ydangle

This week we will focus on a few ideas to help us face problems and challenges in a slightly more structured way.

We all love a challenge, however life often throws seemingly impossible or unfamiliar challenges our way. Whilst often we would prefer to ignore or delay dealing with the issue, I find that if I sit down to face it and follow a few basic steps, solutions (though not always easy) often appear less formidable that I had been anticipating.

As always a few key steps will quickly put you on the road to resolving things. I suggest the following:

• Define or write out the problem

• Brainstorm or list all possible solutions you can think of (get help in this step as well if you feel the need for outside ideas)

• Evaluate each solution and place them in an order of priority, ease and effectiveness. (Given the current recession don’t forget to consider costs!)

• Spend quality time selecting your preferred solution

• Plan and Implement the solution

• Monitor the progress of implementation and the results or success achieved.

We all have a strong tendency to delay the unpleasant – how many of the challenging things in your day go to the bottom of your inbox until you feel you can build the courage to tackle them. That will often steer you to spend ‘easy’ time on low priority items and then result in a rush, panic and quick fix solution for items that really required much more time and attention. 

Poor prioritization of issues can easily steer us to sub-optimal solutions and results. Later we will spend time looking at prioritization.

Till next week

The ydangle coaching team