Day 30: Time of Your Life (9 of 10)
Today's topic was all about problem solving/decision making.
I think one of the best skills that I have is my ability to solve problems. Doing Day 9 of "Time of Your Life", I felt that Tony Robbins' section on problem solving had great info. Traditionally, everyone learns how to solve problems just like how we learn the grammar of our native language. In other words, we don't learn the systems. We just base it on what sounds right, and what sounds wrong. And hopefully after years or decades of trial and error, you are making mostly right decisions through learning from trial and error. So when tough problems arise, we are not problem solving experts in the same way we are not grammer experts. We never learned the systems, and complex problems seem overwhelming. It overwhelms us, we put off the decision, or we just go back and fourth without making a decision. Unfortunately, what this leads to is indecision, which is probably the worst path you can take.
I felt the program gave great information on how to solve challenging problems. But I felt "The 6 Steps to Effective Decision Making: O.O.C. / E.M.R." could be improved on, for at least myself.
Precursor (Unchanged, just restating it from "Time of Your Life")
1. Decide you're going to solve this and know you can solve this because you've solved difficult problems in the past when you felt challenged beyond your comfort zone.
2. Get perspective from others who have successfully dealt with a similar problem before.
3. Know as you're doing something for the greater good, and that if you're committed, there is always a way.
4. List the resources available to you and constraints or limitations you may have.
Problem solving steps (Instead of doing O.O.C. / E.M.R.)
1. Define the current situation without any emotional bias.
2. If you can have everything you want your way, what do you want, and why do you want it?
3. Write your values (your rules on how you operate yourself as a person), and your identity, your ultimate vision of the person you want to become and how your life is going to be.
4. Write roles (responsibility towards others aka who others see me as a person).
5. Write down options (the decisions you can choose to make) and the benefits, and consequences.
6. For each consequence, find alternatives that neutralize the consequence (or even turn into benefits if possible) where the alternative is high probability and low risk.
Rewrite options, benefits, consequences. Repeat the process until the option cannot be improved any further. Put your brain to work while trying to incorporate your resources. Do this for every option.
7. Do any consequences conflict with your identity or ultimate vision of who you want to become or where you want your life to be at in the future? If so, are there any alternatives to the consequences? If there are no alternatives, eliminate the option.
8. Evaluate the options. Evaluate the benefits. EValuate the consequences (how it impacts your roles/responsibilities.) Are the effects of the consequnces, something that can be repaired in the future? If not, will this violation of the roles/responsibilities, block your path to the ultimate vision of you and your life? If yes, eliminate option.
9. Make decision on remaining options and cut off any other possibilities. Take action. If you do not take action, then you might as well not have made the decision at all.
Know that when you make tough decisions, you can't always make everyone happy and cater to every desire. Otherwise, it wouldn't be a tough decision. It would be a no brainer. There will have to be compromises and consequences when it comes to tough decisions. A good decision is to find a solution to meet all absolute musts, minimize consequences, not violate your values (this is very important), and take no irreversible damage to your responsibilities/roles that is going to serve you in your ultimate vision in the future. A great decision is all of the above and find the maximum the benefits from the decision. The worst thing to do is to not make any decision when a decision has to be made.
Next: Time of Your Life (10 of 10)
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