Tag Archives: problem solving

Hope is contagious

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Hope

Hope.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Where do you go to get some hope when yours runs out?

There is no doubt in my mind that hope is an essential ingredient for recovery. Without hope, nothing gets done and if you do not change things then nothing changes.

How do you move from being hopeless to having hope? What is up with those people who are consistently full of hope?

One ingredient of Hope is wishing for something. Sometimes we are in misery but if we do not believe that things can get better our only wish is that things not get worse.

The dictionary (Encarta) begins its definition of Hope, as a verb, with the statement:

to have a wish to get or do something or for something to happen or be true, especially something that seems possible or likely

Fundamental to this having of hope is the belief that there is some possibility of it happening. This is why we encourage recovering people to have a support system. Even when you are beset by doubts, having positive people in your support system can increase your levels of hope.

When you go to a meeting and the person next to you tells a story of their hope and their recovery it becomes easier for you to believe that this can happen to you.

To hope requires action. The continued practice of hoping that if you take the necessary action then things can and will get better.

If you continually tell yourself “that can’t happen” or “that will never happen” you are creating that possibility. Your continued telling this tale to your brain results in the brain believing that this thing you desire can never under any circumstance happen. Your brain responds by making sure to please you and prevents this outcome.

But if you can tell yourself that this “could” happen, it “might” happen if you continue to try, this allows the brain to do the actions needed to move towards successes.

Another definition of hope includes the words:

a chance that something desirable will happen or be possible

I have seen this repeatedly in my clients and students. Those who say “I could never go back to school at my age; I could never get a degree.” They don’t.  Those who are willing to move even the short distance to “I do not know if I could do this but I will try” they get going, do the required work, and in a great many cases they succeed.

Our dictionary’s second definition of Hope as a noun moves closer to successes.

a feeling that something desirable is likely to happen

Once you move to the belief that this thing, this outcome you wished for is not only possible but likely the road gets easier. Not that there won’t be obstacles and bumps on this road.

There is a connection between hope, willpower, and determination. Willpower and determination are wasted without hope? With hope, you can develop the willpower and determination needed to keep moving forward.

Many people grew up in non-affirming homes. They were told they would never amount to anything and they were no good. If you hear this often enough you come to believe what you are told. You lose hope.

Working with a counselor, a supportive friend, or a group of peers you can rebuild hope. Small successes will convince you that there are things that you can do if only you try.

Hope is most valuable when times are hard and things are not going your way. The belief that there is something you can do to alter your life course and the hope that if you keep trying you can reach that goal will keep you going.

Hope is more than just a positive attitude. It encompasses the belief in yourself, that if you do the required things then good outcomes are possible.

Where are you on this journey of moving from hopelessness to hope?

Related articles

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Six David Joel Miller Books are available now!

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Some family secrets can be deadly.

What if your family secrets put you in danger?

Letters from the Dead The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead?

Casino Robbery is a novel about a man with PTSD who must cope with his symptoms to solve a mystery and create a new life.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Sasquatch. Wandering through a hole in time, they encounter Sasquatch. Can they survive?

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Books are now available on Amazon.

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Want the latest on news from recoveryland, the field of counseling, my writing projects, speaking, and teaching? Please sign up for my newsletter at – Newsletter. I promise not to share your email or to send you spam, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

For more about David Joel Miller and my work in the areas of mental health, substance abuse, and Co-occurring disorders, see my Facebook author’s page, davidjoelmillerwriter.

Becoming wealthy is easier than you think

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Cash

Money.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

In the wealthiest country on earth, most Americans are poor.

What does it take to become a wealthy person? Getting into that top one percent may be difficult but moving up the wealth ladder takes a whole lot less than you might think.

Poor may be easier to define than wealthy. The poor can’t afford much of anything.  By most economic measures the majority of Americans are poor. I will emphasize Americans in this post because most of the rest of the world thinks of us as wealthy, we know better.

Two-thirds of all Americans live paycheck to paycheck.

Most of us are one paycheck away from homelessness. The only thing saving a lot of us is the slow speed of eviction and foreclosure.

Absolutely having an income is important. We will return again later to the theme of the connection between having a job, any job, and having hope and good mental health. But once you have that income coming in, what will it take to start moving up into the ranks of the “wealthy.” Probably way less than you think.

