What does living a solution focused life mean?
‘Solution focused’ means we actively encourage our brains to view the inevitable difficulties in life as challenges to find solutions for, and to take actions that move us forward, rather than getting stuck in the difficulties. It’s not about ignoring the difficulties. It’s about helping our brains to properly assess them and find helpful solutions with more positive thinking.
And it’s not as tricky as it might sound! Here are our top tips for living a solution focused life.
1. Look for the positives
Make a note every day of something that has been good. Not only does this create a shift in our brain chemistry and light up certain more helpful areas of our brain, it also results in our brain actively finding more and more positives in our days. Looking for the positives creates a more realistic balanced view of life for our brain. This conscious positive thinking helps to balance out all that negative thinking we have a tendency to do.
2. Turn it into a challenge
When our brains see a difficult situation in front of us, they often go straight into defensive, protective mode. Our brains struggle to understand our modern day lives so often mistake a difficult work meeting, a tough financial situation or a difficult conversation as a more primitive danger to us (think hungry lions or scary polar bears). When our brain sees something as a threat, it’s much more likely to trigger our primitive survival responses of anxiety, anger or depression. Helping our brain to see a situation as a challenge rather than a threat activates the solution finding part of our brain, which encourages us to take actions to resolve the situation.
3. Ask a curious question
Asking a question fires up that part of our brain that loves to solve problems and find solutions. This is especially helpful if it’s something we might be worrying about. When we worry about things the voice in our head tends to provide a clear statement like, “I’ll never be good enough to do that.” Try turning it into curious question: “I wonder what I could do to get better at that?” or “This is going to be so difficult,” could be “I wonder how I could make this easier?” As soon as we ask ourselves (or others) a curious question and starting thinking about a positive outcome, our brain can’t help but try to find an answer!
4. Practice gratitude for the small things
Look for the little things in life that make every day special. Spring flowers, a message from a friend, a funny YouTube video, a cuddle with your pets… It’s easy to take the small things for granted as we buzz through our busy days, so when we take the time to stop and be grateful it gives us a real boost – literally! Gratitude floods our brains with a cocktail of positive neurotransmitters, rewarding us for positive thinking. We can achieve this without needing to do anything else differently. It’s lovely to have special days out, a big meet-up with friends, or once-in-a lifetime holidays, but we don’t need them to feel good – the small things are just as important.
5. As yourself, “Will that make me feel good?”
When it comes to decision-making, take a moment to stop and ask questions like, ‘Will that make me feel good?’ or ‘Do I really want that?’ This pause for calm reflection helps to ensure that the action we are taking is proactive towards our preferred future, rather than being reactive or making decisions based on what other people want us to do.
6. Make up your mind 100% in advance
When we make a decision in advance it’s much easier for our brain to make the right choice in the moment. When we’ve made it clear in advance what outcomes we want we’re not giving our brain the opportunity to have the “should I/shouldn’t I?” argument. Let’s take snacking as an example. Left to it’s own devices, if we get hungry during the day our brain will often lead us to the snack with the highest dopamine reward, rather than the highest nutrition reward – which is why biscuits are so often the answer! When we’ve decided in advance that our solution is to eat a healthy handful of nuts, our brain already knows the answer. It’s not 100% foolproof of course, but it does gives us a better chance of making the right choices for ourselves and helps us avoid decision fatigue.
7. Write a list of your favourite people
We are wired to be a social species so our connections with others are hugely important to our mental and emotional wellbeing. Write a list of the top five people in your life who fill your cup up: the people that inspire you and the ones you feel good around. And then make plans to spend time with them! Arrange to meet up or speak on the phone and make sure they are in your life as much as possible. Don’t forget to tell them how awesome they are and let them know how much you appreciate them!
8. Do something different
Our brain loves it when we do different things! After all, that’s how we evolved! We don’t always have to change big things to tap into our brain’s reward system. Look at your regular day and encourage your brain to find different ways to do your regular tasks. Maybe that means getting all the housework done in the week so your weekends are free. It could be listening to audiobooks on your commute so you finally find time to enjoy last year’s bestsellers. It might simply be having a takeaway on a Tuesday instead of your usual Friday. This keeps our brain on its toes looking for novel solutions.
9. Make life easier
Our brain loves to take the easy option – it does have a lot on its plate! However, our modern lives often over-complicate things. There can be a culture of keeping your head down and pushing through challenges, or even an expectation that life is supposed to feel difficult. But what if we decided to make life easier? Whether it’s day-to-day life or bigger challenges, what could you do differently to help things feel easier? For example, it might feel easier to go for a walk straight after the school run, make your lunch the night before or to share the load with someone else.
10. Ask for help
If you are consistently feeling overwhelmed or stuck you might need help from a solution focused therapist before you can use tips like these. Solution focused is the way we do things at Inspired to Change. It’s the model of therapy we choose to use and it’s how we encourage the whole team and our clients to navigate life. Get in touch for a free consultation to find out how solution focused hypnotherapy can help you to reduce anxiety and overwhelm. You can take the first steps towards more positive thinking and living a solution focused life.
