Recognizing Obstacles
When you’re facing a challenge, how do you typically approach it?
There may be times when you’ve decided to address a challenge, but you have no idea what to do next. It is often said that the first step is the most difficult, but that doesn’t mean that everything else is easy. Whether you’re going through a rough patch in a relationship, dealing with poor health, having trouble budgeting, or trying to learn a new skill, you may find that your challenge is much more complex than you anticipated.
Let’s say you want to get better grades in your math class. The solution may seem simple: spend more time studying math each day. If you put in extra effort, you may think you’re bound to earn better grades. But what if you spend all your free time studying math and it still doesn’t seem to help? That can be discouraging, especially if you don’t understand why you’re struggling.
That’s why it’s important to make sure you’re approaching the problem correctly.
First, it’s important to determine what obstacles are preventing you from making progress. If the time you spend studying math doesn’t produce results, why is that? Are you confused about how to solve a certain type of problem? Do you have a hard time staying focused on your assignments or the material you’re trying to study? Is there so much information to memorize that you can’t seem to remember all of it on the day of an exam?
If you’re confused, why do you think that is? Do any of your classmates struggle with the same topic? If so, the obstacle could be that your teacher was not able to explain it well. In that case, the problem is unrelated to the amount of time you spend studying. Spending an extra hour on your math homework will not bring you to the right answers if you do not know the correct formula for each question. Instead, the best course of action might be to seek out a tutor or a video tutorial that may be able to explain the concept better.
Likewise, there could be various reasons why you have a hard time staying focused on math. Maybe you have an undiagnosed attention-deficit disorder. Maybe you have a form of dyslexia called dyscalculia, which makes reading and remembering numbers especially difficult. Maybe you don’t get enough sleep each night, which negatively affects your attention span and increases the likelihood of making mistakes. Maybe you just find math incredibly boring and can’t bring yourself to care about it.
Having trouble remembering formulas could mean that you don’t fully understand the concept. Or it could mean that you’re not studying in an effective manner. Are you simply reading your notes over and over again? Solving practice problems might be a better approach.
With this kind of closer inspection, what initially seems like one problem—not being good at math—turns out to be a collection of related but distinctly different issues. And different problems require different solutions. Being enthusiastic about overcoming your challenge is always a good thing, but knowing where to direct your enthusiasm is equally important. Otherwise, you are likely to get discouraged when the effort you put in doesn’t produce the results you were hoping for.
What challenge are you facing? What obstacles do you need to overcome? How might being able to recognize these obstacles change which possible solutions you consider?
If you’re not sure where to start, I invite you to click the link below.