Prepare to adapt the techniques useful for solving problems with new developments!

Here is one of many possible models for solving problems.

1. Identifying the problem What is my concern?
2. Defining objectives What I want to achieve or change?
3. Brainstorming What I can do?
4. What consequences could happen?
5. How do I make decisions?
6. Application Do it!
7. Evaluation Did it work?

These seven simple steps can be applied to almost all kinds of problems in life. Let’s get into details with a problem in one of my clients:

Daniel is a patient of 52 years with depression and panic attacks. One of the main problems was leaving home to go for a walk or consult your doctor or therapist.

1. Problem Identification

Try to give an accurate description of their problems. You should try to focus on the behaviors or skills deficit.

2. Defining objectives

You should try to establish a precise objective of their efforts. This should be a realistic target for improvement (not “want to feel better”). Ask yourself: “What I want to change or accomplish in this time”

3. Brainstorm / Generate alternatives.

Try to think of every possible way to achieve your goal. Think about successful ways to solve problems or achieve their goals in the past. Use your creativity and not restricted in any way. Even absurd or unusual shapes worth considering.

Write all the alternatives on a sheet of paper!

4. Consider all the consequences.

Now is the time to think about the positive or negative consequences of all possible alternatives. Think of any difficulties finding or approaches.

This step can be divided into sub-steps:

1. What are the benefits? It is better to look before you see the advantages disadvantages, because if you start looking at the disadvantages that may come as Dissillusioned you can not think of the benefits.
2. Whare are the risks, which need to be careful, what problems can occur?
3. How do you feel intuitively about the alternatives?

5. Make your choice of an alternative possible!

It is important to make a clear choice and set a time limit for an attempt to reach your goal.

6. Do (Implementation of decision)

Do not worry about success. And just see what happens …

7. Evaluation

Now is the time to see what happened. If you have been successful: Fantastic! You should think of a reward for your efforts!

This is known as the problem of reduction.

Using the problem of reduction decreases the number of solutions you need.

For the remaining problems, consider at least two solutions altertaive.

For example, if your problem is the cost of living than their income, there are two obvious solutions …. increase revenue or decrease your cost of living.

At this point, make a list of alternative solutions for each solution.

For example, to the “increased income” solution, you could:

(A) Get a better job

(B) to rob a bank

(C) Start an internet company

(D) Buy a lottery ticket

(E) Get a second job

You should try to arrive at least 10 possible solutions.

Next, assess the likelihood of success for each solution. For example, winning the lottery is about 1 in 20 million chance. Low probability. Robbing a bank is likely to land in jail. Eventually may run out of solutions with high probability, which means that anyone adding some of the solutions to the list, or go to the other category … reduce the cost of living.

In this category you can reach at least ten ways to reduce spending. But then, considering the likelihood of success of each. How many times have you disconnected your cable service to save money, only when restoring the good fight of the day, on HBO?

The problem with the problem here is that eventually some bank will send a credit card, and you will solve your problem by running up more debt.

That was resolved when another bank sends you a new credit card, so you can “balance transfer” card debt old to new.

One could, of course, go bankrupt, which is the way to the United States to start over, that the banks want to make it more difficult to do since everyone is using their credit cards to solve the problem of income is not sufficient to cover expenses.

Imagine arriving on the eve of a credit card rather than an apple.

CONCLUSION

The ability to identify and solve problems started with a monkey falling limb. What we have achieved over 2 million years of evolution in problem solving is to invent new members to fall.

An essential step to find out what a problem is to determine who was upset about something and what that something is. For example, if your spouse is annoying you come home at 3 am, it is easy to identify who and why.

Another approach is to identify what is working well. For example, if you turn the switch in your home and you do not receive the light, your problem is the lack of electricity.

Unfortunately, many people are unable to detect the simplest definition of a problem.

A problem is always defined as the most obvious thing.

With this approach:

The best solution is always the most obvious thing too.

This has been expressed as the KISS principal – keep it simple and stupid.

One of the most common solutions to situations of human beings face is to find lost objects.
<> “I lost my car keys.” A clear statement of the problem, instead of “I can not get my car started.”

Keys, and most other objects obey the laws of gravity, which means it does not move by themselves. So lost, must be brought to the point of being lost.

I had a friend who lost a $ 20,000 check box to bearer on demand. A serious problem if there ever was one. Therefore suggested that the person to go back where they were sure they had the check (the bank) and retrace their movements to the point where they realized the check was lost. This took some argument. However, once the person started in the fall, they found the check, which had fallen into a folder and was lying on the ground. Gravity. Unfortunately, I have not had a rate of retention.

