Tag Archives: problem solving

Take on a New Life – 2 of 2

Posted on by

Having the new You reaching back and taking the old You by the hand and leading yourself out of the wilderness into the sunshine sounds really nice. It sounds so good it sounds almost like a fairy tale told to children. All the fairy tales in the world can not change one problem into a something else. Only the new You can make that change.

The old you was trapped in a life that no one, not even the old you wanted to live. It consisted of problems, despair and want. It was a life lived on a wasteland with no way out and no hope of making it better.

The New You reaching back and taking the Old You by the hand is going to change all that. The New You understands that life is made of choices and possibilities. The New You knows that making the same old choices does not create any new possibilities. The New You knows there are other ways to manage life, other choices to be made, and other ways to solve problems and make situations better.

The New You is open to fresh new choices and other possibilities. After all, looking around with new eyes it is possible to see that other people have problems in their lives too, but they manage their problems differently. The New You sees that there are other choices to be made, and the New You wants to explore those choices, and see what changes they make in the life of the Old You.

The New You knows that all the changes and fixes to bring the Old You out of your old life have always been there, the Old You was too busy doing everything the same way and expecting things to change. The New You knows that changing the way problems are handled will bring about new choices, and new choices bring about new opportunity.

The New You watches to see how others successfully manage the same problems the Old You can not manage. The New You knows they do not have all the answers, so copying the way other people manage life problems the Old You is struggling with will make those problems go away eventually.

The New You is eager to try new things, and see the world in a new way. The New You is going to be successful, because the New You has already done the hardest part of making life better for the Old You. The New You is taking their best friend by the hand and leading them into a new world the Old You never stopped long enough to look at.

The New You is not afraid of taking a risk, working towards a goal, and knowing that a quick fix is impossible. The New You is going to put in the time and work to make a better world for the Old You. The New You wants to lead you to a better life. All the Old You has to do is reach out and accept their hand.

The New You knows how to be a leader, how to be manager, how to plan for the future, and how to be your best friend. The New You wants a better life for the Old You. Are you willing to take the hand the New You is offering and start living a new life? The hardest part of taking the hand of the New You is accepting what you are doing is not working, and letting the New You show you what is possible for your life.

Share

Dancing Bears We Never See

Posted on by

I was reading about the Rihanna Umbrella nonsense about one of her songs with the evil lyrics the song contains. Someone has a wild imagination and too much time on their hands. There was a bright side to skimming the story though.

Reading that dribble led me to think about a trip to a park a few years back. I had taken two of my Grandsons to a park. I looked around at all the people at the park with their families enjoying the afternoon and enjoying being with each other, having fun. There were families who were at the park, but no having fun and definitely not enjoying each others company.

The youngest Grandchild’s focus was on perceived ‘Gang Bangers’ (his words). He thought the park was full of them to the exclusion of everyday families enjoying the nice weather, and warm lazy day we had. He was so focused on Gang Bangers real or imagined, he became anxious. This Grandson sure either we were going to be attacked because we weren’t part of a Gang, or a gunfight was going to break out at any second and we would be in the crossfire.

The other Grandson was pretty quiet for the most part. It took a little while to figure out why. He was enthralled with all the young, his age, women at the park. Those young Women were all he could see. He was oblivious to families, ‘Gang Bangers, and the afternoon.

Of course I noticed a few young men who could have been gang members, and I certainly noticed more than one or more pretty women. If the Grandkids noticed anything other than what they were focused on they did not mention it.

I am sure everybody reading this has watched at least one, “Men in Black” movie. The movie is loosely about aliens in New York, along with the alien airport situated among millions of New Yorker’s who never seem to have noticed. Those few who did notice had memories erased. The Men in Black were right there with their memory erasers, ensuring the secret did not get out.

I remember a watching video (maybe 2 if I have them mixed up) where you are told to watch how many times a basketball ball is passed back and forth in a group setting. After the video is over, you read a Dancing Bear waltzed through the group, and myself like most people do not see it. I had to watch the video a number of times because when I was not focusing on the ball being passed, it was incredible how obvious it was.

