Problem-Solving By Learning a Song

So, like I said before, you can’t solve a problem if you don’t know what the problem actually is. There are a whole lot of guides floating around on the Internet about how to solve problems (here are a few), but there’s one thing they all have in common – “identify the problem” is Step 1. This will always be true of any problem that you are trying to solve. Take music, for example. You may be trying to learn a song on guitar. One way to learn it would be to listen to the whole thing and then try to play it back. But if the song is long or even a little bit difficult, you may not be able to do that.

It’s possible that if you listen to the whole song over and over again, eventually you’ll be able to play everything in the song. But chances are, you would instead try to learn the song piece by piece. You probably wouldn’t just try the whole thing and then say “this is hard” and call it a day. The better strategy would be to break the song down and identify which SPECIFIC parts are hard, so you can fix them.

“I don’t play guitar. Why should I care?”

Good question. This concept can be extended in many other ways, one of those ways being – relationships. Whether it’s with friends, with family, or with significant others, we have all seen problems come up in a relationship. And in all of those situations, identifying the problem is key to solving it. This is of course assuming that you want to have good relationships with the people that you care about.

Let’s say a friend says something that offends you, but instead of bringing it up, you decide in your head that you’re going to treat them differently because of it. Maybe you start distancing yourself from them, or maybe you decide to start being rude to them. You might be satisfied with that result, but that definitely didn’t solve the problem. The problem isn’t just that “they offended you”. If you just treat that as the problem, there aren’t many solutions. The real problem is the specific things that they said or did to offend you. When you treat those as the problem, then you can actually have a conversation with the other person and hopefully resolve your issues. In summary, until you address the specifics, the problem will not truly be solved.

Emotions Can Hinder Problem-Solving

It’s very easy to forget about this concept during conversation, especially in a heated conversation. You might be extremely upset at somebody because of something they did, and all you want to do is lash out at them and tell them about how bad of a person they are. But, as you can probably guess by now – that won’t solve the problem.

Even during anger, you have to remember to truly identify what the problem actually is. Or you can take a break and talk about it later, when you’re not angry and you can think straight. But you definitely don’t want to be talking in circles. You don’t want to start throwing insults and accusations and rude words. Sure, you might have valid reasons to be upset, and that’s ok. But simply being upset doesn’t usually allow for any real progress towards solving the problem. More often than not, you’ll end up disliking each other more, unless the issue is resolved the right way.

I’ve seen this happen countless times. People will change the problem to something different in their own minds because of the emotion of the situation – and it’s not always on purpose. Instead of the problem being specific, like I mentioned before, it becomes “he’s just an awful person, that’s the problem”. “She’s just crazy, that’s the problem”. If you just label someone as “crazy” or “awful”, then there’s no way to really address that. These emotions cloud our view of the person, and as a result they block us from seeing what the true problem is.

You’re going to have to dig deeper and ask “Why do you say he’s awful?” “What did he do?” “What makes her crazy?” “What’s the real problem here?” Those questions are the ones that will lead to progress.

Conclusion

So again, the goal with this article is to get one message across. Whenever you’re faced with a problem in your personal life, in your communication, or in your life in general: identify the problem. Truly identify it, try and get to the root cause of the issue. Then, you can get started with solving the problem. Assertiveness will help with problem-solving too – check out this post for some info about that. Let me know in the comments if this has been helpful!

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assertive | əˈsərdiv | adjective

boldly self-assured; confident without being aggressive; someone who is assertive behaves confidently and is not frightened to say what they want or believe

So in essence, being assertive is being confident. But it’s not only about being confident, it’s about using that confidence to assert yourself in different situations.

Why am I writing about this?

I’ve seen way too many people that have been negatively affected by a lack of assertiveness. My goal is to show people how understanding assertiveness will improve their lives.

Throughout my life people have come to me with different problems, different questions, different scenarios – and nine times out of ten, the way to fix it was being assertive. It could be an uncomfortable situation – someone was making someone else uncomfortable and they were afraid to speak up. It could be a relationship problem – the communication wasn’t as direct as it could have been, and that led to a bunch of unanswered questions and rampaging thoughts that eventually culminated in an emotional outburst.

People are definitely different. Some people are naturally loud, some are naturally quiet, some always speak their minds, some never do. But whatever your personality, however you carry yourself – assertiveness plays a part in your life in some way. An opportunity to be assertive will display itself somehow, and I want to help people recognize these opportunities and take advantage of them in order to improve their quality of life.

How can assertiveness be helpful?

Now, there are many different scenarios in which people have the opportunity to be assertive. I’ll touch on two before we’re done here. But definitely expect more articles about this topic. I believe assertiveness is one of the most important things I’ll talk about in this blog. It’s a huge part of the reason why I started the Thoughtversation in the first place.

1. Assertiveness improves self-worth

Self-worth is one “sphere of assertiveness”, if you will (here is a more in-depth article about it).Take apologizing, for example. Let’s say you’ve offended someone. We’ve all done this. We’ve all had to apologize, we’ve all been in the wrong before. In a situation like this, being assertive gives you the ability to navigate the situation in the best way possible.

Instead of immediately apologizing, try to find out what the problem is. Have a discussion, ask some probing questions. You’re not necessarily in the wrong just because someone else is upset. You should place enough value in yourself to want to resolve the situation rather than run from it. Consistently apologizing at the first sign of trouble is an indication that you’re devaluing your own opinions. Of course, there are plenty of times where an immediate apology is the best course of action. Sometimes you might want to wait a bit before you talk about it, especially when the situation is a little heated. But make sure that you don’t immediately apologize every single time. Choosing to apologize is so much better than apologizing out of obligation.

2. Assertiveness improves communication

This one can go all sorts of directions – communication with friends, family, romantic interests, coworkers, and even random people. But all of these situations are different and should be handled differently.

Here’s the key concept: “Don’t be afraid to say what you’re thinking”. It sounds so simple, right? But the reality is that this is a struggle for a whole lot of people. I’ll go deeper into this in the future (here’s the article), but you can try to apply this principle now. The next time you instinctively censor yourself when you have something to say, say it anyway. Even if you think it will be embarrassing. People generally have more respect for someone that isn’t afraid to speak their mind.

Now let’s be clear, this doesn’t mean to ALWAYS say what you’re thinking. That would not be the best idea, for obvious reasons. It just means to be in control over what you choose to say. Don’t let your fear silence you before anyone else even has the opportunity!

Conclusion

If you take anything away from this article, it should be the sentence from two paragraphs ago: Don’t be afraid to say what you’re thinking. You can use this if you want to summarize this article to a friend after you send them the link (hint hint).

But with that being said, hopefully you enjoyed the read. Stay tuned for more things like this, and also some things not like this. Assertiveness is part of the “Life Advice” category. Life Advice will be a big part of the Thoughtversation, but there will be plenty of other content too (see my Welcome Post for more detail). And, of course, all of it will be geared towards having a thoughtful conversation. You can join my mailing list here or at the bottom of this page to stay updated and receive bonus content.

Has this article helped you? What other ways can you be assertive? Please let me know in the comments below!

The post It’s All In Your Head: How Assertiveness Improves Your Life appeared first on Thoughtversation..