Over one-fourth of Americans have no savings account. Open a savings account of any amount and you move into the upper 75 % of all Americans in wealth. Better open that account with a credit union. In what I see as amazing cynicism most U. S. banks will charge you so much for “maintaining an account” those fees will drain the account dry in a matter of months.

Want to do better than that? Let’s say you want to join the upper 50% of the wealthiest Americans, you need to reach a balance in that savings account of just $500. That’s right folks; to enter the ranks of the wealthiest half of all Americans you need just $500 in savings.

You are saying that it must be more complicated than that. Well yes, there is a little catch. You can’t count yourself wealthy if you don’t pay your bills to collect up that saving account balance. But don’t worry about that one too much. Turns out most Americans have bills that exceed their savings account balance. So yes even with balances on your credit cards you can make the 50 % most wealthy Americans list with just $500 in savings.

Want to bypass all that middle of the road stuff and make the upper crust? The wealthiest one-third is your goal? The amount you need in Savings will need to reach the astronomical figure of $1,000.

This is mind-boggling. Most of us will spend thousands on a big screen or a new computer but can “spend” $1,000 by placing it in a savings account for later use. How much is peace of mind worth? If you lose just one night’s sleep worrying about paying bills having that $1,000 cushion will be worth the effort to save it up.

Unless, big warning here, if you are one of those people who the minute you get some money in the bank you increase your spending to use that money up. To get into the top one-third in wealth is a lot easier than to stay there.

What about credit cards?

We need to talk about the average American now, not the upper or lower anything. Calling anyone average is a stretch, especially when we are talking about money. The average family had 2.3 children at one point. No one has “point anything” kids. You either have two or three or you belong in an institution for the criminally insane.

Take one person walking down Wall Street; he has one hundred million dollars in the bank. Now average his bank balance with the nine homeless people in that Occupy encampment. What is the result? The AVERAGE bank balance will be ten million dollars. No one in this example has that amount.

This trying to average Billionaires and people making minimum wage is one reason Washington keeps getting us into trouble. If you take away everything the Billionaires have and leave them homeless you still won’t get enough to make the homeless into millionaires. On the other hand, if the Billionaires don’t kick in and kick in good there will be no one to buy from their companies and they will not feel safe walking the streets. Trickle-down economics only works when the flow rate increases way beyond a trickle. But I digress.

How do credit cards figure into this becoming a wealthy person?

Credit cards have their place. I am not urging you to return to the depression era economics and go completely without the existence of credit. I keep some in case my car breaks down in the middle of the desert and I need to get it repaired to get out of there. I do not move to the desert and try to live by using my card instead of working.

The way some card companies market their products is the equivalent of that chocolate cake on the healthy eating list. Sympathy for those card companies is like caring for sharks by keeping some in the community pool. I am all for conservation but it does not include a shark in my pool thank you very much.

So what is the relationship between being a wealthy American and credit cards?  Wealthy people do not carry balances on credit cards. If they have them and use them they pay them off as quickly as possible.

This keeps most Americans out of the “Wealthy” club. The “Average American” has $3,800 in their bank account but they have $2,200 on their credit card. If they were to pay that credit card off there would not be even one month’s living expenses left for that “average” American.

The net result is that they will end up using that card again. They get to pay and pay that balance over and over and still never get out of debt.

Want to be a wealthy American no matter how much you make? Save up some money in an emergency savings account, pay off those credit cards and then scale back your spending to match your income.

You can’t afford the bare necessities you say? We need to talk about the difference between necessities and luxuries, between wants and needs. But this post has run over so I will save that for another time.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Finding your Quest – what life challenge will define you?

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Meaning.

Meaning.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Have you found your life’s purpose?

It is my view that each and every person has a reason for being – beyond that night their parents spent together. Some of us find our purpose easily and the rest of our life leads in that direction. For others of us, we can’t see that purpose till late in life after we have accumulated a vast collection of experiences.

We are all the heroes of our own lives.

Every great epic story involves a hero and a quest. In the heroic drama, there is a customary sequence of events that sets up the required quest. Good fiction writers know this and give you plenty of quest elements to make their stories interesting. When I write fiction I try to incorporate those elements. In my counseling practice I find that clients have been on personal quests, searches for life’s meaning, that rival any I think up for a work of fiction.

