How to solve the problems you encounter along your journey

Everyone who attempts to change their behavior will experience a plateau at some point, these moments can be quite demoralizing. You might recall feeling stuck at some stage or may even be feeling stuck right now.

The first thing to remember is this is a normal part of any process of change particularly when you are trying to drive yourself.

write down some of the thoughts and feelings you have when you feel stuck. Okay, so what do we do when we are stuck ?.

Well, lucky for you psychologists have a strategy for you to use we call it structured problem solving . You might notice something about that name. The word structure.

The structure aspect is actually the most important part of the problem-solving process. So, let me describe this structure to you and then you can use the structure yourself to get things moving again.

There are three steps in this structure and the rule is you have to do each one in order, you can't start the next step until you have completely finished the step that you are currently on.

As we go through this, I'm going to ask you to write down on the worksheet each step as we go you might see that the first space on the sheet lets you write down every problem large or small you can think of that you have at the moment.

I've provided a couple of examples to get you started such as getting enough sleep, managing your finances, and of course eating and exercise but go ahead and write down everything you can think of make the list as long as you like in fact you can use the back of the page if you want.

So, now in our structured problem solving, we come to Step One defining the problem

This means putting the problem in your own words, and describing it as carefully and in as much specific detail as you can, and here is the most important rule of the first step.

There can only be one problem. You may have a number of issues going on that you are concerned about but for now you need to pick just one also don’t you worry it doesn't even have to be the biggest problem, in fact it just needs to be the problem that you want to work on first.

So, take a look at that list of problems you wrote down and pick one. just one that you'd like to work on first. In the space on the worksheet that says.

Next, I'd like you to describe the problem carefully. what is this problem ?, what exactly makes it a problem for you ?.

Okay, once you've written the problem out as clearly and carefully as you can, only then can we move to step two.

Brainstorming Possible Solutions

A word about brainstorming before we begin, brainstorming is a spontaneous activity. The most important rule of brainstorming is there are no bad ideas, don't judge or criticize any of the ideas you come up with.

You're also welcome to get ideas from other sources such as other people or even online. All we are doing is casting as wide a net as possible to catch as many ideas as possible, don't eliminate any ideas as they come up even if they seem wild or crazy or unrealistic.

Remember, that there are probably a lot of different ways to solve your problem and I want you to try to think of every single one.

Step three, Evaluating The Solutions

Although, numerous and varied Solutions exist there may be no one perfect solution to a problem. What you need to choose is the solution that is best for you and again for structure we have a couple of rules.

The first rule is one solution at a time

You will need to pick one and only one idea from your brainstorming list and start there, if you can see other ideas that you like then by all means keep them on your list but you need to do things one step at a time and that means you need to wait until you've really tried your first solution before you try the next one.

So, what I want you to do is go through your list of solutions and rank them in order from number one on down. Your ranking is the order in which you want to try these solutions . Remember, you are picking the solutions that are the best fit for you not anyone else.

You might choose for your number one a solution that is small and maybe doesn't solve the problem quickly or powerfully, but it might still be your favorite one because it's what you know you can manage right now.

When you have identified a solution as the one that's the best fit for you. Your number one , it's a good idea just before you put it into action to first picture yourself carrying it out consider what the effect will be.

Imagine how it might feel to take this step. Okay, can you imagine yourself doing it ?, are you ready ?

Go ahead and get started with number one on your list, above all be patient and remember that important problems take time to solve.

Thanks for reading. Looking after yourself will bring benefits not only to you but to the other people in your life. So, keep going, it's working remember to be kind to yourself along the way.

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