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How To Overcome Problems

How to overcome any problem:

How to Overcome problems

For as long as man has existed he’s come up against problems.  In all probability he has attempted to overcome them using the age old fight or flight methods.

No matter what the problem is, the human way of dealing with it is to try to fight it or to ignore it in the hope it will go away.  Neither of these two methods work however and here’s why.

  1. Method one – Fighting the problem

The first rule of psychology is, “Whatever you focus on you’ll get more of.”  When you fight your problem you not only cannot rid yourself of it but you actually make the problem worse.   The more you tell you not to do whatever it is you’re doing the worse the problem gets.  The more others tell you to stop doing whatever it is you’re doing the worse the problem gets too.  Nagging someone about anything will make the behaviour worse simply because that’s the way the mind works.  Whatever you or anyone else focusses on grows and grows.

If you have a problem, an illness, a behaviour, an addiction, money problems, lack of self-esteem or self-worth, a problem child, a difficult job or no job at all fighting the problem will not make it go away.  You can beat yourself up daily, threaten you or anyone else and instill as much fear as you think might do the trick to stop yourself doing whatever it is that you do and all to no avail.

  1. Method two – Trying to ignore the problem

Trying to ignore a problem and hoping it will go away is even worse than trying to fight it.  The problem is, it’s impossible not to think of something.   Just try not to think of pink elephants to see how true that is.  You can no more get over a problem by ignoring it, or trying to ignore it than you can get over it by fighting it.  Neither method works but people everywhere are using those two methods on problems of all kinds.

It’s not just individuals who are trying to let go of things by focusing on them, governments all over the world are also making these mistakes.  The war on crime, on drugs, on terrorism and on poverty increases all of these things.  The war on cancer creates more cancer.  The very people who should be helping us by telling us or teaching us how to overcome problems are our leaders or our church and neither of these institutions is using the correct methods.

Transcendence

The only way to overcome any problem is transcendence.  The English dictionary defines the word transcend as ‘to rise above’ or to ‘surpass.’  What we do when we transcend a problem if to stop fighting it, stop telling ourselves not to do whatever it is we’ve been doing which may be any of the following:

  • I’m not going to drink
  • Don’t drink
  • Don’t argue
  • Don’t fight
  • Don’t smoke
  • Don’t get into trouble
  • Don’t pig out
  • Don’t eat any chocolate
  • Don’t feel sick
  • Don’t laugh
  • And on and on and on………………………….

Transcendence also means stop trying not to think of the problem because it’s Christmas, holiday time, the weekend or because you are fed up with the fight and getting nowhere.  Transcendence means to stop both of those methods, they never worked anyway and to begin to focus on, think about, write down, and talk about what you do want.

The person who has failed would want to succeed, the smoker would want to be free to breathe fresh air and smell delightful, the drinker would want to be sober and the over eater would want to eat normally, to be in control and to talk about being slim and healthy.

Don’t fight your problem, don’t try to run away from it, transcend it.