Humanist Marriage

Respect and Problem Solving inside marriage

I am obviously a Humanist. My husband identifies as a Humanist too. We have been married for 17 years now. Still happily married. What is the secret to our success. Respect and problem solving.

I truly respect my husband. He is a wonderful person. Creative, caring, compassionate, responsible, kind, intelligent, interesting and supportive.   It is very easy to forget all that when we are problem solving though.

Marriage is a partnership. The two people work together to secure food and housing and health care and if they have kids, to help raise and take care of and support the individuals in their family unit – however that is defined and however extended that family unit is.

This is a long winded way of saying – marriages require a lot of problem solving. All the time.  Sometimes, we have disagreements on how best to solve our problems. Sometimes those disagreements are minor – like what color to paint the walls. Other times they are more pressing, like who is going to take out the trash or make sure the kid is picked up from whatever activity they are at.

Respect for the other person as a fully functional intelligent human being, helps us navigate those disagreements so that we engage in cooperative problem solving and don’t devolve into arguments.  People are often astonished that my husband and I rarely argue.  It happens every once in a while. But mostly, we just enter problem solving mode and respect each other’s ideas and suggestions. I guess that’s what comes with being married for 17+ years.

What I am sure of is that IF I didn’t respect him enough to value his opinion, he would have lost respect for me ages ago. Respect and problem solving – lead to a happy marriage. In my case anyway.

Learn more about how to integrate compassion and your coping skills so that you improve your interpersonal relationships with Living Made Simpler - the course

Reason and Leadership

Making good decisions requires a reality based approach and that requires good reasoning skills. Here’s why.

Say you are trying to solve a problem. Doesn't matter what the problem is.  All problems have a cause and influencing factors. If you are going to solve your problem, you have to know what is causing it and what can influence it.  And finding out what is really causing our problems isn't always all that easy.

Most people guess and hope for the best.  If you want to improve your chances above – hope, then it’s worth taking a bit of time to question whether your guess as to what is causing your problem is actually based in reality.

Here’s the secret to successful problem solving. The more your understanding of the problem reflects the actual reality of the problem, the more effective your problem solving will be.

To figure out whether what you think is causing your problem is what is really causing your problem, you have to think. And that process of thinking through problems in a logical sensible way is called reasoning.

Once you have figuring out what is really causing your problem, you then need to figure out how to solve it. And again, most people guess and hope for the best.  But if you think about it a little bit and consider what other factors may be influencing your problem, you can usually come up with a strategy to fix it.

Coming up with a well-reasoned strategy may not solve your problem, but it’s going to give you a better chance at it than guessing and hoping for the best.

How to reason well?  Mostly it involves seeking the truth and not allowing your passions and biases to derail you from the search for the truth. (Here is a cool graphic from wikihow on how to reason well: http://www.wikihow.com/Reason)

To reason well you need to learn how to ask yourself questions. Why – why is that my problem? Is there a problem that is causing my problem? What might solve this? What other things might solve this?

When you consider alternatives, you give yourself options. And then all you have to do is reason through them to figure out which of your options give you the best chance of success – and that’s your plan.

Problem Solving 101

There’s a system for proper problem solving. Want to know what it is?

According to the University of Pittsburgh, who has since taken down their link, a group had posted a list of seven steps on how to properly solve a problem. These steps are as follows:

1.    Define and Identify the Problem
2.    Analyze the Problem
3.    Identifying Possible Solutions
4.    Selecting the Best Solutions
5.    Evaluating Solutions
6.    Develop an Action Plan
7.    Implement the Solution

Or in laymens terms.
1. Figure out what your real problem is so you don’t waste your time on proxy problems
2. Figure out what is really causing your problem.
3. Figure out what might work to fix the problem.
4. Select your top 3 potential solutions for further research
5. Figure out which of your potential solutions will actually work the best given science and reality and stuff like that.
6. Create a strategy to implement your best possible solution, taking into account potential problems you may have in implementing it – in case, it turns out that you messed up the previous steps and your solution doesn’t actually work.
7. And finally, fix the problem.

You will notice that this process requires A LOT OF THINKING!  In fact, 6 of the 7 steps are thinking steps. Is all that thinking worth it? YES!  Why? Because all that thinking usually results in the problem actually being solved.

Compare this with how most people problem solve. They guess about what is causing their problem, and then try to fix it by trial and error and fail and then blame others for their problems or conclude the problem is unsolvable and they carry on living with the problem, never considering that their deficient problem solving process might have been holding them back.

Want to know why Humanists spend so much time on learning critical thinking skills?  Read the above. You can’t solve problems well, unless you know how to think critically.

Problem Solving 101

There’s a system for proper problem solving. Want to know what it is?

According to the University of Pittsburgh, who has since taken down their link, a group had posted a list of seven steps on how to properly solve a problem. These steps are as follows:

1.    Define and Identify the Problem
2.    Analyze the Problem
3.    Identifying Possible Solutions
4.    Selecting the Best Solutions
5.    Evaluating Solutions
6.    Develop an Action Plan
7.    Implement the Solution

Or in laymens terms.

