August 21, 2024
When things aren't going well, it can be hard to pull our attention away from all the problems that need solving. Problem-solving is an excellent skill, but it's not the only way, or always the best way, to tackle persistent, complex issues. If you've got long-term work to do, it can be more effective to spend time visualising outcomes.
As a TANK user shared with us, “I took a break and went for a walk to think through this recurring work issue, and I realised I needed to pay more attention to what’s good in the day, and make more time for that. You make more space to see the big picture and do smarter stuff, rather than just keep banging away. When I quit struggling with the problem, everything got easier.”
Start with the possibility
Looking past the problem to the possibility is a bit of mindfulness judo they don’t teach you in school. Linear problem-solving is the focus, and if you’re designing a bridge, or diagnosing an illness, or working out how to make a company more profitable, that’s probably fine.
It starts to come unstuck when the problem is more complex and dynamic - when it’s hard to tease out causes from effects and there are plenty of each, when they have a habit of shifting suddenly, and when some of them are invisible. This kind of problem often has another characteristic: it’s urgent but chronic - it’s causing real pain, but it’s hard to solve, so we learn to tolerate it.
Mostly when people talk about these problems, they’re talking about big social and environmental issues like poverty or climate change, but burnout fits the bill too. These problems can be overwhelming. They often feel insoluble, and that’s a big part of the issue.
Problems aren’t as exciting
The best work on big, complex problems is increasingly focused on the possibility rather than the problem itself: imagining what “better” might look like and then demonstrating on a small scale how it could work, rather than getting stuck on all the ways things are currently wrong, and all the barriers to fixing them.
Excitement counts - especially when you’re tackling anything that’s going to take sustained effort. We need time and energy for to make change and make it stick. Time and energy are hard to come by if we’re constantly in problem mode. Possibilities keep motivation high.
Visualisation makes possibilities real
In our own brains and bodies, at least. Our unconscious brains aren't good at telling the difference between a mental representation our conscious brains creates, and the real thing itself happening in the world. That's why imagining a spider can really make us anxious, and also why visualisation is effective as a way of preparing for challenging tasks and achieving hard goals.
So, if you're lost in the problem of burnout, and it's not really clear for you what it would look like to flourish, make that your next task: take a short break, maybe make a cup of tea, and jot down the first three things that come to mind when you think about the possibilities.
