Most people do not truly understand that the key to wellness is effective problem solving. By increasing your knowledge of problem solving strategies, you will be able to solve your wellness challenges, reduce stress and take back control of your health and your life. In doing so, you will reduce your chances of getting seriously ill from chronic degenerative diseases, many of which are, caused by stress.
Below are 15 principles and practices of problem solving and change engineering. These 15 problem solving strategies should make a huge difference in your ability to solve all your wellness challenges.
- Always keep an open mind for new opportunities and ways of doing things. Stay flexible. Be willing to try out new scenarios and strategies. Never commit until you have tested several theories. Rigidity is a trap. If you cannot adapt, you cannot truly live.
- A solution is only as good as the color of your hat. Black Hat (negative) thinking is very important in solving problems, but it is not the only hat. Never forget there are five other hat colors and five other ways of looking at problems. (De Bono's Six Thinking Hats)
- Big-picture thinking is critical for solving problems. You must be able to remove yourself from the problem and look at the situation objectively. Get up in that helicopter and get an aerial view of the problem. Stepping outside the problem will make it much clearer than ever before.
- Always ask questions. You are just one person limited by the power of a single mind. To be truly inspired to solve problems well, you must harness the power of others' intelligence as well. Gather information, read books, do research and learn as much as you can.
- Stay focused. Do not allow yourself to get distracted. Taking on too much or spreading yourself too thin will destroy or at least significantly delay your success. Do one step at a time. Slow and steady wins the race (Aesop).
- Be realistic. Make sure your plans are not too far beyond your reach. Nothing will sabotage an attempt to solve a wellness challenge faster than making the problem too big. Blowing things out of proportion will ensure you never solve the problem.
- Follow through. Finish what you start. You are better off solving one wellness challenge successfully than to start but not finish solving 10 wellness challenges. The sense of accomplishment that you will feel just by getting to the end of the first wellness challenge will be worth it even if the solution is not yet perfect. You can always try again or dig a little deeper later on.
- Be thankful for what you have. Being envious of others success will never help you solve your wellness challenges. Remember that every person who seems successful always has their own set of wellness challenges to solve. There are few people who have achieved total wellness.
- Break it down into smaller pieces. How do you eat an apple? You eat an apple, one bite at a time. Start at the beginning and work to the end and the end will definitely come. Smaller is better when it comes to solving wellness challenges.
- Do not substitute one problem for another. Be careful as you work through your challenges that you do not accidentally create new problems in place of old ones. You have to deal with the whole problem not just pieces of it
- If something does not work, learn from it and move on. There is no point dwelling on the past or on failing. Nothing is ever a failure unless you do not learn from it. Edison, said, I have not failed 10,000 times; I have successfully found 10,000 ways that do not work.
- Celebrate your success and reward yourself as you go along. Do not wait until the end. We are human and we are weak. We have to give ourselves as many rewards as children in order to be able to solve problems effectively.
- Find cheerleaders to cheer you on and stay away from wellness thieves. Build a team of people around you who will help you move forward. Do not give your problem solving power to people who are jealous or scared.
- Never give up in the face of adversity. If it was easy to solve a wellness challenge, it would not be called a challenge. Keep going. Keep trying. Keep hoping. Keep learning. Remember every day is a fresh start.
- Expect your best from yourself. Never be so hard on yourself that you FORCE yourself to fail. But, at the same time, never be so easy on yourself that you ALLOW yourself to fail either. The goal is to keep up enough pressure to get the job done without falling to either extreme.
