Problems come in many different shapes and sizes. When we encounter various problems in our lives, we often respond to them based on our capability to handle them. For example, when you’re busy getting your laundry done and you realize you’re out of laundry detergent, you’ve encountered a very simple problem. You know all of the elements involved: you need detergent; you don’t have any. You also know the solution to the problem as well, which in this case would be going to the store to buy some more.
Yes, some problems are much more complex. Imagine that as you’re driving to the store, you hear a strange humming coming from your car and smoke begins to billow out of it. You end up experiencing an entirely different new type of problem. You know what the problem is, the car is smoking, but you actually don’t know exactly how to solve this problem.
When we hit problem areas that we are unable to immediately solve, we can find that we become extremely anxious or frustrated with the issue. Worse, if we aren’t even able to readily understand how to solve the problem, we might find ourselves becoming overwhelmed with the situation.
When a person becomes overwhelmed, they’ll often have trouble responding to it. Instead of beginning to go through the process of working their way through the problem, the feelings of being overwhelmed causes the individual to shut down in a manner of different ways. Perhaps you’ve experienced this too.
When overwhelmed, we can often:
– Grow angry with the situation and pointlessly rage about how things don’t work out
– Become filled with hopelessness and despair. This leads us to not even bother with the fixing of the problem
– Realize we don’t know the answer and grow afraid of the unknown, hesitating in handling it
– Grow apathetic due the complexity and refuse to face the situation head on.
– Put the thing off, hoping that eventually we’ll feel less overwhelmed but we never do.
If you’ve ever dealt with any of these symptoms when trying to solve a problem, you aren’t alone. Most people who have to deal with problems will encounter things that they feel are just far too big and complex for them to be able to solve.
Yet, why do we feel so overwhelmed when problems rear their heads? For things that we can readily solve, there isn’t much emotional turmoil. If you know how to change a tire and you have a spare, you might feel frustrated at the situation. But when you have a flat tire you aren’t overwhelmed because you are able to change the tire. So you kneel down, get the tools out and get to work because you aren’t overwhelmed with the situation.
Consequently, if you’re someone who has never changed a tire before and you are faced with the dilemma of changing the tire, what happens within us emotionally at that time? We begin to feel fear, frustration, confusion and hopelessness. Sometimes those feelings can actually be so strong that we don’t even get to work.
So what is the solution to dealing with the overwhelming sense of fear, confusion, anger or anxiety when dealing with a problem that seems bigger than us? Is it simply a matter of gaining experience in all fields? Is the best way to solve problems to just know about what the problem is ahead of time and have a solution prepared in advanced? No! Not at all. The Art of Problem Solving is conceptual in nature.
This means that if you learn the process and the concepts of how to solve problems, you can apply them to just about any situation and it will serve you better. You don’t have to be prepared for every single problem in your life to be able to solve them. Realistically, you can’t really be prepared for all the obstacles that will come in your way because quite frankly, you don’t know what’s in store for you! A problem is frustrating because they usually show up uninvited and unexpected.
The good news, however, is that if you are able to understand why you feel overwhelmed when dealing with certain situations. You will be able to work through the feelings and become more capable of the task at hand. Good problem solving isn’t just about having a solution to the issue, rather it’s about having a process of approach, discovery and solution finding. So let’s focus right now on what’s known as the approach process, or essentially learning how to sum up the situation at hand.