The epic begins with the hero being asked to undertake some great and meaningful task. They are thinking of doing something to save mankind or prevent a great global disaster.  Interview a group of first-graders and ask them what they plan to be when they grow up and you will get a list of those professions that try to make a difference. Somewhere along the line, we decide not to embark on that quest.

In the hero story, the protagonist usually says no. I don’t want to devote my life to helping the homeless or some other noble undertaking. Here the hero goes off on his own and tries to have a lot of fun. Sound familiar. We may suspect we have some special purpose but no, we decide to live our lives for ourselves and let others worry about the homeless and world peace.

Now in the hero story, the main guy finds he can’t escape his destiny no matter how hard he tries. The war comes to his town, the shelling destroys his home and now he is one of those homeless refugees of war. He has to do something to end homelessness and war if only to save himself. Maybe in the process, he puts on a white helmet and tries to save a few children.

Notice that most people in the helping professions have had to overcome some issues, in themselves or their families, the quest to improve their world was thrust on them whether they wanted it or not.

Counselors in substance abuse facilities have historically been people in recovery from alcoholism or addiction. They have to save others to save themselves. I have also seen people who grew up without parents who were moved from caregiver to caregiver, who made it their life work to be super parents or to work with other parentless children.

So in this epic we call our lives we may get distracted, sometimes for years, but eventually, we need to face the task of finding a purpose for our lives. We embark on this quest or we waste away never knowing that our life could have had a purpose and a meaning.

We may stumble along in life, endure pain, and suffer a little. Hopefully, learn that the pain may be a requirement but the suffering is optional. Eventually, we find our life purpose. Right?

Wish it were that easy.

The way this heroic quest plot plays out in the movie theater or the novel is a lot easier to see than in our own lives.

In the novel version, once the hero sets off there are all kinds of obstacles put in his way. He may encounter dragons and demons and all sorts of stuff. He will be arrested and thrown in a dungeon and then have to find the magic key that sets him free.

A writer’s expression that fits with this scene is “when the hero reaches for the key, cut off his hand.” This sounds cruel I know, but in the giant epic, there is never a point where the hero knows things are getting better. Not till he gets to the end and looks back.

So what does this have to do with our personal recovery? Sometimes recovery is not pretty. This is a real-life and bad things can keep happening even when you are trying to do the right thing. The thing that will give your life real meaning, will make your quest worth undertaking, is to find that thing that says to you it needs doing no matter what it takes.

If you can find that quest, your life will have meaning no matter how hard the struggles.

Are you willing to undertake a great heroic quest to become the best person you can be?

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

The problem easy button.

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

ok

Pushing the button.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Where did I put that easy button that solves everyone’s problems?

Have you seen that commercial where there is an easy button and you push it and the problem is solved?

Do you ever wish there was one of those buttons?

Clients come for counseling and they talk about how bad their life is, how they wish that family member would change, and so on.

What they don’t usually talk about is what they are willing to do to get this situation to change.

So if we had an easy button for your life problems – would you hit it?

Surprisingly many people would not be willing to hit the button.

Say you have a lot of anxiety and you could hit this button and all your anxiety would be gone, a very large number of you will pass on that opportunity. Why won’t people hit the easy button when it is sitting there on the table in front of them?

One reason is that our problems become like old friends. We are used to our particular brand of suffering and we are afraid that if this problem were to be solved then there would be other changes in our lives, changes that scare us. The terror we know is less scary than the one that might be around the bend in the path we have never trod.

For people who suffer from anger, depression, or substance abuse, their problem can become a part of who they think they are. Depression, like Anxiety, keeps you from doing things. That fear protects you from trying and therefore you don’t have to worry about making mistakes. You can’t do it because of Mr. Anxiety, Mary Jane, or Miss Crystal, so it is not your fault. If we take your anxiety from you and you were able to do things – guess what. Some of those things would not turn out well. You might even make some mistakes.

The cost of having an illness that prevents you from doing things needs to be balanced with the risks that if you did those things they will not all turn out perfectly.

With the freedom to make choices to decide how you want to live your life also come responsibilities. You need to own your choices, the good and the bad. Freedom has its risks.

Sometimes it is nice to have someone listen; understand what we are going through. Life can be hard and having a supportive person can be a great comfort. That person should not be someone who convinces you to hold on to your misery because a life free of suffering is just too scary.

I accept that many of us have had to live with pain. Pain may be a part of the human condition, but the suffering, that is optional.

