Turning Problems Around
Have you noticed how much easier it is to notice something that’s wrong as opposed to noticing all the things that are just going along nicely?
Even more noticeable over the last couple of weeks as Election fever swept the nation.
Each politician in turn pointing out to us what was wrong with their opponents’ policies and records, rather than revealing what their triumphs and plans were.
I’m writing this before the results announcement but am intrigued with what the outcome might be.
People might tell you that we “must think positively”; however it’s actually a hard wired function of our brain to seek out what needs improving or fixing.
The intention behind that is not to be negative, rather efficient.
Imagine trying to keep a conscious awareness of everything that doesn’t need our attention and is fine.
Instead of trying to battle this inbuilt habit we can harness it and solve our problems in a creative and unusual way.
Let’s experiment with this.
First identify something in your life that needs improving.
As an example let’s use improving a relationship [1] with someone important.
Traditional thinking might lead you to ask yourself “What can I do to improve this relationship?”
Not a bad place to start and you will, of course, come up with some answers.
The likeliness is however, that they may not be particularly revolutionary of lots of them.
A more creative way to get the ideas flowing would be to ask the question;
“What would I need to do to REALLY mess up this relationship?”
Immediately you’ll notice a flow of answers.
They might include; completely ignore them, constantly insult them, do all the things that annoy them, take no interest in their life.
Now, if we left it there it wouldn’t be the best experiment in the world.
So this is the turning around bit.
[2]
Go back to each of your answers in turn and work out what the complete opposite would be.
Ask yourself what would be the absolute best way of ensuring this would never happen; and really go to town.
If the answer you’re turning around is “completely ignore them” don’t settle for “Don’t ignore them” think of something like “I’ll set aside an hour of quality time to talk to them every day”.
By all means don’t limit yourself to just one turn around per “problem” answer; keep going and going until you are brimming with genius ideas for catapulting the both of you into relationship heaven.
Have fun and let me know how you get on.
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