1. Figure out what your real problem is so you don’t waste your time on proxy problems
2. Figure out what is really causing your problem.
3. Figure out what might work to fix the problem.
4. Select your top 3 potential solutions for further research
5. Figure out which of your potential solutions will actually work the best given science and reality and stuff like that. 
6. Create a strategy to implement your best possible solution, taking into account potential problems you may have in implementing it – in case, it turns out that you messed up the previous steps and your solution doesn't actually work.
7. And finally, fix the problem. 

You will notice that this process requires A LOT OF THINKING!  In fact, 6 of the 7 steps are thinking steps. Is all that thinking worth it? YES!  Why? Because all that thinking usually results in the problem actually being solved.

Compare this with how most people problem solve. They guess about what is causing their problem, and then try to fix it by trial and error and fail and then blame others for their problems or conclude the problem is unsolvable and they carry on living with the problem, never considering that their deficient problem solving process might have been holding them back.

Want to know why Humanists spend so much time on learning critical thinking skills?  Read the above. You can’t solve problems well, unless you know how to think critically.

The Power of Critical Thinking

How asking yourself 6 questions can drastically improve for problem solving.

I’m sure you remember the 6  question words in English.  Who, When, Where What, Why and How.  Asking yourself these questions when you are problem solving will improve your problem solving abilities and yield better solutions because if you practice this, you are essentially practicing critical thinking.

When I have a problem to solve, the first question I ask myself is why.  Why do I want to solve this problem? I keep asking this question until I get to the root of my problem. I do this because I want to make absolutely sure I am focused on my real problem and not some related but non-essential problem.  For instance, if I want to try to make it rain, I would ask myself why. Because I want water on my field. Why? Because if the field doesn’t get water, my crops will die and I will die of starvation. Great – now I know my real problem is that I need to get water on my field. Making it rain is a possible solution, but not the only one.  This also helps me be properly motivated to solve my problem, because, I now know why it matters that I solve it.

The next questions are What.   What causes my problem? What might work to solve my problem? These are brain storming questions, but also skeptical questions. I want to make sure my problem solving is based in reality as that will give me the greatest opportunity for success.  By figuring out what might be causing my problem, I can also figure out what might work to solve it.

Now I need to ask myself How. How do I know that. This is a skeptical question to make sure I double check whether what I think I know about what is causing my problem and what might solve it is even true.   I can also ask How, to think about problems with implementing any potential solution.

The When and Where questions are very useful. Sometimes the solution to my problem is to wait. Not now, but then. Where is also useful because what I might want to do can’t be done where I am, but if I move? Maybe.  These are critical questions to developing a winning strategy.

Finally, the question of Who.  Who is going to implement my solution?  If it isn’t me, I am relying on someone else. That can often work and it is always very helpful. But ultimately, you need to be responsible for solving your own problems.

7 steps to ethical and effective problem solving

It doesn’t matter how well intentioned you are. If you can’t solve your problems effectively, you may be doing more harm than good. Having a system to solve your problems will help ensure you problem solve effectively.

The University of Pittsburgh has a great website dedicated to effective problem solving.  They list 7 steps that are critical to proper problem solving.  Here is a link to their website: http://www.pitt.edu/~groups/probsolv.html

What I find interesting is that these are the same steps that are followed when using a critical thinking approach to problem solving. And these are the same steps I teach my clients.

Here are the 7 main steps and why they are important:

• Define and Identify the Problem  - If you don’t know what problem you are trying to solve or if you try to solve the wrong problem you won’t be successful. Find out what the facts are and not only develop a statement about what exactly the problem is you are trying to solve, but what your goal is in solving it.

• Analyze the Problem – Don’t assume you know what is causing the problem. Do your research and find out if your assumptions are valid or not. This is what freethought, skepticism and science is all about.

• Identifying Possible Solutions  - make a list of possible solutions. Don’t assume there are only a couple of solutions available. Brainstorm, make a list, think outside the box, but don’t limit your potential by liming your list of possible solutions. (the website lists several methods to develop the list – and it is worth reading through!)

• Evaluating Solutions – what are the pros and cons of each proposed solution, will this really solve our problem, or make it worse.

• Selecting the Best Solution – After evaluating your possible solutions and ranking them as you need to choose the one you think  has the best chance of success that will help you accomplish the goal you set in task 1.  If none of the solutions will work, you need to re-evaluate how you defined the problem and go back to step one taking into account what you have learned through this process. No, this isn’t a pain, it is what is sometimes required if you want to actually solve your problem.

• Develop an Action Plan – what tasks need to be done, who will do them, when do they need to be done, what could go wrong and how will you get around problems, who can help you, or can you do it yourself?

• Implement the Solution - Now that you have a plan – get to it and start implementing it. If you need to change it, do so, but if you don’t take action, the problem isn’t going to get solved.  There ain’t nothing to it but to do it.

  

Which part of the process do you have the most trouble with?  I know that I take extra time to make sure I define my problem properly. If I can get that step right, everything else seems to follow. Albert Einstein said that he spent 90% of his problem solving on that step as well. Do you agree? What do you think is the hardest or most important part of problem solving?