The question itself seems a little bit crazy, right? How can you solve something that is unsolvable? That’s the thing that came to my mind when I got the book It’s Not About the Shark: How to Solve Unsolvable Problems.
The book’s title stands out for me – and it’s funny how this book fell into my hands. I was at a conference from a creativity course I took a while ago. It was a 2-day conference and the organization decided to do something different: they asked the participants to bring a book (or a couple of books) on the first day and exchange it for a different one (you were supposed to take the same number of books you brought with you) on the 2nd day. And in between all the books on the table, It’s not about the shark that just got in my hands.
And I’m so glad it did…
About problems
Since the beginning of the book, David keeps telling what is – maybe – the most valuable lesson from all the chapters: the problem is the biggest problem.
The author says that the more you reflect on the problem, the hardest it gets to solve it. Let me use an example to explain:
Lisa has to deliver her final paper for college in 3 months, but she does not want to do it in the last hour and starts to work on it right away. She defines a subject of study, finds books and articles to read about, and defines a schedule. Everything working perfectly and in 2 weeks she already has a few pages written. However, she has a lot of time, right?
If she has this much time, she can take a couple of days off from writing and still be on time. Every time Lisa sits down to write, she can’t get more than a few sentences. But she got time…
One week due to her deadline, it still seemed like Lisa couldn’t write, even though she had everything planned. Why? She is thinking too much about having to write – or focusing on the problem. And the more she thinks that she has to write her paper, the more challenging it’s going to be.
How to change that?
That’s when It’s Not About the Shark: How to Solve Unsolvable Problems comes. The book has many tips – some that seem obvious (but we don’t do as often as we should) and some that make you go: how come I never thought about that? I have a few tips here that we can start to work with:
Find a good distraction
Like I mention before, taking your mind out of the problem is very helpful when you’re facing an ~unsolvable~ problem. And to respond to your mind out of it, you need a distraction. It can be a movie, a walk around the block, listens to music, making a snack or anything that helps you forget a little about the problem itself.
Figure out what is best suited for you and go for it!
Do something you’ve never done before
Do new things just turns on fresh points of view and adds a new repertoire to your brain. And when I talk about doing innovative things, I’m not telling you to go backpacking around the world or jump on a parachute. Sometimes just taking a different route when going home or to work helps a lot with that.
Be someone else for a while
Look at your problems as a third person, as someone who does not participate with them. Have you observed that sometimes it’s easier to find the solution for everybody else’s problem but yours? This exercise will help a lot with that.
Call your friend with purple hair
Wait, what?!
I do not mean that it literally (but by all means, if you have a friend with purple hair, just do it!). Nevertheless, what I’m saying is that you should talk to people different from you. People with diverse life experiences are going to have a different point of view of your problem. And guess what: it can help you get to the solution.
Move around!
Rise from your chair, go for a walk, run, swim, or do any kind of exercise that pleases you. Moving your body releases endorphins. Endorphin makes you happy. Happiness distracts your mind from your problems… And you might already know what it means.
Do something out of order
Break the pattern! Change the order of your activities. Have you ever thought about starting to write a text by the conclusion? It does not make a lot of sense, right? But what if not making sense is undoubtedly what your mind needs to find the solution to your problem? Think about it. 😉
As much nonsense, it sounds, it works. You can try it and let me know later.
It’s Not About the Shark: How to Solve Unsolvable Problems gets a lot more tips – and a lot of examples of how people like Spielberg solved problems that appeared unsolvable.
And why you should read it?
We all face problems, in all aspects of our life. Besides, for many people (like me!), solving problems is part of your job.
So, if we understand how we can be better at solving problems, we can live better.
Is it something that comes to change immediately? Probably not. It is complicated to change the way we think when we’ve been doing the same thing for a long time. Nonetheless, I want to invite you to try – and share your experience with me.
What do you think? Let’s try? 🙂