One thing the counselor should not do is become a co-conspirator with the client and begin to tell them that they should give up. That with your problems there is no way you could be successful and so, of course, you should not try.

Despite the reality that giving up is bad advice no matter who tells you to do it, we all from time to time tell ourselves that we need to stop trying. The risks of solving our life problems are just too great.

So if the problem-solving button were in front of you – right now – hit it and your problem will be solved – will you do it? Are you ready to take that chance?

What will it take for you to be ready to leave those problems behind?

That button, that key to solving your problems, it has been there all this time, deep down inside you. You should know by now that your life can be happier if only you chose to let go of the suffering and make the most of your life with or without the pain.

The anger, the anxiety, the addiction, they may have been your long-term companions but they are not your friends. Kick them to the curb and get on with your life.

Every great epic story involves a hero and a quest.

Related articles

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

What do you do when nothing is working? – Problem solving.

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Problem-solving.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

When the old solutions do not work – then what?

How about you? When your best effort to solve your problem has not worked what things might you try?

It surprises many of us that there is a relatively simple, standardized process, for solving problems. This procedure is not a onetime find a solution but a continuous feedback loop that works for companies, governments, and dare I say, families and individuals.

1. Gather information about the problem first.

What exactly is the problem? Are there other ways of looking at this? If you define the problem as someone else’s behavior you are at an impasse. If you define the problem as your response to their behavior then lots more options open up to you

2. Whenever possible get outside expert advice.

Look for the person that might have the most information and the best insight into your problem. If it is a money problem consider advice from a financial adviser or tax person. For mental health problems or relationships consider at least one visit with a counselor or therapist to see how they might be able to help you.

For a family problem, try to get information and insight from other members of the family. This does not mean that you need to agree with them or do what they tell you, but it is beneficial if you can get their insight. Asking them and then really listening to their opinion is a long way from what most of us do, which is ask, and then argue with them. That old, Yes but, and No but, game will kill the value of any advice you might receive.

3. Generate a list of possible solutions to your problem.

Akin to brainstorming, the goal of this process is to get a list of all possible solutions. They do not have to be realistic solutions. The wilder the better. It is a lot easier to take a wild suggestion and tame it down then to take a timid suggestion and breathe life into it.

4. Evaluate that list of potential problem solutions.

Combine ideas where possible, modify the outlandish ones to make them practical, or find ways to make the more creative ones work. The ones that will not work do they suggest an alternative that might work?

Which potential solution has the best chance of success?

5. Implement this solution.

This requires a plan for implementing the solution. Who will do what when? How will we know if the solution has been implemented?

Give it a fair trial. Decide at the outset how long you will give this solution. How will you know if it is working? Just saying you will do it and then, “there, we did it” are not enough. How will you genuinely know if the things you did improved the situation?

Make sure you actually do the work required.

6. Plan from the beginning a time to evaluate your progress.

Has your efforts to change things made a difference? Has there been enough change to justify your efforts? Do we really think that if you keep on in this direction things will get better? Should you change and try idea number two?

7. Continue to modify the things you are doing based on the evaluation and improvement until you can see a significant improvement in the problem.

So a brief practical example of this approach. The family finds that they are behind on the bills, the credit card is maxed out and the cell phones and cable are about to be turned off. After a lot of arguing and yelling they decide to sit down and talk this over.

Some ideas are developed. They consider bankruptcy. Mom suggests she could get a job, dad could get a part-time job or they could try cutting the bills. The kids scream they will just die if they don’t have phones.

The decision, for now, is that they will make up a list of how much they are spending, on what and look for things they can change.

They talk to a bookkeeper and the helpful man at the credit union. They make up that list of bills and payments and see just what dad is making every week. On paper, it just does not add up. Bankruptcy will not work, it would cost some money and even after they file, dad will still not be making enough to pay all the current monthly bills.

Dad could get some overtime. Mom offers to look for a job. They try this solution.

A month later things are not much better. Dad has not been getting that much overtime. Mom has not found work and the cable and cell phones, they are now turned off. Additionally, mom has had to pay for babysitting for the little one so she can look for work.

The revised solution? One of the older ones will watch the little one, saving the baby’s sitting money. Mom will try an employment service at the college where she was taking a night class and dad offers to give up his Saturday golf game until they are back on track. The oldest asks that when mom gets a job could she have the first chance for a phone since she is doing the babysitting.

