“The solution to every problem must be found at a level slightly or even significantly above the conflicting ideas. As long as you remain aligned with the difficulty, you will be fighting the problem rather than solving it. ~ Glenda Green
A few years ago, my city was in the middle of a heat wave. There is no air conditioning in my house. It was so hot inside that I had to sit in my office chair. Even though it was already 11pm, I was still sweating profusely in front of the computer.
Then the office lights overheated and shut off. Suddenly complete darkness. Shall I get up, take a rest, and do something else? No.
Have I moved to a cooler part of the house? No. I didn’t pay attention.
Then things got worse.
Several website pages I created suddenly disappeared into cyberspace. puff! I was running a promotion directing people to these sites.
My frustration quickly rose to almost panic levels, which of course led almost immediately to the next disaster: I locked myself out of the house.
Things are serious now.
I went to the garage to get something and soon found the door to the back house closed and locked behind me. My hidden spare key was nowhere to be found.
Luckily, one of the windows in the back was open, so I comically climbed into the house through the kitchen window like a Cirque du Soleil show gone wrong. It was just something that brought me back to my senses.
Few people think like this when they encounter a seemingly problem: “Great, what’s so magical about this? How is this an opportunity?
Albert Einstein once said that a problem cannot be solved at the same level at which it was created. So, it’s helpful to zoom out and look at the problem from a higher, broader perspective. When we do this, we can see hidden opportunities.
When we step back, we often realize that less awesome things are happening For us, Not suitable for us.
Amid my three-part problem of heat waves, website crashes, and my home being locked down, here are the clear lessons: “Always know where your spare key is” and “Go somewhere else when the office is stuffy.” However, the greater opportunity is to remind everyone:
There are few things in life worth panicking about. The truth is, nothing is worse than what our thoughts lead us to believe.
So what if the web page disappears? They can be recreated. If it’s hot in the house and there’s no air conditioning, it’s not a big deal. At least I still have a house.
Someone once said, “Life depends largely on attention.” If I had paid enough attention to the first two events—the rising temperature and the disappearing web page—and stopped to think about what the message might have been, I probably could have avoided the trip out the back window.
In fact, opportunities are always around us. But we must look for them.
For example, when I go to bed when my alarm goes off, I end up being late and then feeling uncomfortable all day long. But maybe being late for an appointment is really a gentle nudge from the universe to reevaluate my expectations of how much I can actually do in a day. Maybe going to bed before the alarm goes off means I avoid a car accident during normal driving hours.
There is opportunity in every problem, even if it doesn’t seem so at the time.
Recently, I hit a nail while driving and found out that not one tire but all four of my car needed to be replaced. When something unfortunate happens, it’s another opportunity to observe my default patterns. The natural tendency is to react. “How did this happen?” “What do I do now?” “This is terrible. I can’t believe it.
For many of us (myself included), our instinctive response to setbacks is fear, worry, and frustration. While it’s important to acknowledge and validate these completely normal feelings and accept that they exist, these automatic reactions do little to help find solutions and solve problems.
We can train ourselves to use this question to solve every perceived problem, “How could this be a good thing?”
After the initial frustration and shock at the price of four new tires, I actively looked for a silver lining. Anyway, since I have a long road trip coming up in a few weeks, it makes sense to get the car in tip-top shape now.
Replacing all four tires also led to the discovery of a more serious problem with my car – one that would have gone unnoticed if I hadn’t hit that little nail.
When faced with what seems like a problem, the brain wants to jump in and run endless doomsday and what-if scenarios. One way to stop this tendency is to give your brain a funny name.
For example, imagine your brain is an annoying neighbor who likes to complain. Next time it starts rambling on about how bad things are, you can tell that mind, “Thank you for sharing, Buzzard.” Viewing your mind as something separate from you allows you to acknowledge its worries while interrupting its negative patterns.
Another way to release yourself from a downward mental spiral is to grab a note and write down that unpleasant event or situation might be a good thing to do.
Start by sitting quietly, breathing slowly and deeply to calm your mental state. Once you are in a more neutral, centered position, look for any hidden opportunities. Write down one or two potentially positive things that could come out of this.
It’s important to write them down instead of just thinking about them or typing them on your phone or computer, because writing things by hand interrupts your brain’s conditioning and habits. It’s better to write them with your non-dominant hand because it engages a side of your brain that’s often underused. This is a great way to gain creative insights into a perceived problem.
Our daily activities provide countless opportunities to observe our reactions and practice looking for hidden opportunities. In fact, a few hours after I started writing this article, my computer suddenly stopped working. This is an opportunity to practice what I write about: awareness and opportunity.
I noticed that my brain was still trying to wildly imagine all the worst-case scenarios if I couldn’t recover all my files. As I ignore my mind and look for opportunities, I decide I’m forced to take a much-needed pause from the computer. I suddenly had a lot of time to spend on other activities that I had been putting on hold because computer work seemed more important and urgent.
If you are facing a problem in your life right now, take a step back, grab a piece of paper, and consider it from a broader, brighter perspective. Get creative and brainstorm until you find at least two situations where this might actually be a good thing. Look for opportunities!
About Karin Kaiser
Karin Kiser is the author of ten books, including Unplugging Your Robot: The Secret to Lasting happiness and international bestseller Lighten your load. She inspires people around the world to achieve greater health and happiness by teaching them to reduce the physical, mental and emotional toxins that hold them back. Download her free report “5 Hidden Reasons Why Almost Everything in Life Doesn’t Work…and How to Deal with Them” on her website at https://KarinKiser.com.
