Here is a simple exercise you can do yourself or with another to assist you in problem solving. Making use of cause and effect, you introduce an unknown (for now) resource into the equation that can help you get past your blocks to solving your own problem.

Exercise

Start with 5 sheets of paper. Write one of the following words on each sheet – Symptom, Cause, Outcome, Resource, Effect. These are your 5 anchors.

- Symptom means the set(s) of present behaviors or feelings that reflect the problem.
- Cause means the cause of the problem, as you think it is/was.
- Outcome is the outcome that you want/will have when this is no longer a problem.
- Resource is the resource (what it will take to correct the problem) that escapes you, for now.
- Effect is the effect that the change will have on you.

Then…
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Whether finding your way through an unfamiliar neighborhood to a friend’s house or deciding on a political candidate, your brain is adept at adapting. It can make decisions based on incomplete information and update those decisions based on new information.

The nature of such sophisticated decision making in the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for high-level processing, has been “poorly studied and little understood,” according to Wako Yoshida and Shin Ishii of the Nara Institute of Science and Technology. Now, however, in an article in the June 1, 2006, Neuron, they describe experiments that enabled them to tease apart how different regions of the cerebral cortex process uncertain information and integrate it into decision making.

In particular, their aim was to analyze subjects’ navigation through a virtual maze, to explore how different cortical regions function in solving “partially observable decision-making problems.”

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Imagining your success greatly increases the probability of your achieving it.

“Imagine yourself passing the exam or scoring a goal and it will happen.” You may think it’s a bunch of newage bunk, yet in a new study in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, psychologists Christopher Davoli and Richard Abrams from Washington University conclude that the imagination may be more effective than we think in helping us reach our goals.

Through a series of ingenious experiments, the authors showed that simply imagining a posture may have effects that are similar to actually assuming the pose. Previous research has shown that we spend more time looking at items close to our hands (items close to us are usually more important than those further away), but this is the first study suggesting that merely imagining something close to our hands will cause us to pay more attention to it.

The researchers conclude that their findings indicate that our “peripersonal space” (the space around our body) can be extended into a space where an imagined posture would take us. They note there may be advantages to having this ability, such as determining if an action is realistic (e.g., “Can I reach the top shelf?”) and helping us to avoid collisions.

The authors conclude that the present study confirms “an idea that has long been espoused by motivational speakers, sports psychologists, and John Lennon alike: The imagination has the extraordinary capacity to shape reality.”

Article “Reaching Out With the Imagination” by Barbara Isanski, Association for Psychological Science

So you have a fear and it’s consuming your life. Maybe you’re afraid to ask for that raise you deserve; or you’re scared to death to face your spouse about his hurtful behavior; or maybe you’re afraid you’ll catch the Bird Flu. Whatever it is you’re scared to death about, this little trick may help.

1. Imagine your fear – bring it up in your mind full force as best you can. If you prefer, you can actually come face-to-face with the object of your fear (at a comfortable, yet anxious distance – enough to scare you a little rather than a lot)
2. Notice – where in your body do you FEEL this fear? Take a physical inventory of your bodily sensations. This is the key – keep it physical.
3. Measure – apply the SUD scale to your sensations: 0 = no sensation ~ 10 = unbearable sensation.
4. Imagine a large tube or cylinder of water out in front of your body, filled with water to the level representative of the level of your SUD scale. Imagine how the tube of water feels (hot, cold, turbulent, soft, etc.); what it looks like, including color (tall, short, thin, fat, wooden, glass, metal, etc.); notice any sound it makes; make it as sensory real as you can in your imagination.
5. Now imagine you could reach out and remove the bottom of the tube and release ALL the water in a sudden rush out the bottom – letting gravity do its job. Whoosh!!
6. Repeat the entire process from step 1 above. You’ll probably notice a substantial drop in SUD level. Continue this process until there is NO water in the tube at step 4.
7. Most important step – imagine you could PLUG UP the top and bottom of the tube so no water can reenter the tube.

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Thinking about HOW to exercise works better than thinking about WHY you should exercise.

A recent study by Laura L. Ten Eyck, PhD, Dana P. Gresky, PhD, and Charles G. Lord, PhD, involved 61 college students who did not exercise on a regular basis or exercised inconsistently. Researchers asked students to think about either the reasons why they should increase the performance of a target cardiovascular exercise they had previously selected, such as to be healthier or lose weight or to list actions they could take to increase exercise performance, such a joining a gym or working out with a friend.

Over an eight week period, students who brought to mind a list of actions they could take to increase exercise performance showed an increase in exercise and improved cardiovascular fitness. However, students who repeatedly brought to mind the reasons why they should do the target exercise did not increase time spent exercising.

Conclusion: if you want to lose some weight by increasing your level of exercise – particularly if you are prone to couch potatoing, think about HOW specifically you can increase your level of exercise rather than WHY you should.

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