Each month as they go along they find the things they can’t pay for, well they are getting by without them so they can come off the budget. Mom begins to work and eventually things stabilize.

Here comes the critical part. They can now revert to their old pattern of spending more than they have until they get in trouble again or they can adopt some new habits and start paying that credit card debt off and having something left over. It will be interesting to see what they do.

Now I gave you an example of a financial problem but this problem-solving approach can be used for almost any problem including relational ones. It just needs some adjusting to make it work on some problems.

So have you used this method or something like it to solve problems? Care to share what worked and what didn’t?

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Are you at the bottom of the hole? – Problem solving

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Problem and problem solving

Problem-solving.

Sometimes problems look like there is just no solution.

Every one of us has to face problems in our lives. Some people’s problems are much larger than others. The people who do the best job of solving their problems are not those with the fewest problems, they are the ones who practice solving problems until they get good at it.

This reminds me of a story and as my colleagues will tell you I am fond of telling stories. There are a bunch of versions of this story and if you have heard one of those other versions, well be warned this is the definitive version or at least I would like to think so.

The Gold Rush played a dominant role in early California history. We still like telling and listening to those old stories. Life in those mining camps was hard and sometimes there were tragedies.

One day a group of miners was out away from camp working on their claims. These particular claims were strung out across the hillside. This one old miner was pretty well-liked by his fellow miners. Despite that Gold fever going around this miner still, would do a good turn for the other minors.

So one morning after the other miners was already at work, this old miner named Pete (Might have been Pedro, I can’t be sure).) Well, Pete comes walking along, with his mule Betsy behind him, bringing up his tools and a few things for the other minors. Some say the mule’s name was Bonita but we can’t tell about that either.

Well, Betsy slipped and slid down the hillside, ended up in a deep old open-pit mine shaft.  Pete commenced to hollering and the whole hillside full of miners came running.

For the best part of the morning, they tried everything they could think of to get that old mule out of that pit.  If you heard this one before just keep it to yourself.

By noon these miners had tried everything they could think of, ropes and lowering a man into the pit to try to help the mule climb up and all like that. Nothing had worked.

Pete decides to do the right thing and put his girl (Mule) Betsy out of her troubles. So he and the other miners decide to give Betsy a decent burial right where she was. Sometimes it pays to give up and just let it all go. They were thinking this was one of those times.

So they all went and got their shovels and started throwing dirt in the pit. It started to pile up around that old mule and then commenced to covering her back. This was in the days before the SPCA and stuff like that. Today you wouldn’t be allowed to bury a mule without a permit and an environmental impact study.

So old Betsy did not like that dirt on her back and commenced to shaking. The dirt flew everywhere and ended up under her. So the minors threw in some more dirt.

Burying a mule that keeps moving is a chore. Well, the long and the short of the story is that the more dirt they threw at her, the more old Betsy shook and the higher up in that pit she came. Before long the pit was full and Betsy, why she just stepped out onto the surface again, shook the last of the dirt off her back, and looked at Pete as if to say “What took you so long?”

The moral of the story, you knew one was coming, didn’t you? That moral is that sometimes when we are down in the bottom of the pit and they are trying to throw dirt on us we need to keep shaking it off and stepping up a little higher.

So if you have been feeling like you were so far down you would need to climb up just to find ground level this story may be for you. Keep on shaking it off and let’s see who is standing on top next time.

Sometimes we get to thinking like those minors, they couldn’t get that mule out of the pit and so they were gonna give up on her. But Betsy, she did what she needed to and got herself out by using that dirt to form a bridge to her future.

So if the way you have been going about trying to solve those problems and the solutions of those around you are feeling like so much dirt in the face, like old Betsy what other uses can you think of for that dirt?

Coming soon, a post about how to find solutions for your problems that involve using your mule sense.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

If your house is leaning check the blueprint – life plans

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

No Roof.

No Roof.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Things we know, that aren’t so, keep life from being happy.

Can you imagine someone building a house with faulty blueprints?

Leave out a couple of braces, a support or two, and cut some boards a little short, and – Wallah – a house that leans precipitously, ready to fall over. There have been a couple of notable cases of this in buildings built by government agencies but that is another topic.

Imagine building your life using a faulty set of blueprints.

