The Art of Problem Solving - A Four Step Process

Everyone in this world, have a problem in their life. There is no one who is living happily, without any problem. These problems are also an important element in our life. Only because of these problems, we learn many dos and don'ts  in our life.
Every problem comes with a perfect solution in itself and we just need to find it. Yeah, its  true that every problem has its solution in itself and the reason we don't see it, is the way we define our problem. After defining a problem in a right manner, we will be able to see not only one but various alternative solutions on it.
Before we learn how to solve our problem, we need to change our attitude following these two rules:

• Being Patient is very important in performing a particular work. It improves the quality of results of that work. If you lose your patience while assessing your problem, you are surely defining your problem wrong. So how can you even think you can solve it correctly, So be patient, as you listened of the famous quotes,

Slow and Steady Wins the Race.

• Being Positive is another factor affecting the quality of results of a particular work. It's my belief that, if you think you can, then you can for sure. While assessing a problem, if you are thinking negatively, then you must be only stressing about the negative impacts of that problem. This will ultimately reduce your confidence level. Remember, positive thoughts always bring positive results in every task. So start thinking positively from now.  

Now after this let's see how can you solve your problem beautifully. Problem Solving is just a four-step process but not easy to perform. But it becomes much easier to you in the later process,  if you perform the first step dedicatedly, with patience and positiveness.
The four steps of problem-solving is:

1. Defining your problem
2. Finding various alternative solutions
3. Making situation friendly to solution
4. Implementing the same.

1. Defining your problem
It is the first and the most important step in problem-solving. Because, on the results of this step, the later process is based. And you know that a poor start leads to a poor end. Defining your problem includes two elements to convey.

• Knowing your problem: It means to find out your actual problem and name it correctly. Sometimes, we are focusing on the symptoms of the problem and not on the actual problem. For instance, Sometimes, when a student could not understand a particular subject, he thought that he is a weaker student and starts eating Almonds from the next day. But even after this, his performance cannot be improved. In this case, it may also happen that, he is not getting a proper understanding of that subject due to his teacher's or tutor's poor teaching skills and eating almonds will surely do not solve his problem at all. Are you agree with me or not?
  
  So you must be understood that knowing your problem means assessing and defining your actual problem and not its symptoms.  

• Determining its root cause: The Root cause is that cause from which the problem is originated actually. If we find the root cause of the problem, we will be able to tackle it down completely, with no chances of its reoccurrence. Suppose, we are traveling in our car through a messy road. Suddenly, a tree comes in our way and obviously to carry on our ride, we need to remove that tree from our way. If we cut it, there are 60% chance, that the tree grows up again due to its healthy roots and become a barrier in our return journey.To solve this problem completely we need to damage the roots of that tree and break it down so that there is no chance of its reoccurrence.
  
  In this story, the road is our life journey and the tree is a problem in our life which comes with a solution in itself. All we need to do is, to find the roots of the tree and break it down. So, it is important to find out the factor encouraging your problem.

There is a difference between a Problem and a Defined Problem. A problem is a barrier or an obstacle in the way of our life. But a defined problem is a diagnosis of the problem, it gives us a set of solutions in itself. As I said before, defining the problem is the most important step of problem-solving and if one can define his problem perfectly then he will not need to give more efforts in the next steps.

2. Finding various alternative and selecting the one best

This step is completely dependent on the results of the first step. On the basis of your defined problem, you just have to find out various alternative solutions to it. This step also has its own relevance, as your problem remain unsolved if you failed to find the perfect solution to your problem. This step can be effectively performed by these three procedures.

• Listing alternatives: After defining your problem, you must revise it and then find out different alternative solution to it as more as possible. Remember, more alternative solution enhances the quality of the actual solution.

• Comparing and cross-checking alternatives: After making a list of alternative solutions, perform a simple comparison between the alternatives you found, w.r.t. their pros and cons and by cross-checking them. Remove that alternative which has demerits more than its merits.

• Selecting the best one: Select one best alternative solution which suits the situation and able to solve the problem completely without any obstacle. It is very easy to select that one, just pick up the one which

1.   Have more merits
2.   Suits the situation 
3.   Easy to implement
   

3. Making the situation friendly to solution

It is an optional step but very important to perform, if required by circumstances. This step is about analyzing the situation, whether there is any uncertain event exist which affects our process or not and if exist, being prepared to that event or uncertainty. So that it doesn't impact much on our process of problem-solving. Uncertainties either make your problem easier or make it more complex. That's why being prepared for these uncertainties is really very important. So that we can make further change in the situation to implement the solution successfully.

4. Implementation – The Final shootout

 Now, its time to

• Picking up your guns (Defined Problem) 
• Loading it with ammo (Perfect Solution) 
• Clearing your vision (Making Situation friendly to Solution) 
• Pointing your target and Shoot ( Implementing Solution)

Must remember, sometimes hurrying up destroys your prior hard work. It may happen that in hurry, you point your target wrong and missed it. Then it's time to take a nap as you wasted the best bullet(Best Solution) which kill your target(Problem). So don't be impatient, as I said before, patience and positiveness is the key to success in every work. But sometime, continuos victory boosts our positiveness and it becomes our overconfidence.

I hope this article helped you to solved your problem and Plz don't forget to give me feedback and comments. Also read What is a Blog?
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