Every day all of us face problems. It can be anything maybe something like from missing the train to huge problems like company suffering losses and everybody has a different reaction to it. Few approach problems in a composed manner but few think way too much about it which in turn confuses themselves which in turn creates more problems in their head by thinking what will happen? What will I do? and whatnot.
Problems can arise from anything, anywhere to anyone. It depends on you and your reaction that can make it better or worse. Most people tend to zone out very quickly and go deep inside one thought which leads to problems as it starts affecting their lives. Like Jack Sparrow says,
“The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem.”
Captain Jack Sparrow
You must have experienced that when you have fear of something, for example, fear of being alone. You keep thinking about it and you get all frustrated and then you go to someone for help and they end up saying that don’t think about it just ignore that thing and it will fade away. But no, diverting or just ignoring that thought doesn’t help in fact it makes it worse.
Charles Duhigg, in his book, Power of Habit writes that the more you think about a problem or run/hide from it, the longer it stays and turns into a habit (of being scared). This essentially means that the fear will always be in your mind and the smallest of incidents can unleash a series of terrifying reactions. So basically, what happens is when you keep repeating things, again and again, it becomes habit thus it ends up affecting you in some or the other way. You dive into that thought and go deep inside it which drives you crazy and frustrated and you unload the frustration on others.
One should not avoid the problem instead he/she should confront it and try to find out what’s the reason behind it because diverting your mind doesn’t solve the issue it just makes you forget that thing for a temporary period and when someone suddenly talks about it you start feeling bad and you think about things that you probably shouldn’t think and also you start questioning yourself in a wrong way. At times, also about your existence and whatnot.
Here’s one solution which can help you – Asking Before Assuming.
Try to ask yourself logical and practical questions. For example, let’s take that you are worried about your results. Now here you should ask questions like “Will worrying help me? Will it change my results? Will I be able to change what I have written in the exams? Can I guess the future?”
The answer is a straight NO. All of the above questions will automatically help you realize that freaking out is highly counter-productive. I know you must be thinking that “hey, all this doesn’t work.” Trust me, even I used to think about it that way that these people just say it randomly and all this is bulls**t but I’m glad that this misconception in my head is cleared now and I got a chance to speak about it that YES, IT DOES WORK. Practicing a calm and composed approach to the problem really helps. If you put in efforts and you really set out to do it then yes it will help.