What to do if you don't know how to solve a problem

Buddhist monks, known for their wisdom, say about problems in a person’s life: “Who can know what is bad luck and what is good?”

If you take a few minutes away from the string of affairs and worries and look around, you will notice that there are always two categories of people in our environment. Some people succeed in everything they try, while others are constantly concerned about how to solve a problem that arises in one or another area of ​​their life.

A problem is a message from the Universe

We dream of a day when there will be no problem left in our life. It seems like you can go crazy from their number. Problems in the family, in business, with children, health problems... Where to find a way out of this carousel, how to deal with the ups and downs of life that fate sends?

But there is no need to fight at all, just as there is no need to avoid such situations. Everything that happens in our lives does not happen just like that. In this form, the Universe sends us coded signs that are designed for us to ask ourselves:

• What part of my life is affected by this situation?
• What actions of mine could have become the root of these troubles?
• About my thoughts?
• About my lifestyle?
• About an alternative path that would be worth taking?

The most important thing that you should never do if you need to find a way out of a difficult situation is not to feel sorry for yourself and not to give up. If you do this, you will miss the most important message that is intended exclusively for you.

How to solve a problem

The main thing in solving a problem is to understand what it is and not give in to fears and anxiety. There's nothing worse than panicking and trying to change something you don't fully understand. This way you can ruin everything without finding any solution. We offer you some tips that will help you overcome many difficulties that arise during your work.

• If you feel like you are overreacting to an incident, try to calm down. What can help here? Go somewhere where you can relax, treat yourself to something nice, take a walk or something similar.
• Try to explain to someone you trust what happened. After discussing the problem, you will not only calm down, but you will also immediately discover some mistakes that you would not notice if you began to dialogue with yourself. Describe the chronology of events as accurately as possible. Do not miss any details, even minor ones, and most importantly, listen to the questions and comments of your interlocutor.
• If you are working on a team, be sure to discuss what happened with everyone on the team. Listen carefully to their point of view in order to compare with your considerations, pay attention to discrepancies in assessments. During such conversations, the cause of the problem is easily identified.
• When starting work, you probably made various assumptions and assumptions. Be sure to check that they are correct, especially for those parts of the plan where you experienced failure. We all tend to make assumptions without checking their truth. Troubles most often arise because we start from the wrong premises at the very beginning of our work.
• Having dealt with what is happening, do not rush to blame yourself or someone else for the failure. Finding someone to blame is unlikely to help find a constructive way out of a difficult situation. Direct all your efforts to get the most positive result possible in the current situation. Think about the best way to move forward and solve the problem quickly.
• Take the time to discuss everything with your team, internalize the lessons learned, and draw conclusions from them. What can I do to avoid this in the future? Don't assume that everyone, including you, will come to the right conclusion if you don't at least discuss what happened. The more concerned you are about a problem, the more important it is to draw conclusions and discuss them with your team.

Give up everything that doesn't work

Successful people know how to quickly figure out what doesn’t work and give up on an unsuccessful idea in time. Teachers and parents probably warned you how important it is to be able to quit a hopeless business - as long as you don't give up on your dream. Change the wrong tactics, give up the wrong path, but don’t give up on your dreams. Every day we make mistakes, as a result of which we understand what is effective and what is not. Mistakes, to a much greater extent than successes, help humanity develop.

As you work to achieve your dreams, prepare for the fact that everyone involved in the project will make mistakes. If you learn quickly, adjust your tactics, and begin to move forward more successfully, mistakes will turn out to be positive for you. Failing once does not mean failing completely. But the inability to take into account negative experiences and change behavior certainly leads to failure.

It is also important to pay attention to what problems you usually encounter. Suppose that from time to time you use the wrong tactics, but have not yet realized this and, accordingly, have not drawn any conclusions. If you feel like the same problem is happening over and over again, or if you see a pattern in a series of troubles, then you haven't noticed or recognized the repeating mistakes. If so, try to apply the problem-solving techniques we recommend and reflect on how you approach things in general. Talk to other people and, as soon as you understand what you are doing wrong, stop doing it. As Albert Einstein said, “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a new result is insanity.”

Don't be afraid to change your approach to work and see what happens. Most often, no radical changes are required: small improvements lead to great results and increase the chances of success.

Don't give up on your dream

Don't give up on your dream just because you're faced with a problem and don't know what to do now. Be patient, both with yourself and with others. Give yourself time to understand what is happening. Jonas Salk* said: “There is no such thing as failure, only a lack of perseverance.”

