Problems can feel overwhelming and impossible to solve at times. If we continue to think about them the same way as we always have, then they likely always will be overwhelming. However, changing we the way we see the problem and changing the way we see ourselves can make all the difference in our ability to solve the issues in our lives.
Bigger Than Me
I recently visited a gigantic boulder in India called Krishna’s Butterball. The rock is so large that a human pales in comparison. I took a humorous picture of me trying to push the gigantic rock. Sometimes our problems can feel a lot like Krishna’s Butterball—so large we are incapable of solving them.
Who’s Stronger?
I learned a powerful lesson from my great-grandmother Genevieve about how handle a problem that feels completely overwhelming.
Genevieve was a strong woman—she had ten children after being told by a doctor she would never be able to have any at all; she and her husband created a successful coal business after losing everything in a previous business venture; and she was the first woman elected to the Salt Lake City School Board, despite opposition from many due to her gender.
When Genevieve felt a problem was getting the best of her, she would stand in front of the mirror ask herself: “Who is stronger, me or the problem?” She would square her shoulders on her tiny 90-lb. frame, lift up her chin, and declare, “I am.” Then she moved forward to solve the problem.
How to Believe You’re Stronger
A few simple changes in our thinking can help us see that we are stronger than any problem we may have.
Bring the Problem Down to Its Actual Size
We usually think about a problem through the filter of our beliefs about it. This often causes the problem to seem much larger and more challenging to overcome.
Stripping a problem down to the “facts” can help us see the challenge in a much more manageable way.
As a young mom one of the biggest problems I faced was sleep deprivation. I constantly felt miserable. I never felt rested and as a result I often felt irritable. Then, to make matters worse, I felt guilty for feeling irritable. No matter what I tried, my baby would not sleep through the night. The problem felt hopeless. I felt I had to get up with my baby in the night to be a good mom. But yet, I felt like I was not a good mom all day because I was so tired. I felt like I had tried every book and every system to get my baby to sleep at night, but nothing seemed to work. The problem felt impossible to solve—it felt miserable and hard. I felt like I couldn’t be the mom I wanted to be and I couldn’t enjoy my baby because I was so tired!
When I stripped down my story to the facts it was simply this:
I have a child. I put my child to bed at 7. They wake up at 2 and 5 to nurse and go back to sleep. They wake up at 7 for the day. I sometimes feel tired in the day.
When I looked at it this way, the story didn’t seem quite as dramatic. I was just a mom with a young baby—a baby who was healthy and growing and eating well. In fact, I noticed that actually it sounded normal to be tired and I even felt lucky to have a healthy baby.
Size Up Ourselves
Most of us underestimate our own abilities. But our brains are powerful, and as we change our thoughts we realize we have a lot more control over our circumstances than we think.
When we think of problems, most of us unconsciously choose thoughts like “This is impossible.” “It will never change.” “There’s no way that I can do that.” “It’s too overwhelming.” “I don’t know how.” These thoughts keep us from taking action and are often self-fulfilling—the problem seems so big that we don’t solve it because we don’t even try.
Instead, more empowering thoughts could be: “I got this.” “I’m going to try this, and if that doesn’t work I’ll try something else.” “I don’t have to fix all of it, I’ll just work on one piece.” “I wonder how much of this I can do?” “It’s possible.” If these thoughts don’t work at the beginning, try to add on a phrase like: “What if this is possible?” “What if I do know how to solve this?” Sometimes offering your brain a question can help open it up to think about solutions.
With my last baby, I had some better tools to keep myself emotionally healthy. My baby still woke up during the night. I still felt tired. However, I also reminded myself that I could feel tired and still be pleasant. I didn’t have to choose to be grumpy and irritable when I was tired. I could still have a pleasant day and be tired.
Take the Power Back
This simple shift in my perception—sizing down the problem to the facts, and sizing up my own ability to deal with the problem—changed everything. Instead of constantly feeling resentful and irritable because I was exhausted, I was able to really enjoy mothering my baby. My circumstance never changed, but my perception of it did. Essentially, I looked the problem in the mirror and saw it for what it really was—not the drama I had made it into. Then I sized up my own ability to handle it. The result was that I got to be the pleasant mother I wanted to be, and I got to enjoy my baby, something I had felt deprived of previously.
Problems in our lives only have the power to overwhelm us if we don’t see them and ourselves accurately. When we fix our perceptions, we are often able to come up with solutions and carry them out. Sometimes that means we change our circumstance. But sometimes the problem is solved simply by changing the way we think about it, which in turn changes the way we feel about it. And when we feel better, sometimes there’s nothing else that needs to change.
Essentially, when we size down the problem and size up our abilities we make the problem something manageable—instead of looking like Krishna’s Butterball, it appears like a large but moveable rock. When we see our problems in this way, we can have the courage to look at our problems head on and say, “Who’s stronger, me or the problem?” “I am!”
Be Stronger Than the Problem
What’s a problem that feels impossible or overwhelming to you?
Bring the Problem Down to Size
Write down your “story” about the problem. Then strip the story down to only the facts. Everything else you wrote down is just thoughts about your facts. Those thoughts you are choosing are causing the stress, overwhelm, and drama around your problem. The good news is, those thoughts are optional and you don’t have to think them if you don’t want to.
Size Up Yourself
You are absolutely capable of dealing with this issue. Your brain is the most amazing tool on the planet. Look what you believe about yourself. Are those beliefs helping you solve the problem. If not, then change them. Our beliefs are all optional. Often, I love to imagine how someone I admire might think about this problem. Then, I like to adopt the thoughts I imagine they would think.
Take Back the Power
Now that you see the problem in its true size, and have also recognized your own true strength, look at yourself in the mirror and say, “I’m stronger.” Then move forward and start solving.
