Take Control of Your Problems

Does worry sit with you most days? Do you grab hold of a single problem and turn it over and over until it refuses to leave your head? Maybe you've convinced yourself that the troubles you carry are just permanent fixtures, things you were handed and have to keep. That belief is the thing I want to pull apart here, because it isn't true. You are allowed to push back. You are allowed to clear some of this out. And there are a few practical ways to start.

For more than thirteen years I treated my problems as settled facts. Feeling used by people, running low on motivation, carrying far more anxiety than I wanted: I filed all of it under permanent. Whenever anyone handed me a possible fix, I'd find the reason it couldn't work for me and set it back down. I stayed parked in that place for a long time, sure that no door existed. Then I found an online depression course, and the way I read my own situation shifted. The change isn't finished, but I'm working at it, and the work is paying off.

What the course drilled into me first was this: nothing moves until the thinking moves. I'd assumed my life was fixed and I had no hand on the wheel. It taught me the opposite, that there were real changes available once I stopped treating the thinking itself as fixed. So the tips below start from the mind and go outward.

Begin by turning the problem into an action statement. Say a complaint sits in front of you and you have no idea what to do with it. Rewrite it so you own it. Here's one I actually dealt with: my friends said I didn't spend enough time with them. Phrased that way, the whole thing lands on them. It's their grievance about me. But reframe it around the effect on you and it becomes something like, "I won't keep healthy friendships if I don't give those people real time." Notice the word "I" doing the work. The moment you say it, the problem is yours to steer.

The next step is to take that statement apart. Keep the friendship example going, since it's mine. You've landed on "I won't keep healthy friendships if I don't give those people real time." Now interrogate it. Where in your life does this actually show up? When does it bite? Who is it a problem with, specifically? Why does it matter to you? What does it do to you when it happens? Chopping one big statement into those small pieces makes it far less slippery to handle once you go to fix it.

With the questions answered, go looking for a fix, or several. In this case mine were plain. Set aside a couple of hours once a week to leave the house and actually be around those friends. Have them over for dinner on some regular night. Nothing elaborate. Those were the moves that fit my particular version of the problem.

You now have the pieces: take a problem, convert it into an action statement, then convert that statement into something you do. Be patient with yourself while this feels clumsy. Pick a small problem for your first run, get the rhythm of it, and work up to the heavier ones from there. You can start on one of yours today.