*Jonas Salk (1914–1995) - American researcher, virologist; known as the developer of the first polio vaccine. Note ed.

As you work towards your dream and learn more, you will begin to have a better idea of ​​the outcome and a clearer vision of how to achieve your goal. We strongly advise you to adjust your map whenever you learn something new and important. Refining your map and defining your dreams more clearly is great practice. But giving up a dream halfway is no good. By doing this, you will only increase your own fears, undermine your self-confidence, and then it will become more difficult to develop. The more often you give up on your goals, the less likely it is that you will be able to achieve any of what you dream of.

How do I know if I'm doing everything right?

You can understand that everything is going as it should, that you are persistent enough and are successfully coping with problems:

• You talk calmly about the problems you face.
  When you are calm, you work through a problem from a rational rather than an emotional point of view and are more likely to find the optimal solution.
• You don't lose your sense of humor.
  If you are still able to laugh at your own mistakes, this means that you have accepted them, drawn conclusions and moved on.
• You understand well what you need to do differently now to avoid problems like the one you just encountered.
  You can't wait to continue working on making your dreams come true.
• As problems arise, you feel more and more confident
  and no longer doubt that you can cope with them.
• The same problem does not occur over and over again.
  Even if difficulties appear, they can be considered new.

See also: What's your problem? © R. Newton. From words to action! 9 steps to making your dreams come true. — M.: Mann, Ivanov and Ferber, 2014. © Published with permission of the publisher

When we write “problem” we mean “opportunity”

Do you want to know how strong people solve problems? They believe in themselves and look for opportunities in any situation, and believe me, they always exist.

My friend was in a very difficult situation when her common-law husband left her. The situation is banal to the point of disgrace: the rival turned out to be more attractive than the bored woman who devoted herself entirely to her family and their two common children.

Elena was left without money, without a profession, without the slightest prospects even for tomorrow. The only thing that kept her from going crazy was that the children demanded attention and care. It was even impossible to cry in front of them, because then quiet tears turned into a friendly choir of sobbing soloists.

By telling herself that every problem is just an opportunity, Elena found a way out of her predicament.

She reflected on her life and realized: in her family, and in the family of her parents, she always had to be dependent. She was constantly told what she should do and how to act in a given situation.

The soft and indecisive Elena had severely low self-esteem. She promised herself that for the sake of her children she would definitely stand on her feet and gain self-confidence.

While forced to stay at home, back in that “former” life, Elena learned to make amazingly beautiful flower arrangements, marked by impeccable taste. Friends and acquaintances always asked her to help with the design of family holidays.

Now Lena decided to get a job as a simple worker in a flower shop. At the same time, she persistently worked on her outlook on life and self-esteem. Now my friend is the owner of a small but well-established flower business, and her design skills are used not only at home parties and are paid very well.

Happiness in his personal life was not long in coming, Elena’s husband is a very kind and kind-hearted person, mutual understanding reigns in their family. Now my friend gives advice on how strong people solve problems.

Sources of problems

Challenges are obstacles and difficulties that must be overcome in order to achieve a goal. As a rule, they arise for various reasons and are often the result of our own mistakes and failures. There are several factors that usually lead to problems. To identify them as early as possible, we advise you to regularly ask yourself the questions listed below.

• Am I really doing what I need to do and getting results?
  There is no point in deceiving yourself by evaluating your work unreasonably positively. Do you see real, measurable results from the work you undertake? Very often we do not achieve our goals and encounter problems because we are not fully immersed in our work. But if you allow yourself to be lazy and indulge your weaknesses, you are unlikely to make serious progress towards your dream, and problems cannot be avoided either.
• Do I understand what resources will be needed to take the next step?

When we start working on our dreams, we don’t have a complete idea of ​​what exactly we will need along the way. Therefore, you should constantly ask yourself what resources will be needed in the next step. Most often we miss some details at the very beginning - and it is important that everything you need is at hand at the right time, and not sometime later.