Another friend, when faced with the destruction of something, immediately jumps to the conclusion that someone else is responsible. “My cleaning lady must have stolen stamps.” No. The labels are simply lost. When the location of the seals returned on the last possession that was presented exactly where it had set, and forgotten. Cleaning lady not to participate.

The loss of things always identified another problem … one keeps losing things. There is an obvious solution, putting things in the same place all the time.

Unless one has a really good memory, random distribution of elements as one of the keys to the car constantly produce the result that the keys are “lost.”

However, the laying random things (usually lost), is the kind of problem that only a consultant work. How many spouses have tried to tell his counterparts of this solution, in vain? That becomes another problem, eventually leading to divorce. You have to pay someone to take this advice.

As you can see, the simple problem of losing the keys one at a time often results in another State of Problem Solving:

Cascade solutions to the conflict.

Which brings us to the last question in the resolution of problems …. if the problem still unresolved?

Knowing that solutions to the problems of creating more problems, falling into conflict, one has to sit down and decide whether or not to overlook the initial problem.

This is extremely difficult to do because human beings are wired to identify and solve problems. That’s why humans invented computer games that are playable on Apples.

Many people have spent thousands of dollars to learn an essential ingredient for a happy life …. to say “not my problem.”

So your husband always forgets that he or she put the car keys. So what? Never, never offer to help solve this problem. Not your problem.

The only time to address another problem is when you hire to do it. Therefore, the aim of using problem solving to maximize employment. This is the highest form of evolution of human intelligence. Or perhaps the lowest, since this art is usually practiced by the government.

Problem solving is one of those skills that supposedly distinguishes humans from other animals. Although many creatures can solve problems, and some even use tools, humans are the only creatures that invent new technologies to solve problems.

For example, the problem of getting from point A to point B faster than you can walk. For thousands of years humans could just go anywhere was to walk. Then someone went to a horse, and stayed long enough to realize that the horse ran faster than a person, and could go somewhere very fast. But the solution was not much different than a flea hitching a ride on a cat to go somewhere faster. So this was not a technological solution.

But one day someone decided horses had certain limitations, such as a temper at times, and invented the steam engine, and then the train. These were the technological innovations that created the problem then the problem of trains running on school buses in the railroad crossings.

So with many other examples of solutions to the problems by creating more problems to solve, create the first rule of troubleshooting:

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The solution to a problem will create more new problems.

The best example of the first rule is the car, which was created to replace the horse. We can go much further and faster in the car on a horse, but we had to spend huge amounts of money building better roads for cars, and created a new opportunity for people to cheat each other in the sale and repair of cars.

When faced with a problem to solve, the central issue is to identify all the other problems will be created with the solution. Rarely does anyone do this. Witness the invention of the atomic bomb. The problem to solve in the time of a drop of 2 million tons of bombs on Japan, using the fewest number of aircraft to achieve this goal. Before the bomb, it took 1,000 B-29 to drop 200,000 tons of munitions on a Japanese city. The atomic bomb allowed a plane to do the work of 1000. That was until the thought was in July 1945, when he took the decision to nuke Hiroshima and three Japanese cities.

Little to no account of the atomic bombs that could someday be put into a bag and delivered by Federal Express to a city.

The really competent troubleshooter examine any potential extrapolations of the solution, and identify some new problems to be created with the solution. Done properly, this provision of the problems resulting maintain full troubleshooter job for life, because the solution simply beget other problems to solve.

The problem with having only two seats for the year on computers that leads to the Y2K problem is a spectacular example of solving a big problem and create employment opportunities for people to solve problems resulting from the end of civilization as know it.

Therefore, the second rule of problem solving:

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The solution to a problem must maximize employment.

Humans probably first problem they face, prompting the evolution of intelligence, was staying in the trees. The reason most of us have nightmares about falling is that our ancestors fell from the trees a lot. We were the monkeys that were not good to sleep in the extremities. So we had to survive in the soil, with all the saber-toothed tigers and unpleasant.

At the time we realized we were stuck in the ground, we have the problem of survival. Food, for example. How can you kill a mammoth? A group of people chasing the mammoth of a cliff. Imagine an old problem solver trying to convince his tribe to hunt down a bug many times its size?

old problems were easily resolved. Need food? Bash something with a rock. Need accommodation? Find a cave.

But as humans evolved, like the complexity of our problems. The smartest became, the more problems we have been able to understand. What is known is that developed in the first place … intelligence to identify more problems, or the existence of more problems that require the evolution of intelligence to be aware of them.

