Face your enemy - Brainstorming

During the course of my life, both childhood and adult, the military has played a primary role.  My father, a 20+ year military man, raised me in various locations all over the world.  Then, I myself did a tour of duty, serving my country and learning more things about life than I though I ever could.

No matter your personal position on those that serve in the military, you have to admit that this environment can teach you many things that can be applied in various roles in your life.  Even in your role as a businessman or woman.  Yes, it’s true.  Some of the key lessons I learned in the military I now apply in my business career and am all the stronger for it.

One such lesson is – face your enemy.  There is only one way to defeat an enemy, and that is to face him.  You see whenever you stand toe-to-toe with your enemy they have a way of appearing less intimidating than before.  They diminish in their ability to impose their original amount of fear or anxiety into your heart.  Often their ability to strike such fear will disappear entirely.

Now if you think of your problems in the same light, be they personal or professional, then they too can be diminished and conquered.  Here are the combat tactics for overcoming your enemies on the business/personal field of battle.

1. Sit in a quiet place with pencil and notepad.  On page one write your major problem.  Avoid going into any detail, but state the problem simply in a sentence or two, three at the most.  For example, “I need a promotion, how do I go about getting it?”  Or maybe, “I'm too fat, what can I do to lose weight?”  It could be, “my business is stagnant, how can I make it thrive?”  Or perhaps you're encountering a personal problem of some kind.  The problems of the human mind and heart are seemingly endless.  But they have two things in common.  The first is they are not unique but shared by hundreds, even thousands, or millions of others.  And two, they can be solved.  And solved a lot easier than you might think once you can clearly face them.  Once you have your first problem down on page one, go to your second problem, write it on page two, then your next problem on page three, and so forth, and so on, until you have all of your problems listed on separate sheets of paper.


2. After you have all your problems listed on separate sheets, return to page one.  Review your brief statement of your problem.  Then, sit back, relax, and begin to think about the problem.  Only allow those thoughts that relate directly to your main problem to occupy this time.  While going through this careful thought process, begin to list all of the possible solutions that come to mind.  Do not worry if some of your ideas for solving your problem seem far-fetched or even impractical, list them anyway.  Often when an impossible solution is transferred out of your mind onto paper, it will suggest another solution that will be more apt to be the one you want.

What will this process do for you?  Well, first realize that when you have several problems and you continue to carry them around inside of you, they will never solve themselves.   They can, however, cause you to worry.  Potentially even to the point where they can even make you sick.  But once you list them, have them written down, you have changed your problems from internal worries into another form.

Once your problems are in written form you can look at them and see what they are in the clear light of day.  This will put you in a much better position to defeat the enemy by facing him.  You will feel a great sense of relief once you have reduced your problems to writing.  The tension disappears, and you will feel as if a great weight has been lifted.

 

Now, you can take this same ‘face your enemy’ approach to problem solving, decision-making, and goal achievement by realizing that there are similarities between all three of these.  A decision that is to be made is little more than a problem awaiting a solution.  Decisions are usually a simple problem,  simple in the fact that we are rarely faced with more than two or three options.  Whereas, when faced with a problem, we sometimes face what seems to be an endless line up of alternatives.  And as for goal achievement, isn't a goal merely a point we wish to reach?  The problem to be solved here is how to get from where we are now to where we want to be.  So, problem solving, decision-making, and goal achievement are all closely related functions of creative thinking.  It's important that we keep this in mind as we review the steps of using brainstorming for problem solving.

1. The first step of solving any problem (no matter how big or how small) is to define it.  You should always understand the problem before you begin to work on the solution.  Here, you can use the steps we discussed earlier.  Sit down and write out the problem first in a brief sentence or two, three at the most.  Review this statement of the problem, refine it, and add additional detail to it until it states exactly what the problem is that you would like to solve.


2. Then, write out everything you know about the problem.  This information can come from your own personal experience, books you have read (which contain any kind of information including statistical data on the problem), or from friends and business associates who know something about the area in which the problem lies.  One important consideration here is to never confuse facts with opinions.  Make sure you kn

   click here