• Do the people who help me and work with me understand well what needs to be done, what we have already achieved and how the situation has changed?
  Almost always, the weakest link in a project is communication between participants. For some reason, we think that those around us fully understand us, although often we do not even give them complete information about what we expect from them. In our opinion, they know the same thing as we do, therefore, in general, everything is known and understandable. We believe that colleagues and partners know how the situation is changing and what needs to be done in the new conditions. It is very, very important to check and double-check that everyone knows and understands everything, especially if you feel that communication between participants is poor. This way you can avoid at least some problems. The fewer assumptions you make, the better the information will be conveyed about what is truly important and relevant.
• Am I developing paranoia?
  Some people think too much about what might happen. Sometimes we want to avoid failure or mistakes so badly that the thought of it completely paralyzes us. And in general, if you think a lot about potential troubles, you can provoke problems that would not have arisen with a more calm attitude to what is happening. Fear of failure often prevents you from giving your best to your dreams. So don’t let yourself worry too much and think about possible difficulties, better work harder!

Who managed to overcome the problem

The famous American brain power researcher John Kehoe gives in his books an example of how different people turn difficult situations into good:

• US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, unable to cope without a wheelchair, led the country out of the “Great Depression.” He couldn't even sit on his own because he suffered from paraplegia.
• Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke, who served four terms in office, was previously forced to struggle with alcohol addiction.
• Olympic champion Wilma Rudolph, not only was born into a very poor black family, but also suffered from polio at the age of 10. Vilma thought she was going crazy, reality was so unfair to her. Faith in the best and optimism took their toll, and the girl won three Olympic gold medals.
• • The famous runner of the nineties Gail Devers, a few weeks before her performance at the Barcelona Olympics, was suddenly covered with terrible ulcers from head to toe.
  After a long search for the cause, it turned out that this was a rare disease that threatened the girl with amputation of her feet. Gail decided to fight to the end, and a couple of days before the scheduled operation, the disease suddenly subsided. The girl won the 100-meter race at the games in Spain, and four years later became the Olympic champion in Atlanta.

All of these examples of how strong people solve problems have one thing in common. They all believed that these troubles only made them stronger and, in some cases, even better than they could have been.

If you think carefully, everyone can find many such examples in their family or in their immediate environment, among colleagues and acquaintances.

For better problem solving, don't rush your thinking process.

Many people assume that they simply need to think more when they are faced with a difficult decision or when they are trying to solve a difficult problem.

But focusing more intensely won't produce that "eureka moment" you need.

Instead, your best option may be to move away from your problems and do something unrelated to the project.

Give your brain time to solve the problem. You will be amazed by the results. When you stop thinking about a task, your brain continues to work on the problem in the background.

“To solve a problem creatively, to gain insight, our brains tend to avoid visual distractions, physically block out information, and look somewhere else. You don't want to overload your mind with visual information because you want to focus on yourself, and you end up in "offline mode" where you're very thoughtful," says Carola Salvi, an Italian researcher at the Creative Brain Lab at Northwestern University.

Give your brain the opportunity to reorganize the problem and come up with a better solution. And when you have an insightful moment—when a solution comes out of nowhere—you have to trust it because it's probably the right decision.

How to Solve Problems: Final Thoughts

Problems are inevitable. In every situation, consider all options, no matter how unimportant they are at the time. Keep an open mind.

In any situation that calls for better solutions, explore your options, question basic assumptions, use better systems, create new approaches, rethink normal boundaries, give your brain a better chance to incubate, and work backwards to notice patterns you usually ignore .

If you get stuck, move away from your desk. Take a walk, take a bath, sleep, bake a cake, draw, listen to music, exercise; Whatever you do, don't sit there frowning at the problem.

• 8 habits of brilliant people

Unpredictability of earthquakes

scienceline.org
Humanity has learned to predict hurricanes and other weather disasters days or even months before they occur. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about earthquakes. Every year, thousands of people are killed, injured or lost due to earthquakes and subsequent tsunamis.

The development of devices that scan the earth's crust and programs for processing the resulting data will help warn about these disasters in advance. Programmers and researchers are already working Neural Network for Earthquake Prediction Based on Automatic Clustering in Indonesia on neural networks that, in theory, can predict the occurrence of earthquakes. For example, Indonesian scientists have created a neural network that can predict the occurrence of aftershocks after earthquakes. So far, she has been best able to predict tremors with a magnitude of six or more.

The problem of war and peace

As humanity developed, the destructiveness and lethality of the weapons it used also grew. If during the Civil War in the United States (1861 - 1865) 620 thousand people died, then about 10 million people became victims of the First World War (1914 - 1919). During the Second World War (1939 - 1945), more than 60 million people were killed, and atomic weapons were used for the first time. Since then, the leading powers of the world have not directly clashed in military conflicts, limiting themselves to proxy wars. However, if a war does happen between major countries, its consequences will affect the entire globe.

