During school days, as far as I can remember, I had always proved to be an above average person. May it be academics, sports or extra curricular activities, I always brought back home good grades, trophies and medals. Wherever I went, I would only get to hear praises in my favor. This surely made me happy and kept me motivated, but simultaneously built that dangerous thing in me called “pride”. It was nothing but pride that caused me a lot of pain and misery in the future years.

After graduating from school, I entered college and the college environment brought with it a lot of distractions. I gradually moved from the “above average” category to the “average” category.

The years at college just flew by. Without any deliberations I had decided on pursuing higher studies. The course I chose to take up had the reputation of being one of the toughest courses in the country. It was supposedly more of a penance rather than a mere educational degree. It was not that I was unaware of this fact, but I was so full of pride that nothing could seem impossible for me, not even close to difficult.

Reality dawned on me when I took my first set of exams. Leave alone being “average” or “below average”, I was far from making it to the next level. I had a tough time facing failure since it was a new concept. My pride did not let my heart accept it and I managed to convince myself that the failure this time was merely due to bad luck. I began my preparation to take up the exams again. I failed in not just my second attempt, but consecutively in a few attempts after that. Now, I began to lack self confidence; yet pride managed to cling on to me somewhere. I had got into a self destructive mode. I had developed such fear towards failure that I stopped taking up any new task. So I began to miss out on all the success I could have had at other things. I even stopped socializing. My life had become a vicious circle consisting of just exams and failure. I couldn’t believe this was happening to me!

One fine day, out of the blue, it struck to me that I had a serious problem and I had to do something about it. Instead of just thinking about the problem over and over in my mind, I put it down on a paper. I then put in words what my aim was and also listed out the shortcomings in me. For the first time in a long while, I was being truthful. Next I listed out the strategies I could adopt to tackle this problem and the consequences of implementing it. I spoke with other people who were going through the same phase as I was and learnt what they were doing to get closer to their goals. I even conversed with those who had been successful at the same task and took their suggestions in good spirit. I came up with a time table that was realistic and feasible. I tried and learnt various techniques of studying as well as relaxing. After I had monitored the steps I had taken, I knew even before the results were out that I would soon taste the sweetest thing called success. It did happen, and ever since then, there has been no looking back.

To summarize the process, the steps to be taken to solve a problem are as follows:

1. Problem identification: What is my concern?

Try to give a precise description of your problems. You should try to focus on behaviors or skill deficits.

1. Goal definition: What do I want to achieve or change?

This should be a realistic aim of improvement (not “I want to feel better”). Ask yourself: “What do I want to change or achieve right now?”

1. Brainstorming: What can I do?

Think of successful ways of solving problems. Use your creativity.

Some of the strategies that can be used are:

1. Recognize a pattern
2. Simplify and make it manageable
3. Visualize and experiment
4. Estimate: Guess and test
5. Organized listing
6. Working backwards

(Barrett, Sarah G., Mars Hill School, <http://www.iit.edu/~smile/ma8902.html>)

1. Consequences: What might happen?

This step can be split into sub steps:

1. What are the advantages? It is better to look at the advantages before looking at the disadvantages
2. Where are the risks, what care is needed, what problems can occur?
3. How do you intuitively feel about the alternatives?
4. Implementation: Just do it!
5. Evaluation: Did it work?

If you have been successful: Great!!!! You should think about a reward for your efforts!!!! (Martin Winkler, 24 Aug 2008 <http://web4health.info/en/answers/psy-problem-solving.htm>)

Bibliography

www.web4health.info. Martin Winkler, 24 Aug 2008. 20 Oct 2008. <http://web4health.info/en/answers/psy-problem-solving.htm>

www.iit.edu. Barrett, Sarah G., Mars Hill School. 20 Oct 2008. <http://www.iit.edu/~smile/ma8902.html>

These are suggestions and techniques I’ve used time and again to get through a bad day, a bad week, and even a bad month.