The Right Questions

I just read this post on Lifehacker and I found it to be quite important. The basic idea is that, too often in life, we tend to fail because we don't approach problems as challenges. He talked about how in video games, you succeed when you learn from your failures. Even if you have to redo a boss battle 200 times, as long as you continue to try and learn from your mistakes, you will eventually win. If, instead, you blame the game makers as 'unfair' or blame your controller or anything and everything else, you will probably never defeat the boss. It's difficult to succeed when you live in constant frustration.

Part of this has to do with not asking the right questions. Often when things are hard for us, we'll ask questions about the situation, but maybe not the right ones. He gave a simple formula for how to begin to explore a topic.

The first thing is to begin the question with 'what' or 'how,' instead of 'why,' 'when' or 'who.' The next step is to say "I" instead of someone else. The third step is to add a specific action.

So, for instance, if you're married and you're not happy, instead of asking questions like "When is my spouse going to do better?" "Why hasn't my spouse done anything to improve our lives?" or "Who is to blame for this situation?" you will ask "How can I make myself more happy?" "What can I do to improve my future?"

After all, you can't control other people or circumstances. The only piece you really have on the board is you. The only moves you can control are your own. If you want a situation to improve, you have to accept responsibility for that situation and think about what you can do to make it better.

I think maybe his video game theme can go even further here. For instance, I recently played a level of Super Mario 3 online. I sucked at it. I died within seconds because I couldn't quite make myself adjust to the arrow keys controlling everything. However, each time I did the level, I tended to make it a little bit farther. Okay, maybe not EVERY time. There were times when I would make the same mistake again and again and die in the exact same place. I guess, if anything, I learned to be super careful right there.

This is often what happens when you're tackling a huge, extended challenge. You're going to fail a lot. After all, if this was something you could accomplish with ease, you would have done it already. The important thing is that you keep trying and see what you can learn from those failures.

When I get finished with this small project I'm knitting, I'm going to tackle a pretty large crochet project. It involves a technique that I love, but am not good at. It also involves a buttload of counting and paying attention. Am I going to mess this up? Oh yeah. Probably a lot. However, if I keep working on it and try to analyze why I'm messing it up, eventually, I'll finish the project with hopefully decent results.

And if it looks awful, I won't blame the yarn or my hooks or the instructions. I won't even blame me. I'll just consider my mistakes and try to do better next time.