People get themselves into trouble because of an unconscious limitation. If the problem were conscious, then they’d have solved it just by thinking about it – as we do with countless problems every day without realising it.
- The Solution that people try to apply to their problems are often a bigger problem in that they create a context that allows the problem to be maintained, when otherwise it would just naturally fade away. Ironically the more they try to “solve” the problem, the more stuck they get.
- The reason that the solution can maintain a problem is that solutions are often Ego-driven, which means that we try to compensate for an unmet need (i.e. a state!) It causes us to make faulty conclusions like:
- “I’ll be happy when I have a new house”
- The formula “I need X to be Y” or “I’ll be Y when I have X” is the wrong way around. The truth is that “You’ll get X when you are Y”. You’ll find it a lot easier to creatively solve the problem of getting a new house when you are happy – because positive states generate infinitely better decisions than negative ones!