Out of the rain or snow to sleep evolved from a cave seeking to buy a house in the right area and get a good mortgage.

And with the growing number of problems, also came to the increasing number of alternatives. Therefore, the choice of which solution to apply to the problem became the problem.

Consider the story of Adam and Eve. This is a story about problem solving and intelligence. When Eve ate the apple, which solves a problem and took the risk. The message here is not that Eve ate the apple, but the snake told him no, and she did it anyway. Consider the snake as a metaphor for intelligence. Understanding the consequences of their action. Humans fell from grace of the animals do not think about the consequences of their actions, in wisdom, where we do. Or perhaps we have evolved beyond the animal consciousness that sees the problems and alternative solutions.

Always witty, man invented the consultant to determine not only what the problems to be solved, but that the solution applied to the problem.

Obviously, the caveman did not hire a consultant to find ways to kill a mammoth. But we can not solve a problem today without hiring the consultant to define the problem, all parties interested in the problem, environmental and social impacts of alternative solutions, and that is the best solution in a growing number of variables.

Therefore, an increasing number of human beings to solve their food and housing, helping other human beings in defining problems and analyzing alternative solutions. God must be funny in this evolutionary progress. Moreover, the snake was probably the first consultant.

When to use problem solving

You can problem solve anytime you experience a challenge or have a goal to achieve. You can use the problem solving model to look for solutions to concerns connected with your study or other aspects of your life. You can take the problem solving steps by yourself, with a friend or others. Problem solving with others is often very effective because you have access to a wide variety of viewpoints and potential solutions. The problem solving model is a useful resource for you to utilise in all aspects of your life and when dealing with challenging situations.

A seven-step problem solving cycle

There are many different ways to solve a problem, however all ways involve a series of steps.

The following is a seven-step problem solving model:

Step 1. Identify the problem

Firstly you need to identify and name the problem so that you can find an appropriate solution. You may not be clear of what the problem is or feel anxious/confused about what is getting in the way of your goals. Try talking to others, as this may help you identify the problem.

Step 2. Explore the problem

When you are clear about what the problem is you need to think about from different angles. You can ask yourself questions such as:

• How is this problem affecting me?
• How is it affecting others?
• Who else experiences this problem?
• What do they do about it?

Seeing the problem in different ways is likely to help you find an effective solution.

Step 3. Set goals

Once you have thought about the problem from different angles you can identify your goals. What is it that you want to achieve? Sometimes you may become frustrated by a problem and forget to think about what you want to achieve. For example, you might become ill, struggle to complete a number of assignments on time and feel so unmotivated that you let due dates pass.

• Improve your health?
• Increase your time management skills?
• Complete the assignments to the best of your ability?
• Finish the assignments as soon as possible?

If you decide your goal is to improve your health, that will lead to different solutions to those linked with the goal of completing your assignments as soon as possible. One goal may lead you to a doctor and another may lead you to apply for extensions for your assignments. So working out your goals is a vital part of the problem solving process.

Step 4. Look at Alternatives

When you have decided what your goal/s is you need to look for possible solutions. The more possible solutions you find the more likely it is that you will be able to discover an effective solution. You can brain-storm for ideas. The purpose of brain-storming is to collect together a long list of possibilities. It does not matter whether the ideas are useful or practical or manageable: just write down the ideas as they come into your head. Some of the best solutions arise from creative thinking during brain-storming. You can also seek ideas about possible solutions by talking to others. The aim is to collect as many alternative solutions as possible.

Step 5. Select a possible solution

From the list of possible solutions you can sort out which are most relevant to your situation and which are realistic and manageable. You can do this by predicting the outcomes for possible solutions and also checking with other people what they think the outcomes may be. When you have explored the consequences, you can use this information to identify the solution which is most relevant to you and is likely to have the best outcomes for your situation.

Step 6. Implement a possible solution

Once you have selected a possible solution you are ready to put it into action. You will need to have energy and motivation to do this because implementing the solution may take some time and effort. You can prepare yourself to implement the solution by planning when and how you will do it, whether you talk with others about it, and what rewards you will give yourself when you have done it.

Step 7. Evaluate

Just because you have implemented the best possible solution, you may not have automatically solved your problem, so evaluating the effectiveness of your solution is very important. You can ask yourself (and others) :

• How effective was that solution?
• Did it achieve what I wanted?
• What consequences did it have on my situation?

If the solution was successful in helping you solve your problem and reach your goal, then you know that you have effectively solved your problem. If you feel dissatisfied with the result, then you can begin the steps again.