Choosing What Matters: Strategies for Prioritizing Life’s Tough Problems

Problems come in so many ways every day that I thought I’d write about them. Positive Psychology likes to term them “challenges” because that makes them sound less scary. However you want to call them, they are things all of us encounter repeatedly, and daily.

There are problems that are fun to deal with; problems that are annoying; problems that we don’t want to even know about; problems that are truly urgent.

I’ve discovered in my own life that the problems that are “problematic” are the ones I don’t want to even know about, and the ones I use to avoid thinking about the first ones.

Something happens that is unpleasant and that I must deal with, but just at that moment I notice that my grandmother’s tablecloth has a stain and for no other good reason, needs dealing with immediately.

You probably know the drill. Both are important, but one is more important in that moment than the other.

One way to overcome this urge, I’ve found, is to take a second to wonder how I’ll feel if I resolve one problem and not the other, or vice versa. That makes it easier for me to focus on what’s really important. Another thing I do is to begin the harder problem first thing. It means I’m not dwelling on it all day.

How do you handle hard problems you’d rather weren’t in your life? I’d love to know.

Quote of the week

We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.

• Albert Einstein

5 steps to solve any problem at work

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Maryanne Nicholls is a Registered Psychotherapist.  To find out more, gain access to her weekly newsletter, meditations and programmes, sign up at www.thejoyofliving.co .