Are You Trying to Solve It Too Soon?

There are few things more exhausting than a problem that refuses to resolve.

A decision sits in front of you and you keep turning it over.

Option A has this advantage, but also this risk.

Option B might be safer, although you could regret it.

Maybe there’s a C.

You talk it through with someone. You make a list. You revisit it the next morning, hoping sleep will have somehow made the answer obvious.

Nothing changes.

Then, a day or two later, something happens that you couldn’t have planned for.

An email arrives. Someone changes their mind. You learn something you didn’t know before. A completely different possibility appears.

Suddenly, the decision is easy.

And you realize that several hours of worrying accomplished almost nothing.

The answer wasn’t there yet.

We Hate Not Knowing

I think this is one reason we can spend so much time worrying.

Uncertainty is uncomfortable.

When something important feels unresolved, the mind wants closure. So we keep thinking, checking, comparing and imagining.

At first, that can be useful. Thinking helps us gather information and make good decisions.

But there’s a point where thinking stops producing anything new.

You’re working with the same facts you had an hour ago, only now you’re running them through your mind for the fifteenth time.

The problem hasn’t changed.

You just really want the uncertainty to end.

That distinction is worth noticing.

There’s a difference between thinking something through and simply thinking about it over and over.

Some Answers Need Time

We tend to assume that if a problem exists today, its solution should also be available today.

Often it isn’t.

There may be information you don’t have yet.

Someone else may need to make a decision.

Circumstances may still be changing.

You may simply need enough distance from the problem to see it differently.

Psychologists sometimes refer to this last piece as the incubation effect. Research has found that, in some kinds of problem solving, setting a problem aside for a period of time can improve the chances of finding a solution later.

You’ve probably experienced this without knowing there was a name for it.

You can’t remember someone’s name, no matter how hard you try.

Then you stop trying.

Twenty minutes later, while you’re doing something completely unrelated, the name appears.

Or you spend an afternoon wrestling with an idea, finally give up and go for a walk, and somewhere along the way a connection occurs to you that you couldn’t see at your desk.

Our conscious attention is only one part of what the mind is doing.

Sometimes stepping away gives the mind room to reorganize what’s already there.

Put the Glass Down

I like the image of a glass of muddy water.

Imagine trying to make the water clear by continually stirring it.

You could stir faster. You could stir more carefully. You could become extremely committed to stirring.

None of that helps.

At some point, the most useful thing you can do is put the glass down.

The sediment settles.

The water clears.

There are problems where our own mental effort starts to resemble the stirring.

Another round of thinking feels productive, but we may actually be creating more noise.

That doesn’t mean becoming passive.

There are plenty of times when the answer is to make the call, have the difficult conversation, gather more information or push through discomfort.

Patience can easily become procrastination.

The harder skill is recognizing when you’ve genuinely done what you can for now.

A Different Kind of Trust

“Trust the process” can sound a little vague, especially when you’re facing something important.

I think of it in a more practical way.

You don’t have to trust that everything will work out exactly as you want.

You can trust that you’ll be able to respond when the next piece of information arrives.

That changes the question.

Instead of demanding, “How do I solve this right now?”

You can ask:

Is there anything useful left for me to do today?

If there is, do it.

If there isn’t, continuing to worry isn’t making you more responsible or prepared.

You may simply have reached the edge of what you can know right now.

And sometimes that’s enough.

Knowing When to Push and When to Wait

This is the idea I explore in my latest video, Are You Trying to Solve It Too Soon?

It looks at the line between persistence and force, why uncertainty can keep us mentally circling a problem, and why stepping away can sometimes be part of solving it.

One thought from the video has stayed with me:

You don’t have to solve tomorrow’s problem with today’s information.

There are moments when another push is exactly what’s required.

And there are moments when you’ve done enough.

Knowing the difference can save a tremendous amount of unnecessary stress.

If your mind has a hard time putting things down, I also created a free Subconscious Starter Kit, which includes the Sanctuary Session, a guided audio designed to help you slow down, quiet some of the mental noise, and check in with yourself from a calmer place.

Sometimes clarity comes with the next action.

Sometimes it comes after you finally stop stirring the water.

Breakthroughs Begin Within.