HOW HARD IS IT TO CHALLENGE YOUR OWN THINKING?

We have all at some point in our working lives, been confronted by a challenge that has halted us in our tracks. It would be difficult to find people who occupy positions of responsibility who have not.

The Swiss Guard, St Peter's Square, Rome

It is at these times when our levels of stress and anxiety can rise dramatically as we begin to cast around for answers and feel increasingly strained as satisfactory solutions escape us. One of our greatest potential handicaps when it comes to thinking our way through a problem is that when under pressure we tend to fall back to more conservative thinking – where we feel more secure – our default setting.

QUESTIONS CONDITION ANSWERS

The decisions we take and the choices we make are conditioned by the questions we ask of ourselves, of others, or of a problem. When meeting a challenge, the nature of the questions we pose will follow in line with our thinking. This means that the answers we receive will be also be conditioned because of the nature of our questioning which can possibly become predictable, preset, and can lack flexibility when perhaps it could be most useful.

PRESET BELIEFS CAN STIFLE CREATIVITY

Predictable solutions may reinforce beliefs we already hold and can keep potential (and sometimes better) answers hidden from us. A particular belief could be holding us back from resolving a problem or meeting a challenge and we may not even realise it. If we care to look, the perspective of questions others may pose can often be far more illuminating in areas we did not think to explore.

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are”

Anais Nin

AN UNFAMILIAR ROUTE

A useful and sometimes challenging exercise, is to abandon usual lines of thought & follow instead a thread someone else puts forward - usually a friend or a colleague. Such suggestions we may often dismiss out of hand if they do not comply with our default settings (to which we are so very attached). Certainly this exercise can make us feel uncomfortable because we are taken out of our comfort zone and compelled to move in a direction that would not be our automatic choice. But to challenge ourselves by testing to destruction unconventional lines of thought can be very rewarding.

“Isn’t banging our head against a brick wall just nature’s way

of telling us to try something else?”

THE MORE UNCOMFORTABLE WE FEEL – THE GREATER THE REWARDS CAN BE

This is particularly true where we have previously met obstacles that are particularly problematic. Simply put, if this way will not work then take a run at it from a different angle. Why waste our mental energy on a frontal assault when a flanking movement is what is needed?

CLARITY & FOCUS

Changing our perspectives will also serve a useful purpose even if it merely confirms that we were on the right line already. This enables us to press forwarded with reinforced confidence because we have properly considered other routes. To fully consider and discount an alternative can offer us greater clarity, focus, and motivation. At least we have travelled a different way for a short while and explored new possibilities.

"We cannot use the same thinking to get ourselves out of a problem

 that got us in there in the first place"

There is always a way out of a maze - it is sometimes helpful simply to come to a problem or challenge from a slightly different direction in order to get a stalled situation on the move once again. While true and lasting change may not come easily, the journey can be exhilarating and liberating once the shackles of our own modes and conventions have been shed.

Alan Keyse specializes in coaching Emotional Intelligence to business leaders, managers and their staff – in groups or on a 1 to 1 basis. He also speaks and holds workshops encouraging the use of mindfulness principles in business.

keysforliving.org

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