The use of nuclear weapons can lead to a “nuclear winter” effect, that is, a sharp global cooling. As a result, most of humanity will die. Moreover, today atomic bombs are already in service in 9 countries of the world, and even more states can, if they wish, join the nuclear club.

But even a war without the use of thermonuclear bombs threatens humanity. Hydroelectric and nuclear power plants, space satellites, the Internet and other infrastructure critical to life may come under attack. As a result of a major military conflict, there will be a sharp decline in the standard of living throughout the world, and social tension will increase.

To solve this problem, it is necessary to increase trust between states and take into account the objective interests of all political players when considering international crises. Countries also enter into agreements to ban the use and development of certain types of weapons, and nuclear states seek to control the spread of nuclear technology.

Energy storage

fortune.com
People are learning to get more and more energy from renewable sources. Wind generators and solar panels are becoming cheaper, but they have a serious disadvantage: when the sun goes down or the wind stops blowing, they don't work.

This is one of the reasons why humanity cannot yet abandon more stable sources - coal and natural gas. We need to find a way to store energy on a large scale. So much so that you can power a metropolis all night, for example. Modern batteries are not very suitable for this, at least because of their high cost.

Demography

If in 1927 there were 2 billion people living on Earth, then by the end of the 20th century the population grew to 6 billion. As a result, the anthropogenic load on the planet increases. At the same time, the possibilities of the Earth are unlimited, and therefore too large a population simply will not be able to feed themselves and will be doomed to live in poverty and hunger. In this regard, today the concept of birth control, in which the state encourages a relatively small number of children in marriage, is becoming widespread.

On the other hand, birth control creates new problems. A number of countries are already faced with population depopulation (reduction in population), as well as population aging. As a result, their economy experiences a labor shortage and their pension system becomes unstable.

There must be problems! What for?

I am the kind of person that if you ask me a question to which I don’t know the answer, I will answer that I don’t know. But believe me, I know how to find this answer, and I will find it. Isn't that the main thing? Chris Garden, millionaire From the above, we can conclude that problems are simply necessary. Is this so? Personally, I believe that all kinds of difficulties are an incentive for development and personal growth. Just think, when everything is fine with a person, he has some income, albeit not much, but it is enough for life, life goes on calmly and measuredly, then you don’t want to change anything. Perhaps he understands that he can do better, but there is no incentive to act, there is no problem that would force him to drop everything, turn on his brain and work. While reading business books, I very often came across an interesting fact that most millionaires, at the very beginning of their journey, had nothing, they were faced with a colossal problem, with the need to develop and achieve success or be left with nothing on the street. A problem can be both a stimulus for development and a burden pulling you to the bottom. It all depends on your perception and desire to solve the difficulties that arise.

What to do about the problem?

First, you must accept the problem, realize that it exists and needs to be solved. Secondly, we must realize that the problem is not a dead end, it is only a door behind which there will be new opportunities and prospects for development. When you accept a problem, this does not mean that you need to give up, hang your nose and complain about how bad and unfair everything is. Don't attract negativity to yourself. On the contrary, each new problem should be perceived with sporting interest, a desire to solve it and see what will happen next, how your life will change, what colors will paint your gray everyday life. If you change your attitude towards difficulties, then believe me that you will live completely differently, new thoughts, new ideas and opportunities will appear, the world will begin to change. And most importantly, do not panic if some situation arises that you do not understand. A couple of years ago I read a statement by the Dalai Lama that became a household word for me. I was always very upset and upset if I encountered difficulties, but then I realized that with my behavior I was only aggravating the problem. If the problem can be resolved, there is no need to worry about it. If a problem is insoluble, there is no point in worrying about it Dalai Lama

Underdevelopment of developing countries

It has long been noted that wealth in the world is distributed unevenly. Most developed and prosperous countries are located in the north (Europe, North America, Japan), while the southern states are mostly disadvantaged. At the same time, the level of inequality in the world is only increasing. Thus, the incomes of the 500 richest people on Earth are equal to the incomes of the 420 million poorest people in the world.

The consequence of such an uneven distribution of wealth is migration flows directed from the South to the North. Europe is facing record numbers of migrants from Africa and Asia. At the same time, the feeling of injustice in the distribution of income increases anti-American and anti-Western sentiments, and also provides the basis for the development of extremist ideologies that exploit interreligious, interracial and interethnic hatred.

This problem could be solved through direct financial assistance to lagging countries from developed countries. However, today its scale is extremely small. Moreover, due to high corruption, a significant part of it ends up in the pockets of officials of lagging states and does not reach the bulk of the population.

