Every Hopeless Situation Has At Least Two Solutions

I once met a man who taught me a precious lesson: ”Every hopeless situation has at least two solutions.”

When I first heard it, I was in a lot of pain from a torn ACL in my left knee, and the gentleman was my doctor.

Medical doctors don’t usually talk like some sort of gurus. But he was no ordinary doctor and a brilliant man.

I’ll tell you how I healed my knee in some other post because this was quite a journey. But this concept, this maxim about hopeless situations always having at least two solutions, was one of the first things I learned in self-development as an adult.

I had read Dale Carnegie’s How to Stop Worrying and Start Living as a teenager. But then I didn’t pick up on self-education again until I was 30. Anyway…

Let’s ponder this statement for a minute. Let me ask you, are you finding yourself in a seemingly hopeless situation right now, as we speak?

If so, I assure you – the situation you’re in has solutions that you are overlooking for one reason or another. Let me offer you three tips on how to begin seeing some real solutions.

In Order to Break the Board, You Must Aim Past the Board

I’m sure you’ve seen dauntless karatekas break boards with their bare hands. I’ve done this, too, when taking tae-kwon-do. The concept is simple – you hit the board with your palm, fist, or ridge of your hand, and it breaks, hopefully.

Many students fail, however. They pluck up all their courage and confidence and hit the board with all their might. Nothing doing. The hand just thumps against the wood.

What is their mistake? They could be too weak, that is true, but that is not usually the case. The problem is that they want to hit the board. They aim at it.

But this leads them to exert all the power on the surface of the board. And in order to break it, you must aim at least an inch beyond it, perhaps a few inches. This way, your mind will drive your hand right past the obstacle that is the board and into the space beyond it.

Do the same with your problem. If you have to pay a bill that is overdue, and you think to yourself, “How am I going to pay it?”, then you’re focusing on the board, and your power remains untapped.

Instead, ask yourself, “How can I make sure that I not only pay this bill but set up my work life so that I never have to worry about any bills ever again?”

This is now a totally different ballgame. The implications are different. The solutions it warrants are different. Chances are, while working on answering this question, paying the one bill you’ve been worried about will seem like a piece of cake. You’ll laugh at yourself.

Talk to Someone

Ridiculously simple as it sounds, when we are stressed out, we turn small problems into these huge monsters. Stress is a professional scaremonger. Its job is to keep you paralyzed and, when you are, you overlook the simplest and the most obvious things.

Stress is a professional scaremonger.

Inviting another person’s perspective could be just the cure. It could be a friend or even a stranger, although I don’t necessarily recommend making therapists out of your friends or strangers.

Free counseling is usually available at colleges and other institutions. Just google “free counseling” or “free therapy,” and you’ll find some solution for free or at low cost.

A coach is a great bet, and even a half-decent coach can help you get one or two solutions in the course of one session. He can at least take your mind off the problem and on potential solutions.

Just talk to someone. Describe your situation and ask the simple and direct question: “What are some of the things I could do to get this handled?” You’ll be very surprised when multiple solutions start hitting you.

Get Yourself Out of the Problem Loop

When you’re stressed out, your mind tends to go in circles about one or, more often, multiple problems. This is just one of the qualities of the mind. It gets fixated on the negative.

This happens because fears are some of the strongest emotions we experience. We are just wired this way – throughout our evolution we’ve had to face the threats of death and inability to procreate.

And now your mind is linking your problem to those same threats: “Oh my god, if I don’t pay this bill, I’ll be kicked out of my apartment, my girl will leave me, and I might starve to death!”

Even if your conscious thoughts don’t sound like that, rest assured that your mind would love to take you in that direction of thinking.

Stop the loop. Every time you catch yourself thinking about the problem, say to yourself, “Okay, that is the problem. Now I need a solution. What are some of the solutions?”

And keep doing that every time you catch yourself being fixated on the problem. Do that multiple times a day, and the solutions will start jumping out at you.

To recap:

To start finding solutions, follow these tips:

• Aim beyond the board

• Talk to another person

• Get your mind out of the problem loop

Till next time,

Philip