Change Basics

“An organism is an integrated collection of problem-solving devices –

that is, adaptations – that were shaped by natural selection over

evolutionary time to promote, in some specific way, the survival of the

genes that directed their construction" - Modern Darwinism

Whether you subscribe to evolutionary theory or not, I dont think many can argue that we are problem solvers. Even an amoeba is a problem solver. If its environment is not conducive to survivability, its got a problem and it needs to solve it! Humans, on the other hand, have so much more than just a brainstem, like most animals, to aid in problem solving. We have the ability to think in the future, past, associate feelings with thoughts, make choices and so on.

When I think of this perspective, I think of all the problems I face day to day and how my mind goes about solving them. There's the problems of today - which usually require a few decisions in the moment, and ba-da-bing ba-da-boom we're off to the races and solving the problems, then there's the more complex problems of the coming week in work, home, personal, etc, then there's the even more complex problems of the coming months, years, etc. Depending on our level of stress and priorities, values and so on - we deal with each of these strategically or we give the power to the complex problem solving mechanisms of our subconscious.

Unfortunately, if you are anything like me or most of the population in the western world - we tend to think in problems, as opposed to outcomes. Outcome thinking is a cornerstone of NLP strategy in self improvement. NLP consists of an extensive array of tools for improving your life, yet without pre-defined outcomes, the process is nearly redundant. In the book "Stumbling on Happiness" Daniel Gilbert convincingly asserts that control is the key to happiness. I don't mean control freaks are happy, I mean that the more control you have over your outcomes and the problems you are choosing to solve to get to those outcomes, the happier you are. I can recall several weeks of my life and still have several occur where I had nothing but problems to solve that satisfied the outcomes desired by OTHERS, and a whole seven days would go by where I either didnt stop to realize that my outcomes were not defined and therefore easy to put on the backburner, or I allowed myself to believe that "OHHHHH I'm too busy! The sky is falling!! AHHHHHHhhh!!" Yet somehow I managed to slip in 10 hours of zoning out to a couple of movies and 2 hours of 3 minute check face book intervals as I felt sorry for my existance, and I'm sure all the "look at my blackberry" seconds added up to a good couple hours as well. Such patterns tend to lead up to a dismal day of self retreat and disinterest because you get that feeling that you are simply here to serve the world and start asking yourself "when was the last time I did something for me?" Dangerous territory - and unfortunatlely this is usually the points where we feel a spark of motivation to turn things around, but in doing so fail to address the specific outcomes we are striving for and the spark isnt enough to get the engine moving. We are acting out of despair and negative motivation. The process rarely lasts unfortunately. Let me assure you that many grand accomplishments and turning points have come from despair - such as surviving a car accident, or disease, or other such trauma... but rarely does that engine truly turn over when your trying to get motivated from just feeling bad for having a few lousy overwhelming weeks in the game of life, and worse so, you can tarnish a perfectly good goal by associating it with periods of perceived failure. "Bah... whats the point, I'll never get into acting on my time off, look at the last few times I tried, something always came up. Its not meant to be"

And we retreat back to the problem solving organism we are, waiting for the next PROBLEM!

What is a problem though? A problem is simply the space between CURRENT STATE and DESIRED STATE, or "Outcome". As the quote above said - we are in a CONSTANT state of problem solving. Our complex minds are always busy at work solving hundreds of problems day to day, while we are only conscious of perceiving a chosen few within the forefront, or conscious. These conscious problems though, occurring throughout our busy lives - what percentage of them are filling the space between your current state and someone else's outcome? How often in a given day are you solving a problem because you have a clearly defined personal outcome to improve yourself? If you know of a personal outcome you have defined in your mind, have you taken it through a criteria to insure you truly will try to solve the problem in the middle? Does it match the values you are living today? NLP teaches early on that, at a basic level, ask yourself a few basic questions about your desired outcome before proceeding on the journey ( thanks to Joseph O'Connors book on NLP for illustrating these questions so clearly):

1. WHAT is my desired outcome? Is it clearly defined?

2. WHY do I desire this outcome? This answer looks at your values (see previous posts). Do they match this goal? Are they going to guide you to this goal? How can you find the right values within you to get you on the path to this goal?

3. HOW will I get to my desired outcome? Your strategy. Ecology check (more on that later).

4. WHAT if something goes wrong? Risk management and contingency planning.

Its only a start, but its certainly helped me. I've been guilty of setting a few outcomes that sure were nice to visualize and begin the motion towards, however I didn't necassarily follow these basics steps - as if to suggest to myself that I can have any goal, pile it on! I'll take on anything - a lofty path to rude awakenings. Kind of like what I was saying with proactive inhibition - sometimes you need to do an inventory of what to remove, when you want to replace it with something. You cant just keep adding on. Most importantly - my learning here is to have my outcome thinking sessions when I am in a healthy state of mind, and not when I am frustrated or despairing over my lack of control of my busy schedules and "problems"