The Question To Ask Yourself To Solve Your Problems Better

We're all dealing with multiple problems of varying degrees in different domains of our lives. This is part of being human and being alive in these complex times we live in. We can’t avoid problems, but we can become more intentional in the way we address our problems. If we don't, not only do we get stuck going around in circles with those problems, but they can create feedback loops that cause even more problems, which in turn can diminish our quality of life, our fulfilment, and our ability to achieve our goals and dreams.

To use a medical analogy, when you have a health problem and you go to the doctor, they prescribe you a drug to take. But the drug will only treat the symptom, not the root cause. But it's not only that the drug is only treating the symptoms, it's that usually that drug will have side effects. And depending on the severity of those side effects, the doctor will prescribe another drug just to treat the side effects of the first drug. But then the second drug can cause side effects too, so you might have to take a third drug to treat the side effects of the second drug. This approach of treating the symptoms creates a domino effect where you might end up taking 5, 6, 7 different medications just to counteract the side effects of the previous medications.

Unfortunately, we take a similar approach to this in dealing with the problems in our lives. We treat the symptoms. We employ superficial, band-aid solutions. They're usually short-term fixes that often have side effects. And then we have to do other things to mask those side effects. So we get this cascade of negative consequences all from dealing with the original problem in a superficial and ineffective way.

I want to offer you a really useful framework you can use to solve the problems in your life more effectively.

I call it upstream thinking. First, I'll give you a metaphor, and then I'll explain how to apply it to your life.

Imagine you're a guerilla artist and you want to make an artistic statement by dying an entire river red. What would be the most effective way to dye the whole river red? If you took a bunch of red dye and just dumped it at the river delta, the end of the river where it flattens out and slows down, the red dye wouldn't spread very far, and certainly, it wouldn't colour the entire river. You could get in there with a big spoon and try to stir it around to spread it, but it wouldn't get very far... and your arms would get tired pretty quickly. But if you went upstream to the headwaters of the river and dumped all the dye in there, you'd have the gravity and momentum of the current spread the dye all the way downstream for you and turn the whole river red. No stirring with a big spoon necessary.

You want to ask yourself: How can I go upstream to solve this problem?

We'll look at some everyday examples so you can get a sense of what I'm talking about.

Let's say you want to lose weight but you're eating a lot of junk food. What most people do in this situation is they say to themselves “I just have to use my willpower to be more disciplined.” And that almost never works, because we only get a little bit of willpower every day and we usually burn it up pretty quickly. So willpower and discipline would be the superficial, downstream, band-aid measure.

How could you go upstream to solve this problem? You could go upstream and solve the problem at the level of your environment by not keeping junk food in the house. You can't eat junk food when it's not available. You would make sure that you don't do your grocery shopping on an empty stomach when you're likely to be tempted to buy junk food and have a shopping list and don't deviate from it.

You could go further upstream and address it at the level of your habits. You could create a habit around only eating at meal times and not snacking. Or you could create a habit around making sure your first meal of the day is really healthy so it sets the standard for all of your downstream eating through the rest of the day; maybe something that is high in protein so it fills you up more and you don't feel like snacking.

You could go even further upstream and address it at the level of your emotions. All of our sub-optimal behaviours, compulsions, and addictions arise because we don't know how to cope with and experience certain feelings. A sense of anxiety comes up and we subconsciously think that we don't want to feel that feeling, so instead we reach for the potato chips, or the cookies, or the ice cream, or the chocolate, or the cigarette, or the alcohol, or the marijuana. It's our inability to cope with and experience an intense feeling that has us go into these avoidance patterns. So you could go upstream and notice the feeling that's starting to happen that triggers you to eat junk food, and then do some emotional regulation around it to learn how to breathe through and experience that feeling so you don't go into this avoidance tactic of eating the junk food.

Here's another example. Let's say you have low energy. This is something a lot of us are dealing with as the pace of modern life increases. The way most people deal with low energy is they consume sugar, energy drinks, and caffeine. Again, this is a superficial, short-term fix. You get that quick hit of energy, but then you get the crash after the sugar or caffeine high wears off. So it's a band-aid that masks the symptoms. Not only that, eating a lot of sugar will make you gain weight, and drinking a lot of caffeine can disrupt your sleep patterns, so you get this domino effect of negative consequences that I mentioned earlier.

So how could you go upstream to solve your lack of energy? You could address it through your nutrition, making sure that you're eating high-quality, nutrient-dense food that gives your body the nutrition it needs, and taking nutritional supplements to cover any gaps in your diet.

You could go further upstream and address it through your sleep. Most of us don't get enough sleep or don't get high-quality sleep. So you could optimise your sleep quantity; getting to be earlier, creating a habit of getting to bed at a consistent time every night as much as possible. And you could improve your sleep quality; making sure your bedroom is cool, making sure your bed and pillow are comfortable, avoiding blue light from screens before bed, and wearing an eyemask or earplugs to eliminate any light or noise which could disrupt your sleep.

Last example. Let's say you want more money. You could sell some of your stuff. This is what I see a lot of musicians do. They sell off their beloved instruments and gear, and they often regret it. Sure, it will give you an immediate injection of funds, but it's a short-term fix because you only have a limited amount of your stuff to sell off. You can cut your expenses, which at least has some ongoing benefit, but that's only going to get you so far.

How could you go upstream to get more money? Well, you could rob a bank. I'm kidding! Don't rob a bank, for the love of God. There are less risky ways to get money, like marrying a rich widow and making it look like an accident. If you can't find any wealthy widows, you could ask for a raise at your job. You could go upstream by getting a better job where you earn more money. You could go upstream by starting your own business where you won't have a boss dictating how much money you can earn. There's still a constraint there in that you're trading your time for money. So because you've got limited time, that means you can only earn a limited amount of money. You could go further upstream again and become an investor, where you buy investments that pay you dividends so you get a residual, passive income that's not constrained by your time.

These were just some practical, everyday examples of how you could apply upstream thinking. But you could apply it to any domain of your life. So whenever you have a problem in your life, start asking: How can I go upstream to solve this problem?

By going upstream to solve a problem, you're treating root causes versus merely treating the symptoms with band-aids. When you treat the root cause, the symptoms take care of themselves.

The further upstream you go, the more leverage you have in that situation, and the more sustainable and viable these solutions are in the long term.

The furthest upstream you can go will usually be addressing problems at the level of habits, which is behaviour change, and emotional regulation, because your emotions, or more accurately, your avoidance of them, is usually driving your behaviours.

When you go upstream to solve a problem, the effects will trickle downstream into the rest of your life.

For example, when you address your eating junk food by going all the way upstream to emotional regulation, you won't just lose weight from not eating the junk food and feel better physically because you're not putting crap into your body. You'll be more resilient. You'll be able to cope with your intense feelings in other situations. You'll have better relationships. You'll have higher self-esteem. You'll be more willing to take risks. You'll free up more of your time, energy and attention. You don't get all of those benefits by doing the surface-level quick fix.