How to handle Problems Like a Pro

The 90/10 Rule

Since nothing is perfect in life, it helps to have a philosophy about how to look at problems. You aren’t going to be able to get away from problems so why not get a philosophy that allows you to absorb them and keep moving, staying in a happy, balanced and positive frame of mind. Let’s analyze the issue.

 

Perspective - 90% goes well

If you think about things in life you'll find that nine times out of ten or 90 percent of the time most things turn out okay, but 10 percent of the time things go haywire. It’s important to realize you don’t have to fall apart when they do and you don’t have to let it ruin your day. 

 

The problem 10%

I’m sure you’ve had experiences like this. A particular situation goes bad, then for some reason it seems like everything you do to fix it just makes it worse. Nothing seems to help, everything you do makes it worse and it soon becomes obvious that there's going to be no way of fixing it. Life isn’t perfect. Not everything turns out well and some problems just seem to refuse to be fixed. Of course you should do everything you can to correct it but if you can't fix it, you can't fix it.

Breaking down the 10% - Half of it’s your fault

If you analyze the 10% you'll usually discover that about 5% or half of the time what goes wrong is your fault. You can’t escape the blame. You messed up, but on the other hand it’s only 1 out 20 that comes back on you. Apologize or do whatever else you can to make it better. Then move on. 

 

The other 5% is somebody else's fault.

It might be caused by some institution, some situation outside of your control or another person. That 5% is it's somebody else's fault but the result is the same, it’s still a problem that impacts you. They messed up, you get hurt. If you are expecting perfection, justice and fairness out of life you have a real opportunity to get really upset. It’s not fair! You’re outraged! So what. It doesn’t help the situation.

 

Your choice

It’s a matter of what is more profitable for you to focus on, the 90% that goes well or the 10% problems. 

It’s a simple choice.  If something's gone wrong and it's not going to turn out right, you can either make yourself miserable spending your life focusing on it or instead focus on the other 9 things that went well.

 

Consider air travel...

If you fly a lot, one time out of ten you're probably going to have a bad flight, it’s unavoidable. Nine times out of ten it will probably go smoothly but eventually you’ll get one that goes bad. There will be a delay, bad weather, mechanical problem, or something else. You’ll be late, sit on the runway or even have a cancelled flight. It’s infuriating, it ruins your plans and sets off a domino effect of other problems. So what are you going to do? You can rant and rave all you want but it won’t change anything except increase your stress levels. However, if you step back and look on it with perspective, you’ll realize this was only once out of 10 flights and just decide it’s basically a price you pay for flying and shrug the annoyance off. Of course, sometimes you can have problems with several bad flights in a row, but over the long haul it evens out. 

When problems come, remember the 90/10 Rule, it will save you a lot of stress!

Make Friends with Change

Why The Lazy Fear Change

Most people resist change because the unknown is scary, frightening and intimidating. They like things the way they are. One thing they’re not looking for is more work and they hate the idea of anything that might lead to more work. They don’t want to be bothered, they want to get by with the minimum effort, they want to just shuffle through life. Even if unhappy they at least know where they are now.

They are fearful of what change would brining because they just naturally assume it’s going to turn out bad for them. But carrying that attitude is not healthy.

That’s not a winning attitude. 
This stubbornness holds them back and puts them in a position of perpetual resistance and constantly missing new opportunities. They don’t have much confidence, they don’t really want better things, so the idea of change seems unsettling.

The Big Problem
But there’s a real big problem with this approach and that’s because we aren’t stuck in one spot in one point in time, we are moving through life.

Everything is moving, changing and adjusting.

Your friends change, your kids grow older, your business evolves into other forms, the economy goes up and down and it never ends. Even the ground we stand on is spinning through space.

Make Friends With Change
Open yourself up. Change is part of life and unavoidable.  

With every change comes news opportunities however it may well create more possibilities for you than you’ve ever imagined. On the other hand it may save you from losing some of those things you have now but are destined to lose. For example, your company is gobbled up by a bigger company: everyone panics.  

However, with the new management team they may make changes that opens a bigger and better career path for you or because they bought the company it may save you from eventually losing your job because the company you were with was losing money and heading for bankruptcy.   

Sure it’s easier to just keep things the way they are. Unfortunately in this world things never stay the way they are. 

If you want to survive and prosper you would do well to decide to make friends with change.

Like A Dog Chasing It's Tail

The Point: To get you to realize you don’t have to be beat down and bullied by circumstances in your life.

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Don’t run from problems
Have you noticed in life that so many people are stuck in life because they won’t deal with their problems? They don’t seem to realize that… “Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.” 

They want to go to college but they never do. They don’t like living where they live but they never choose another spot and move. They’re not satisfied with their house but they never find another one or make any changes to the one they have. They hate their jobs but they never find something better. 

Why don’t you move?

I was in New York City riding and talking to a taxi driver one time and he was griping about every single thing relating to living in New York.  t was too crowded, the politicians were terrible, he hated driving a cab, it was a terrible place to live and raise a family, there’s no opportunity for him to move up, the air was polluted, people were abrupt and rude, and everything was a hassle.  Finally I said to him, “Why don’t you move?” The question shocked him. He turned around, looked at me, and said in total exasperation, “WHERE WOULD I GO!?”  

