Think in Solutions, Not Problems

I am not a huge believer in problems. I don’t think they really exist.

To me, a problem is simply a solution that hasn’t been discovered or implemented yet.

We go through this life facing obstacles and traumas and tragedies and pain. They are all either born from a problem, are a problem or create a problem. But if we can learn how to view them less as problems and more as solutions that are waiting for us, we can learn to work the 3 feet in front of us instead of fearing the 100 feet around us.

Here’s a story:

Back in 2011, I joined my local fire department as a volunteer.

I took every class I could to be as prepared as I could for any call that came our way: EMT, CDL, Fire Class x4, Instructor courses, you name it.

But at the end of the day, there is no script for any call that comes in. Every single one differs by some degree and pretending you know exactly what to expect can get you killed. I won’t sugarcoat that.

As a result, as firefighters, we have to think in solutions and not in problems.

There was one call where a girl had hit a tree and flipped her car over, landing on the roof in the middle of the main road with her dog inside. It was a Saturday afternoon so everyone and their grandmother responded to the call.

Usually we say scenes are controlled chaos, but this one was literally just chaos.

The girl couldn’t get out of her car because her seat belt was stuck so she was hanging upside down, the dog did get out of the car (unharmed) but was running around the street, traffic was piling up, and the entirety of the fire department responded so we had a bunch of engines and people surrounding the car needing jobs.

As I stood on the side of the road I realized there were two ways to approach this:

→ I could either take stock of all the ongoing problems or

→ I could think in solutions and start figuring out what needed to be done.

Which one do you think was more productive?

As I looked around, I saw someone trying to get a tool off the truck so I went and helped him. Then I saw fluids coming out of the car so I went and got Speedi Dry to soak it up. I saw people trying to get closer to the scene so I set up caution tape to keep them at a safe distance.

Eventually we got the girl down and transported, we got the dog leashed, we got the car towed, we got the scene cleaned up, and we got an all clear.

The Takeaway:

Instead of thinking about all the things that were going wrong, I shifted my perspective to seeing all the things I could solve.

And this allowed me to bridge the gap between inaction and action. Thinking in problems will never bridge that gap.

Here are some tips to think in solutions:

1. Find the puzzle piece. The most intriguing part about thinking in solutions is that it can be a puzzle and you have to find the missing piece. It becomes a game, it becomes the fun kind of challenge instead of the scary kind of challenge. All these problems, where is that solution - where is that missing puzzle piece? Find the piece and win.

2. Reel in the panic. The times that we tend to resort to thinking in problems is when we are pressured or panicked, where our anxiety may get the best of us and all we can think about is our demise. It’s critical that we reel in this panic, and ironically, we can do that just by shifting our mindset to thinking about the things we can control versus the things we cannot. I can’t control the people getting out of their cars to see the accident but I can control putting up caution tape to keep them at bay.

3. Work in “3 feets”. Focusing on what we can do right here right now can remove all the extra stuff we don’t need to worry about. Look at the 3 feet in front of you instead of the 100 feet around you and you’ll start to see solutions immediately.

Going down a spiral of this is wrong and this is wrong gets you nowhere. But being able to think in thoughts of this is what I can do and this is what I can do will get you to “knowhere”.

Next time you are in the midst of a challenge, don’t think about all the problems it brings.

Think about all the solutions it brings.

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