In a recent movie where Jeff Bridges plays a worn out Country Singer who finds something good for once. Along the way, Bridge’s character loses a four year old boy in a mall setting. Out of desperation he informs mall security, and the first question mall security asked is, “What was the boy wearing?” Of course Jeff’s character did not know, he was focused on the boy and not his clothes until that moment.

Speaking of credibility, the net is also full of documented cases of how poor we are when it comes to being an eye witness. If you find that idea odd, think about someone close to you, and what they were wearing the last time you saw them.

Why this happens is to keep us from being overwhelmed by everything happening around us. We create an idea of how everything should be and that is what we see. In the example of the people passing the ball back and forth we do not expect to see someone in a bear suit dancing through the group, so we do not. What clothes someone is wearing are not as important as what their expression is, or how and what they are saying, so we block it out.

This idea really has me wondering how much happens around us that we never notice because it is something we do not expect to see. Maybe those few moments in our life where we witness something we can not explain, an apparition, ghost, monster, whatever it is, maybe they are more common than we think. Maybe because we do not expect to see anything unusual we do not?

The same applies to what some of us read. Two people can read the same small book, and one person struggles to get through it, while the second person another wonders if they ever really will get through the book with all the amazing insight the pages contain.

The same idea also applies to our world and our problems. We see our problems the way we have always seen them. We solve them in whatever manner we have always solved problems. It works so why change it.

What would happen if when the next problem happens, we look for a Bear dancing through the center? You may not see a Bear, but when the same type of problems repeat over and over like a television rerun, perhaps trying to see it as if you have never had the problem before will help you see it in a new way?

Maybe after seeing the problem in a new way, a new solution will be found and the problem will go away for good? Maybe better yet, looking for the dancing bear in the problem may lead to the realization that the problem is not a problem at all, but rather an opportunity?

A problem turning into a dancing bear situation is definitely something we are not used to seeing. Perhaps we need to start looking for the dancing bear. Who knows where it will lead if we solve a few problems and then start looking for dancing bears other places.

Share

Challenge and Change Your Boundaries

Posted on by

Frustrating days are long hard days. Starting with the alarm clock, and ending with a groan or moan hoping to sleep, trying to forget how bad today was. We all have these days, no one is excluded. Some of us however seem to have more of them than the rest of us do. For an unfortunate few, it is their lot that they have more bad days than good. For most of us fortunately, more than the occasional bad day is our own fault, and not the world plotting against us.

We live our life with a certain level of expectation. Personal boundaries are set by those expectations. Some of those boundaries we aren’t even aware we are setting. Our normal response to any situation is what our preset expectation is.

Pretend you have to be somewhere over ten miles away between seven and nine o’clock in the morning. how do do you feel about it? Do you feel apprehensive, do you feel frustration and mild anger start to simmer at the thought?

Unless it is the second day of a three day national holiday, there will always be a lot of people trying to get somewhere the same time you are. Set your boundaries aside, accept this as normal knowing everyone else feels the same frustrations, and be done with it.

Challenge those boundaries you have set in your life. Most of our boundaries are self imposed. We set up conditions, and fence in our life with our expectations. Our expectations play out every day day, which further reinforces our expectations. A self fulfilling loop is created in which many of us live.

Changing too much at one time is a sure fire way to have your fears come true. Changing too much and failing makes it easy to fall back into the same old patterns. Why try to change your whole world in one fell swoop? Pick one difficult moment of your day, and choose to approach that moment differently.

Think about one event in your day you want to change for the better. Smile while thinking about the moment. Smiling helps you feel and think differently. Even if your smile feels false, keep smiling for a few seconds – while thinking about how to handle the event differently.

It may help if you sing a few words of a happy song while thinking. Occupying your brain with other things allows your thinking to change from your normal limited patterns. Let negativity go, and let some sunshine in. A few moments of smiling, singing while thinking will lead you to new ideas for old problems.

Doing this is no different than going on a long walk, sitting in a quiet place, or exercising. You are changing your focus while looking for an alternative way to make a moment more pleasant and positive.

After some time has passed, it may suddenly dawn on you that you haven’t had a bad day in weeks. In fact it might almost be disturbing wondering what is wrong because everything is going so well. What has really happened is you have developed new ways of looking at problems, and created new tools to make what used to be uncomfortable situations comfortable.

