Stop Looking for Tactics. Start Looking for Thoughts.
Every week, I talk to my clients about their problems.
Their problems come in a lot of shapes and sizes.
There are bad business processes, screaming toddlers, longwinded colleagues, confusing decisions, and roommates you just want to throw out of a window.
And here is the first thing my clients always want to ask (and what my brain always wants to ask, too, when I’m facing my own problems):
What do I need to DO to solve this problem?
How do I get my toddler to get ready in the morning? How do I fix our sprint planning process? How do I fall asleep quickly at night? How do I stick to my plan? Just give me the steps and I’ll do them!
Because here’s the sequence of events that your brain thinks will happen:
Find the right steps → Solve the problem → Feel better
But my friends! You have the sequence of events wrong.
The problem is not hard to solve.
Your thoughts ABOUT the problem are MAKING it hard to solve.
What are your thoughts about the problem?
Do they sound like:
This is hard. This is complicated. I’ve never done this before. I don’t have the time. I don’t have the energy. This needs a LOT of effort. This probably won’t work.
How do you feel when you think those thoughts?
Anxious? Defeated? Resigned?
Guess what, my friends. You are not going to come up with a good plan when you’re feeling that way.
And even if I could give you the perfect plan, you will not implement it very well when you’re feeling this way.
When you have your “this is hard” sunglasses on, it’s very hard for you to find proof to the contrary.
Your brain is very good at confirming its own stories, and it’s going to confirm this one too.
Your thoughts about the problem will become their own self-fulfilling prophecy.
Not through magic. Just through this simple sequence of events:
Thoughts cause feelings.
Feelings drive actions.
Actions create results.
Trying to solve a problem while thinking these thoughts and feeling these feelings, is like trying to drive with your parking brake on. You can do it. You might even make some progress.
But you are making it a lot harder for yourself than you need to be.
(And knowing you, my incredibly smart and talented friends, you have already made a LOT of progress in your life despite these thoughts. Imagine what you could do if you took the restraints off.)
The first thing you need to ask yourself when you’re tackling a problem is NOT “What do I need to do?”
It is “What do I need to think, and how do I need to feel?”
Because here’s the real sequence of events:
Feel better → Find the right steps → Solve the problem
And luckily (so luckily!!), your feelings come from your thoughts.
You don’t have to wait for any external circumstance to happen.
You don’t need more time, or a better boss, or an easier kid, or a clean house, or a different team, or any other external factor.
You need to decide how you want to think about the problem.
You need to try on different thoughts and see what feelings they generate—what feelings lead to your most clear-headed, focused, insightful problem-solving.
And then you need to pick up and put on the most helpful thoughts again and again, on purpose, until the problem is solved.
Here are some of the helpful thoughts my clients came up with this week:
This is normal. This is temporary. We’re going to solve this once and for all. This is just a process problem. This is what I do best. I know I can figure this out.
What are yours?
PS: Don’t want to do this work on your own? Want me right there with you, pointing out your current thoughts, brainstorming new ones, and figuring out how to actually implement them consistently? Then get in here and let me teach you how.
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