This is precisely what a great many clients who come for therapy are trying to do. They keep doing the same thing over and over using a life plan, a set of mental blueprints for living, that the copied down in childhood but there are some mistakes in those plans.

One clinician observed that those life problems that cause us the most difficulty are the things that we learned between five and fifteen that turn out to not be true. The age range may vary but the principle is the same.

Some examples of defective life blueprints may help.

You grew up in a home where alcohol or drugs were readily abused. You grew up thinking that everyone drinks and drugs a lot and this is normal. You may also think that the cops are out to get you because they show up on a regular basis every time you and your family members fight.

This is not normal behavior. Did you know that half of the adults in the United States who are old enough to drink have not had a drink in the last thirty days?  Turns out that the twenty percent heaviest drinkers, they drink eighty percent of the alcohol consumed in America.  Not everyone who drinks at home gets violent either, but the people who do get violent seem to drink and drug a lot more than the people who don’t.

So if you formed a plan for life that includes getting drunk and fighting with people who don’t do what you want them to do, this plan may not work well for anything but sending you to jails and institutions or worse.

Other errors you may have made in transcribing your life blueprints besides drugs and alcohol.

You may have been taught and therefore learned that people with emotional problems, they are crazy and so you need to try really hard to pretend you don’t have any emotional problems because if you admit you have them you will fall apart and go crazy.

This turns out to be very untrue. In the course of their lifetime, half of all Americans will have an emotional problem that becomes so severe they need to get help. My suspicion is that this is true in other places on earth also. Those who recognize they have a life problem and get help early; they have a better chance of getting over this problem quickly.

Everyone who sees a counselor is not crazy. Crazy people pretend they don’t have any problems even when those problems have overwhelmed them.  Much of what we do in counseling is helps people find solutions to normal life problems that are right for them.

We may have “learned” that to be wealthy you need to have been born into money, have a stroke of luck like winning the lottery or come up with some new technological innovation like invent the next e-pet. Turns out that there are people in America who are wealthy and do not realize it. There are also a lot of other paths to wealth that people don’t know exist.

Later in the year, I plan to post a series of pieces about financial issues and how a large amount of what we may have learned and are trying to do may be the result of really defective blueprints.

Some people have a blueprint in their head that tells them they are defective, worthless, or stupid.  If you were told a lot of negative things about yourself as a child you may have internalized thoughts about how you are less than others. Turns out there are a whole lot of very bright people out there who never knew they were that smart. Since others put them down, they have never tried to do the things that they were meant to do.

There are plenty of other examples of this faulty blueprint phenomenon. These may have to do with religion, politics, or other values.  Anytime we swallow someone else’s beliefs whole without digesting them and getting a full understanding we are at risk to have gotten them wrong.

This year may be as a good a time as any to take another look at the blueprints in your head, the ones you learned as a child, and see if they are working or is your life house leaning over and about to collapse. If you find beliefs that are holding you back this may be a time to examine them and see if you may have learned things that are not true.

Some of the structures you have added on to your life house, they may be rooms from someone else’s structure that were never intended to fit into your life.

You can’t create a happy life with a set of blueprints that create misery.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Who owns this problem? Why they won’t stop.

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Problem and problem solving

Problem-solving.

Why do some people refuse to change and how do I make them?

Many of the questions to this blog are about getting others to change. This person or that is driving you crazy and you want them to change but they are just refusing.

The reason you may be getting nowhere on resolving the situation just may be that you are trying to solve the wrong problem.

One method for resolving problem behavior that is taught in parenting classes is to look for the ownership of the problem. Here is a simple “child” problem and afterward we will apply this to more adult issues.

Mother goes into the child’s room and it is a mess. Mom yells “you are such a lazy slob, clean this room up.” This is a bad approach for two reasons. Calling the child a slob may establish a core identity that they are a slob. If that is what you are, why try to change? Being called names repeatedly encourages people to give up.

Who owns this problem? Why mom does of course. The child’s room is messy, mom does not like it and it is upsetting mom. More precisely, mom is “choosing to upset herself” over this issue. She could just give up as many mothers do and accept that kid’s rooms are often messy.

Now, what if grandma is coming and it is important to mom that the room be cleaned up? You all know how grandma is.

The solution – make the problem the child’s. Mom now says “if you do not get this room cleaned up by the time grandma arrives you will not be going to the store with her,” or some other suitable negative consequence.