WHAT TO THANK PROBLEMS FOR?

Our life is cyclical. This is how everything works in nature: day gives way to night, summer to autumn, youth to maturity. Likewise, in our psyche there is a need for alternation. There are periods of calm, joy, contentment. But each of us knows that if we stay in them for a long time, then:

• calm turns into boredom
• joy gives way to satiety,
• and contentment turns into melancholy.

And then we want something new in order to get at least a little out of balance and begin to fight again so that peace and security are restored.

As paradoxical as it may sound, we should be grateful for our problems and troubles. After all, crises, troubles, changes in our lives happen so that we have the opportunity to learn something new, to become a little different .

But the trouble is that some people do not know how to use crises and problems for development . They are afraid of problems and spend a lot of effort and energy trying to avoid them, and ultimately avoid changes in themselves. But, as a rule, it is not possible to completely avoid problems, and then we most often react to crisis or difficult situations with a set of our previous behavior patterns, a set of our existing stereotypes.

As a result:

• or the crisis is difficult to overcome,
• or we are still forced to make some new decision for ourselves.

Ecological problems

Human activity leads to the release of huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which leads to an increase in the average temperature on the planet, the melting of glaciers and an increase in the level of the World Ocean, and an increase in desert areas. The problem is compounded by so-called positive feedback loops. For example, rising temperatures cause ice in the Arctic to melt, which reduces the Earth's reflectivity and leads to even greater heating of the planet. Thus, at some point, even completely eliminating carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere will not stop the continued rise in temperature.

However, global warming is not the only environmental problem. You can also note the depletion of the ozone layer, acid rain, loss of biodiversity due to extinction of species, and pollution of the world's oceans.

To prevent an environmental disaster, it is necessary to limit the release of carbon dioxide and other substances into the atmosphere. An example is the Kyoto Protocol, concluded in 1997.

How to find a problem in a literary text

It is more difficult to find a problem in a literary style text than in a journalistic style text, because the author does not openly name the problem in artistic texts.

It is hidden behind the description of the behavior and speech of the characters, their thoughts and relationships.

Therefore, the problem in artistic style texts is determined through the analysis of the characters.

What should you pay attention to when analyzing a literary text?

- For the plot.

— On the characters (appearance, behavior, speech, dialogues).

— On the author’s attitude (writes with joy or indignation, with admiration or condemnation..).

Taking into account these features of a literary text, a different algorithm for identifying the problem should be used.

Algorithm for identifying a problem in a literary text

1. Analyze the behavior and speech of the characters.
2. Look at what nouns the author uses to name the human qualities inherent in the characters of the text (kindness, mercy, duty, conscience, cruelty, arrogance, cowardice, etc.).
3. Pay attention to which adjectives define these qualities (positive or negative).
4. Formulate the problem using the information received.

For example, in text No. 12 L.F. Voronkova “The second hour of waiting was coming to an end when Zhenya finally entered her father’s office...” the writer cites a rather interesting case from the life of the daughter of the chairman of a state farm, who, after her father spoke at a village festival in front of young people, decides to stay in the village and go to work on the farm.

The father invites his daughter to go to study at a pedagogical institute.

Zhenya endlessly respects her father, so she was greatly stunned when, in a conversation with her about her future profession, he said: “... I didn’t make my speech for you.”

In a conversation with his daughter, the father first drank water, which indicates his excitement, and began to talk “softly and sincerely” in a velvety voice.

Getting agitated, seeing that Zhenya did not accept his arguments, he slammed his hand on the table, and at the end of the conversation asked him to think again, “quickly left the office” and left by car on business.

“A feeling of unheard-of disappointment stunned the girl,” and she, not noticing anything around, reached the lake.

And only by the water did she calm down, she realized that her father “really wants a better life for her,” but he “gave her the right to choose, did not forbid her, did not insist on his will, but told her to think again.”

Based on the analysis of the characters’ actions, speech and the author’s characteristics of the characters’ feelings during and after the conversation, the following problems can be formulated:

1) The problem of choosing a life path. 2) The problem of parents understanding the child’s happiness. 3) The problem of misunderstanding between representatives of different generations. 4) The problem of people's duplicity.

The Unified State Examination is often accompanied by great anxiety among graduates, and then some schoolchildren cannot decide on a specific problem, the position of the author and the main idea of ​​the text.

In this case, you can use our life hacks that will allow you to correctly identify the problem with the text.