I answered to him “ANYWHERE!” 

As miserable as he was about being in New York City, anywhere else would have had to be an improvement. Once he had made that move he’d be in a better place to make a decision to see if there was another place he liked even better. When you’re caught in a losing cycle like that you’re wearing yourself out physically and mentally. You are accomplishing nothing. If you would just face the issue and take a step in some better direction you’d find your misery would start to evaporate.

That’s the only way he was going to solve his problems. If he was that miserable, he obviously needed to be somewhere else. He needed to start moving out of the miserable existence he was in towards a place where he could be happy. 

As long as he stayed where he was he’d be the same as a dog running round in circles chasing his tail!

That’s the kind of mental trap we we all fall into.

We get so frustrated we can only see the problems. We lose total sight of the solutions. We let ourselves be bullied by circumstances that we can change.

All the energy we spend fusing and fuming about what’s wrong is wasted energy. We stay frustrated and exhausted. But if we took just one step in a direction for solving the problem we would become energized and filled with hope. We would start focusing on solutions. We would start taking back control of our lives.

Don’t avoid problems, don’t let them overwhelm you…face them head on and stay in control of your life! 

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Feedback: Did I make the point, or is there a better way to illustrate this? Do you have a situation like this in your life that you need to deal with? Did this help you get some ideas about doing something about it?

Winners Win Anyway

You will be challenged.

In every phase of life, at every age, in every circumstance you will face challenges. It doesn’t matter if you're rich or poor, old, young, what country you come from, what faith, what background, what combination of good and bad or bad things have happened to you in your life. We all have been, and will be, facing challenges. 

As soon as you solve one problem another pops up…its always something.
You are going to have things happen that aren't perfect, that mess up your world, that you have to deal with. When they come into your life they bring a question: is this the one that causes you to give up? The answer to that comes back to your attitude, your toughness and your fighting spirit. 

When faced with challenges do you give in or do you fight?
Do you let them push you around or do you push them around? How much do you need to be backed up before you get your back to the wall and you come out fighting? How much does it take for you to turn on your fighting response… your “fight back” response? 

Success goes to the overcomers
In life, challenges come no matter what it is you want to do. It doesn’t matter what it is… fun things, hard things, work things, hobbies, big challenges….it doesn’t matter. In anything you want to do you're going to have challenges and things are only accomplished by overcoming. Most of these are unanticipated. So when these challenges come what is your response?

Are you going to fight or are you going to give in?
It's at time of the biggest challenge that people reveal who they are; if they can be trusted, if they're resilient, if they've got the fighting spirit, if they'll hang in there or if they mean business or dead serious, if they can be counted on to lead or are they weak, they're shallow, uncommitted, looking for an excuse, ready to run, ready to fold and give up just because something went wrong.

This is when you find out how bad you really want it
Unless you make your mind up, unless you want to do something bad enough to overcome the problems you'll never get anything done. Something will always come up that will give you a reason to quit. The people who win are the people who win “anyway” or in spite of things that go wrong along the way. It doesn’t matter what goes wrong. They find a way to win “anyway.”

They've got problems or maybe more problems than anybody else, but they stand and fight and the result is… win “anyway.”  

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Feedback: Isn’t it amazing that there is always something standing between you and every single thing you want to do?

The Eyes of the Lord

Feel all alone in the world? I know there are many times I do.

Do you ever feel that you have been abandoned, that for some reason you are being forced to go through some incredible problems and God is unaware?

Maybe he is preoccupied with some huge war on the other side of the earth, maybe a tidal wave or earthquake and he's forgotten about you?

Well, just like Apple has a saying "there's an app for that" it seems that in the Bible you'll find "there's a verse for that."

"For the eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His."
2 Chronicles 16:9

God is always watching. He does care. In addition, he will come to our aid and he will strongly support us.

The thing he's looking for is the attitude of the heart. At any given time in the world the vast ocean of humanity is busy trying to solve their own problems. They don't think they need God's help. They don't even really believe in God. They think they are self sufficient and can solve their own problems. The last thing they want is God meddling in their life. Because of this those who are trusting in God become very special to Him.

God has demonstrated his power and love for Israel by delivering them from the overwhelmingly powerful Ethiopians. Why did this happen? Because the Israelites relied on Him and called on Him for help.

However they decided they didn't need God's help with the next obstacle they ran into. King Asa decided he would just handle this one on his own. His heart had shifted from following God and being focused on what he wanted to what Asa wanted.  The result, God let him handle it on his own and the result was an unending series of more wars.

The lesson for us is clear - God is always watching.
He's paying attention to our hearts. He knows that when we follow our own desires and decide to go through life without his help the results will be bad. He can't support us when we are being selfish and self-centered.
But when we trust Him he can come strongly to our aid.

It won't always be on our time table. It won't always be in the way we wish.
He may delay things for a while to test us, to see if we'll keep trusting Him. It could be he delays his help for a while because he has some other purposes working.

But the word is clear, he will come to our aid if we continue to trust Him because His eyes are always watching.