Now, who owns the problem? Why the child does of course. They need to get this job done in time to get grandma to take them shopping and buy them stuff. Now the child is motivated.

An aside here, make very sure that the phrase “room is a mess and needs to be cleaned up” is operationalized. The child needs to know exactly what you want to be done. They would be glad to throw all those dirty clothes in the closet and call the room clean. A specific list of things to be done before grandma arrives would be helpful here.

Now the more adult version of this issue.

Lots of commenters on this blog ask about getting others to change. I see this in the search engine terms also. Everyone wants someone else to change. How do you do that?

There are techniques to help others change or encourage that change and I have described those methods in a post on “Getting others to change.” There is also a series of posts about “How people change.”

Before you launch into that changing effort you need to ask yourself one question.

Who owns this problem?

If the person is isolating in their room, depressed, and thinking of suicide by all means intervene. Professional help is called for here.

But what if your partner does not like to go out and you do?

In that case, you own this problem.

Most of the time, we want others to change it is because their behavior bothers us. We own those problems. We can talk with the person, make changes in our behavior that encourage the change we want, but the other person still may decide they do not want to change.

If a behavior is not interfering with a person’s ability to work, have relationships with family or friends, and is not making them unhappy, why then we professionals don’t see this as a problem for them.

So if the other person is choosing to not change and it is driving you nuts, you need to work on you.

Options here? Acceptance – radical acceptance is a good place to start. Consider changing yourself so you do not “upset yourself” so much. A good place to begin this practice might be with some “Mindfulness,” get centered in the present.

Enjoy the person and the situation for what they are instead of insisting that they change to suit you.

It is next to impossible to change problems that are not yours and most of the time when we try to change others we are trying to get them to solve our problem.

Suggestion – Take another look at the problems in your life and see who really owns them. If you own the problem then begin by changing you.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Criticizing, complaining and asking for change.

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Talking to yourself

Communication.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Criticizing, complaining, and asking for change.

Communication skills part 3.

When something bugs us what should we do? When we are unhappy we are likely to react in one of a very few ways. Will you say nothing, become angry, or take a middle road and try to talk about the issue?

Some people say nothing and suffer in silence. For those people, we recommend assertiveness training. If you do nothing about a problem then you become part of the mechanism perpetuation the problem not part of the solution.

Some people react to annoyances by becoming angry and acting out. Even if the violent approach works in the short run it is likely to result in long-term undesirable consequences. An excessive response to a problem may wind up in you having to do an Anger Management class, going to jail, or permanently damaging the relationship.

In between is the “let’s talk about it” approach. Some ways of talking with the other person are more effective than others.

Criticizing is not communication.

Criticizing is the method most often used and least likely to be helpful. This method attacks the other person. You call them names for not doing what you think they should. Statements get made like “you don’t respect me, you are a slob or other personal attacks.

Criticizing does not make any friends. When we are criticized we are likely to become defensive and reply with our list of all the things the other has done. Criticize someone too often and they may stop listening altogether.

Criticizing cuts off communication rather than improving it or getting things to change.

Complaining does not help communication.

Complaining involves talking about how the issue is affecting you.  While a slight improvement over criticizing it rarely gets anything to change.

This is a recurring behavior in work settings where people complain about how they have to too much to do and saying others do not help and so on. It can become the standard operating procedure in some settings.

People who work as professionals in a complaint department know, or should know, the importance of listening to the customer’s complaint. Until the person feels their complaint has been heard nothing much is likely to happen to resolve that complaint. But eventually, the process needs to move beyond complaining.

Some relationship skill building programs suggest combining the complaining behavior with the next step, problem-solving, or asking for change. While complaining may be a way to tell the other person what is upsetting you, moving to the next step and stating the specifics you want to change are most likely to improve the situation.

Asking for change improves communication.

Of all the ways of dealing with problems, this is the most likely to improve the situation despite seeming to be the hardest thing to do.

Use good problem-solving skills. Ask for change and stay on the problem and how to solve it. The greatest chance for improvement is to find a solution in which both parties win rather than a win-lose situation. There needs to be genuine two-way communication, hearing, and being heard.

Making things better.

Make sure that when you have a problem with another person that you avoid the name-calling and the personal attacks.

Clearly, state the problem as you see it. Ask for specific changes such as not interrupting you when you speak rather than global things like being nicer.