With practice, smiling, humming, or singing a happy song, or feeling happy thoughts while thinking about one problem in your day will help your mind start thinking about problems differently. You will find you are reaching out, moving your personal boundaries farther away from you instead of pulling them in around you. People around you will start to be different too. They will be happier because you are helping them while you help yourself. Share what you are doing with others, and get them involved too.

Share

Solve a Crossword Puzzle

Posted on by

I wrote a post about how playing logic or puzzle games help in making better life decisions. If you are a successful game player you make good decisions. One decision leads a second decision, and then a third decision, to the end. Games like logic puzzles or chess have distinct points where if another choice had been made, the outcome of the game would have been different.

Solving a Crossword Puzzle is about guessing correct words left to right and up and down. While this sounds like it would make a puzzle harder, it helps make the puzzle easier to solve. Sometimes solving the clue is easier as a word I can fill in going across makes the word in the up and down direction easier to guess. Of course the opposite is also true.

I like to guess across clues first, filling in words that I know are correct. With online puzzles, correct letters are black, and wrong letters are red. When I end up at the last across clue, I go to the top of the puzzle and start with the clues for the down words.

I find it is easier to guess more down words because the across words give me hints as to whether the word I am thinking of is correct or not. If the clue is: Sport With a Ball, see if any letters of the across words are filled in. Having even one letter, helps decide whether the word is Tennis, Basketball, Soccer. If a down letter is a K, guessing ‘basketball’ is a easy because of the letter K.

Plural clues also hold secrets. If a clue is plural, for example: “Red birds”, the answer will also be plural, perhaps, ‘Robbins’. On the other hand if the the clue is not plural, say the clue is: “Firehouse Dog”, the word usually will be singular such as ‘Dalmatian‘, and not ‘Dalmatians’.

Google search result

Google search result

For the easier puzzles, clues and answers are pretty direct. As in my examples, word answers have a direct relationship with clues. In more difficult puzzles this is not true. Puzzle creators will mix up direct clue and answer relationships with vague indirect relationships. For example a clue, ‘water bird’, may turn out to be, ‘duckboat‘, and not ‘woodduck‘.

Another good trick is how we spell words. You do not know the answer, but looking at the letters you have helps. While you may not know the word, you know certain letter combinations go together. For example at the beginning of a word you have a blank space followed by the letters TR. Think about what letters generally are used before letters TR. Generally they are the letter S, or a vowel, maybe an A. Guessing what letter usually is next to a letter or few letters helps you solve clues you may not otherwise get.

Letters above or below the word you are trying to guess helps too. For example you think the correct word for a clue is, ‘fishing‘. It fits the spaces you have for the words, and it is the only word you can think of for the clue. When you place the letters in the boxes in your mind you notice that the letter below the S in fishing is an X. There is a chance either the word, ‘fishing’ is the wrong word, or the word with X is not a word. It is possible the S and X is an acronym, or letters of a phrase or organization.

Days of the week are also important. I find with major newspaper puzzles, Monday puzzles are the easiest to solve and Sunday puzzles are beyond my current skills. If you have never done crossword puzzles before don’t give up, and don’t be hard on yourself. I found crossword puzzles get easier with time and practice. Search the internet for easy puzzles when starting out.

Doing at least one puzzle a day helps a lot. Your brain has to dust off wiring you may not have used in a long time. As you use that part of your brain more, you will get better. Your local library, book store, or the internet are great resources.

Look for the dictionary, and games sections in the library or bookstore. Crossword dictionaries are for crossword puzzles and are similar to regular dictionaries but without definitions. Instead these dictionaries have lists of different words and may have the word you want. Books available that provide more help in learning how to solve crossword puzzles than I have listed here. Don’t forget the internet, search engines are our friends.

Trying to solve crossword puzzles can seem intimidating when you first start. You are presented with a box of squares and clues that seem impossible to answer. Life is like this, we have a few obtuse clues and a bunch of empty squares we are not sure what to do with. Playing crossword puzzles helps you solve those empty life squares too.

