Did you know that the answer to a pressing problem might be a bigger problem? Ever had an unsolvable problem actively haunting you and creating mental grid-lock? Ever been tempted to just avoid it?
Practicing problem-avoidance is a great and wasteful human pastime. Visit a California State Legislature budgetary meeting if you disagree!
Perhaps our problem is how we think – maybe we don’t have a big enough problem at hand?
Professor Robert Root-Bernstein observes that to chase problems actively rather than become overwhelmed by them unproductively is a rare and effective strategy that really works. “We must know what we do not know before we can effectively solve any problem.”
Chasing and embracing problems on the front end, effectively framing them in our thinking to begin with and then seeking answers births both creativity and solutions. Identifying, structuring and evaluating problems in a way that allows their effective solution is the key.
Try these ideas for reframing your ‘problem’ thinking:
1. Turn it upside-down. Painter Wassily Kandinsky illustrates. After accidentally turning one of his highly realistic paintings upside down in his studio, the artist returned only to be shocked that the work he now stared at (and its previously carefully crafted content) he did not at all recognize and had instead become a captivating abstract of form and color that launched a whole new realm of artistic expression previously undetected.
2. Doubt foregone conclusions and focus on disturbing concepts. Violate the Law of ‘One Right Answer’—you know, the popular maxim we’ve had hammered into our brains: every question has only one right answer. Purposefully rejecting obvious answers, toying instead with the ludicrous or disturbing concepts, this just might be a key to new perspectives.
3. Question habit. Repetitive thinking habits can be stifling. Question even reliable ways of processing. For centuries, painters propped their canvases on easels to work until Jackson Pollock had the courage to drop his on the floor and hurl paint – and, voila!
4. Create a bigger problem. History is filled with new inventions developed as a result of attempting to accomplish something clearly impossible – can you think of a problem that trumps the one you’re stuck with? Maybe the bigger problem births a greater answer.
Poet E.E. Cummings said, “Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question.”
Asking any beautiful questions, lately? BLOG: createbeyondreason.wordpress.com