Listen while the other person describes how they see the problem. Work towards understanding their point of view. Look for a solution that meets both of your needs.

More on communication skills can be found at:

Communication is not what you think

Just Being Honest        

Criticism, complaining, asking for change.

How are your communication skills? Are you criticizing, complaining or asking for change?

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Creating an underachiever

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Mistakes and errors

Mistakes.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

We hear there are a lot of underachievers in our society. Our schools and workplaces seem to be designed to create them. If you want to turn someone with a natural talent into an underachiever the process is simple. Here are the steps you will need to take to create an underachiever.

Your child does something cute, it may not be perfect but that first burst of effort gets noticed. You give them lots of praise. What they did was adorable. You tell them so. They love all the attention. In school, the child may put in extra effort to study and do well on a test. For this example let’s say it was a math test. But it could be a sports skill, art, or anything where superior performance would be noticed. They are rewarded with acknowledgment, a good grade. Everyone is happy. They should be motivated to continue putting in the effort. But they don’t. Why?

On the job site, there might be a critical project, a report that needs to be out right away. This is something that takes extra effort. The employee puts in a burst of effort to get the task done. They get the task completed and they get some praise. They feel good about their effort. Then something goes wrong, very wrong.

The child who got lots of recognition begins to be thought of as good at math. The teacher stops spending time with the child on his lessons. There are other students who need her help more. The parents may slack off on helping the child with his homework. He doesn’t need help, right? He is good at math. This time the child gets no help. They study, for sure, just not as hard. No one seems to care about them and they are identified as good at math. Then their grade slips, maybe on the first test, maybe slowly over time. No one notices until the grade gets back to the level of the rest of the class. Suddenly everyone notices.

The employee, who got that report out on time, now gets assigned a lot of reports to do. They are good at report writing, aren’t they?  But now the recognition and the praise stop coming. They are expected to always do better so they start getting assigned more work. Now if that employee gets a raise or a better office that may continue to be rewarding. But often they get taken for granted and the work piles up. Until one day they turn out a report that is not very good or they turn it out late. Then the boss has a talk with them.

Now in both cases, the person is now getting noticed again. The child may study extra hard for the next test. The employee may work extra hard on the next report. They both get a renewed round of attention for their renewed efforts. But this second round of notice fades faster than the first. What is the lesson these people learn from this?

In both cases, they learn that there are more rewards from occasional flashes of brilliance than from persistent good performance. So they learn to hold back most of the time and then occasionally do a superior job which is always rewarded by being noticed. They have learned the advantages of underachievement. If people have low expectations of you, you get rewarded for good work, but if people expect a lot from you, you might occasionally fail and that will be punished.

This procedure is not the only one that encourages people to fail.

The child wants to please his mother. She tells him to come to help with the dishes. So the child finishes what he is doing and then comes to help. He tries really hard. At the end mother thanks him for the help and then adds that back-handed compliment – “But you could have come sooner.” The lesson learned – no amount of effort is good enough. Maybe they start to think they are not good enough.

Another child may study really hard for the math test. They get ninety-nine correct out of the one hundred questions. Is the parent happy? No! They say to the child “Why did you get that one wrong? You knew that!”

No matter how much that child or that report writing employee do, it will never be enough. Pretty soon the connection between their efforts and success or failure doesn’t look to be working. They may develop a connection that Martin Seligman calls “learned helplessness.”  You might want to check out his book called “Learned Optimism.”

So what is the solution to this problem? If you are that child’s parent or teacher, don’t take superior achievement for granted, keep positively reinforcing it. You don’t need to praise the child every time, but over time you need to vary the intervals between praise so the child knows you are still noticing their efforts. If you are the boss or supervisor of a good employee make sure you don’t take them for granted and pile extra work on them while letting the less able employees slide. The rewards need to match the effort and the work output.

What should you do if you are that child or employee and people no longer notice your efforts? What if you were not rewarded as a child and grew up as an underachiever? Are you doomed? Not at all!

In all these examples the problem for the person who is no longer getting rewarded is that they needed reinforcement from external sources. If you can learn to have what we might call an “internal locus of control,” if you can learn to do things so that you can be proud of yourself, then that lack of reinforcement may not affect you so much.

So it would appear that one of the secrets of having a happy life is being happy with the life you are leading.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel