“If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.” Albert Einstein
How do you approach problems? Do you spend your time in a state of constant worry and doubt, or are you more of an optimist?
Interestingly, it takes just as much effort and energy to think negatively of a situation as it does to expect that situation to work.
In his seminal work ‘As a Man Thinketh’, James Allen stated, “the quality of a man’s thoughts can have a tremendous effect on his life.”
I agree as it took me a while to understand that moving away from disempowering questions like – why do I keep doing this to myself? or why this keeps happening to me to asking different and better questions has opened up possibilities way beyond my expectations.
Anthony Robbins, in a great little book called ‘Notes From A Friend,’ talks about a series of problem questions, morning questions and evening questions which he asks himself. They are excellent and a couple of these power questions are listed below:
a) What is great about this problem?
b) What is not perfect yet?
c) What am I willing to do to make it the way that I want it?
d) What did I learn or give today?
It takes patience and commitment to build a new habit of asking yourself these questions, but when you focus on solutions, you will think differently and get better answers.
Over the next ten days, notice what you think about most of the time and allow yourself to think differently by asking yourself better questions and I’m am sure you will reap the rewards of different and better results.