Share

Life’s Problems Simple Solutions Guide

Posted on by

If you ever have the opportunity to hear a child negotiate for something, take a few minutes and really listen without being obvious about it. Children know valuable lessons about negotiation that we as adults have forgotten. Children when negotiating adults use the rule of three, which I too am very fond of.

The rule of three is a very good rule and has many uses. If you are not using it for problem solving, now is a good time to start. We all have problems in our life. Or perhaps it is better to say small issues arise in our life that we did not create. Whether it is the alignment of the moon and stars, or Monday morning traffic, or Murphy’s Law something is never too far away from occurring that we will need to fix.

Most of our encounters with problems happen for one of two reasons. We are repeating the same pattern over and over while expecting a different result, or we are experiencing something new in our life. When we experience something new in our life we do not have a lot of experience with it. So it is normal that problems can and do occur. Being ready for problems makes them smaller and helps us resolve them faster.

When starting something new in life, it generally should be done is stages. This is true whether is starting college, going to a first job, or dating. There is always a defined starting point for something new, and of course this is where a first problem has an opportunity to happen.

problemsTo make problems smaller, and make them go away quickly we need a plan. A plan is simply thinking about possibilities before they happen. Your plan does not have to be elaborate, and it should not be complicated. Making a plan for each stage of your new endeavor and identifying potential problems and solutions before they occur can be the difference between a bump in your path or a serious setback.

Knowing what problems may occur should be a given in everyones life. When starting something new, if you do not have enough experience to know what problems could occur, ask someone else who may have experience in that area of their life. Ask others what problems have they experienced or observed. When someone mentions a problem that could be a problem for you, ask them what their solution was, and how their solution worked.

When starting something new that is important to you, jot down a sequence of milestones you want to see happen. Each milestone is a place where problems can happen. As you write out each milestone jot down any situations that could happen that could keep you from your goal as you think of them.

Now you have a good idea of your goals along the way and what problems can occur. Identify what you feel may be the top three problems. Decide how you will resolve each problem you have identified. It does not matter whether what you identified is serious or not, the process or the doing is what is important.

You are truly ready to go after your goal. You have your milestones laid out, and potential problems identified. If a problem pops up, hopefully you already have thought ahead and you have a solution in place. You have just turned a problem into a non-issue because you can introduce your solution immediately and the problem can be resolved almost as soon as it happens.

Practicing identifying, milestones, problems, and solutions to potential problems before they occur helps life flow the way you want it to. While it is not possible to foresee everything, as time goes by, you will develop a keen insight into your life and where it is going.

Share

Little boxes of bad memories

Posted on by

Little boxes, Malvina Reynolds sings about them, and most of have at least one among our possessions. We like boxes because they are a nice safe place to store those things we wish to keep. We keep all sorts of knick knacks, books, small items, and memorabilia in little boxes. And as Malvina Reynolds sings about somewhat irreverently, we live in them, one type or another.

What about those other little boxes though? Those little boxes inside us that we store things in? Some of us store memories that we do not want to lose. Some of us store memories in little boxes that we do not want to remember. Sometimes those little boxes fall out of their storage space, and then what do we do? We have whatever we were storing in that particular little box overlayed on what is going on in the present.

These little boxes in our memories fall open on the floor of our minds at the worst posible times. We are deep into conversation with someone important to us, something is said, and just like magic, a little box falls out on the floor spilling its contents all over the floor. Suddenly our past comes rushing in to remind us what happened once upon a time. Hopefully it is a good memory, but sometimes it is not. The contents in that box, we thought we put away where we would never see it again, and in an instant it is out on the floor. Poisoning our thoughts with something that happened before, that we thought we had boxed up and put away.

What makes these situations hard, is we are no longer acting in the present, but we are acting in the present on past memories. Past memories that happened when we were probably a different person than we are now or we viewed the world differently than we do now. It is hard to be objective in times like these because those past memories show up and feel just like they happened yesterday.

If you have never cleared out your stash of little boxes, there is never a better time than right now to go through them all and let those little boxes of bad memories go. They can not do you any good, and they fall off the shelf at the worst possible times. Make some time in your day today and start cleaning up your stash of little boxes. This will make some room for a few big boxes you can fill with happy thoughts and memories, and you won’t have to hide them in the closets of your mind!

Technorati Tags: , , ,

Share