5 Simple Questions To Ask Before Coming Up With A Solution
Don’t tackle the problem just yet!
You know what my favorite class was in college? The Psychology of Human Error.
In other words: Why do people make mistakes?
This sounds like an easy thing to study. But it’s actually one of the most complex topics you can study. Why? When you break it down, mistakes rarely ever happen “just because.”
Think of some small mistake, like slipping on a banana peel. Who dropped the peel and didn’t notice it? Was the brand of garbage bags you chose for your office prone to breaking, letting the peel fall? Were your shoes starting to wear down, allowing you to slip much more easily? Is the flooring on your office not optimized for all types of shoes to have traction?
As you can see, a big mistake is often the result of several small inefficiencies, bad decisions, or negative mitigating factors. Dumb people don’t make dumb mistakes. More often than not, it’s perfectly smart people using bad systems or working with badly designed tools.
All this to say: Stop beating yourself up. Sometimes, sh*t is just broken.
This all comes together in the school of thought known as systems thinking. This is also deceptively simple: The system behind something is greater than the sum of it’s parts.
But it implies that we humans have a lot of power over our own outcomes. If you want to make better decisions, you can change your systems!
This involves a lot of questioning and a lot of self-knowledge. You have to be willing to admit that even small things can affect your larger process of decision making.
This does not mean you’re a weaker person because outside forces affect your decision process. It means you’re a human, in the universe, in this moment of time.
If you want to make the best decisions possible for yourself, you have to consider…
Have you eaten?
Yes, I know you’re not twelve years old. I don’t care. You should still think about the last time you ate (and what kind of food it was) before making a major decision.
Your body needs fuel to process things. But more accurately, if you’re so focused on fighting a hangover or the fullness you feel from Pizza Thursday, you’re not going to be in the best place to pick your next accountant.
That’s not to say that you have to be a 100% clean vegan to make the best decisions for yourself! I experienced a great surge in personal strength when I stopped being a vegetarian and started eating all kinds of meat again. For my experience, getting all the nutrients I needed with fewer food sources necessary made it much easier to focus.
Have you slept enough?
Sleep is a big deal. We can get tired of hearing about how sleep debt can affect a person, but the impact is still real. Sleep is one of the most important things you need to take into account when you’re making a big decision.
This isn’t just, “Oh, I get sleepy so that makes it harder to make decisions. Your emotional control and even the neurons themselves are threatened when you don’t get enough sleep. So if you’re not getting everything you need, take it into account before you make the leap into a big decision!
Does one choice lead to more comfort?
Just like error, this is something you need to take into account with absolutely no judgment on yourself.
Human beings are designed to seek out comfortable, good situations. Once we have a comfort zone, we want to keep it intact. That’s animal nature!
Sometimes we need to push through that instinct to bigger and greater things. But sometimes, it’s warning us against making stupid mistakes. What matters most is recognizing it and it’s possible impact on our lives.
Is something in this problem outside my control?
I must repeat: Sometimes sh*t is just broken.
If you’re facing a big problem that seems to have no good solution, you have to ask yourself just how much you can do to fix the situation at hand. Is there someone else you’re relying on that isn’t coming through? Do you need extra funding? Extra time? Is there something that needs to change but hasn’t?
This isn’t a reason to let yourself off the hook from anything you’d be able to do to help yourself. Be honest about what you can control. Then leap into action!
Unless…
Am I making a decision because I want to be in control?
For me, there’s always a compulsion to feel like I’m doing something. I want my choices to mean something. I never want to feel lazy.
I suspect that I’m not the only person with this urge. This isn’t the worst one to have, but it can sometimes trip people up when it comes time to make a decision. We never want to “wait and see.”
But the fact is, sometimes we need to wait and see. Sometimes the best option is to do nothing. Impatience is often the downfall of people who want to make a genuine difference in the world. So watch this “impact urge” and learn to work with it. Make good choices, not just choices.
Overall, the point of all these questions is to get you thinking about the decisions you make on a regular basis and what may be affecting them. Take everything into account!
Here’s one more thing to paint on your bedroom wall (which I love is becoming a meme!): Being affected by outside factors does not make you weak. It means that you’re human.
These questions are meant to help you determine what the outside factors affecting you may be. Even the choice of Pop Tarts vs. toast for breakfast can influence the choices you make every day. So do yourself a favor, and give your outside factors their due. Once you know them, you can conquer them.
