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What’s your approach to problem solving? There are several frameworks available which you could use to give a better structure to your problem-solving process, but that’s not what I’m referring to.

Some weeks ago, speaking with a colleague about a specific problem, her approach to solving the problem we had at hand surprised me. Unconsciously, she limited herself to solutions she could implement all by herself. Which were, of course, limited.

Some people limit their solutions to what they think they can achieve with what they already know. The solutions you can come to with this fixed mindset are most of the time unsatisfactory. You don’t realize that you can grow. You don’t consider asking for help, or hiring the appropriate person or consultant for the job.

Other people start with the end in mind. What needs to be done to solve this problem? What’s the best solution? How can we tap into whatever knowledge is necessary? They don’t see the lack of a particular skill as limiting, because they know they can either learn new skills or hire someone more capable to do the relevant parts of the job.

In her excellent book Mindset, Carol Dweck calls these two different mindsets fixed mindset and growth mindset.

What’s your approach to problem solving?

Photo by [Sanwal Deen](Photo by Sanwal Deen on Unsplash) on Unsplash

Growing and learning new things implies stepping out of our comfort zone. True differentiation and growth is achievable only if you are willing to dive into new areas¹ and try things that may work or not. As a consequence, learning something new always implies the risk of failure.

Several authors write about the importance of failure. If you never risk failure –if you never fail– then you aren’t trying hard enough, you are not learning. As Dan Norris writes in Create or Hate:

If you aren’t regularly failing, you aren’t seeking a new destination. You are following a predictable path that doesn’t lead to anything new and you are learning nothing. You aren’t creating anything either. In other words, you are failing. You are failing to grow and failing to improve and failing to realize your full potential.

Part of the problem is we often forget that stepping out of our comfort zone generates… discomfort. The romantic view we had about our pleasant journey towards our goals gets shattered by reality.

We need to plan our actions in such way that we push ourselves enough to make progress, but don’t strain so much that the effort becomes unsustainable. James Clear calls this the magical zone of long-term growth.

We also need to overcome our ego. We don’t like to fail. At least I don’t. Do you know people that publish their failures on their Facebook timeline? Our ego is so treacherous we can end up creating a narrative rationalizing our behaviour, explaining to ourselves why remaining comfortable, not daring, is the sensible alternative. Steven Pressfield, in his book The War of Art, calls this The Resistance.

Face your fears. Be bold and accept enough risk to make progress, but don’t be reckless or behave like a madman. Be smart and have a safety net. And then, dare to do things that can fail.