A Life-Changing Method Taught in My Engineering Class To Solve %99 of Your Recurring Problems

A simple antidote to save you from unnecessary suffering

In life, we jump from moment to moment trying to lead an existence through daily struggles, yet most of our problems are so reoccurring to the point where we can track a pattern.

At first, it may feel overwhelming to be dealing with the same issues over and over again, but if analyzed right, they can be the key to finding sustainable peace in our lives.

So today I’d like to share with you a life-changing method taught in my engineering class to solve recurring problems and to apply it there are 2 steps to follow. These are:

1-Learn to focus more on the actual reasons and less on results

2-Apply the 5 whys method

“It’s important because completely understanding the problem is the same thing as knowing the solution. If you don’t know what to do, you don’t know what’s wrong.”

— Brianna Wiest

1-Learn to focus more on the actual reasons and less on results

In my own life, one quote has changed my strategy on dealing with my reoccurring problems, and it is that “reasons come before results.”.

Before learning about this perspective, I was more focused on the issues I was facing, and their shallow causes, but never really dug deep to find out the exact reasons why.

This is not really an effective strategy because just like the weeds that grow in one’s garden, without getting rid of the roots, they’ll come back no matter how many times we cut them. So to solve our reoccurring problems, it is essential to pull them out with their roots.

After learning to focus more on the actual reasons, and less on results, we can now start working on discovering the root causes of our problems.

To do that, I recommend a method called the 5 whys.

2-Apply the 5 Whys method

This is a method that I learned in one of my engineering classes, but it truly is helpful beyond engineering matters.

Mindtools define it as: “When a problem occurs, you drill down to its root cause by asking “Why?” five times. Then, when a counter-measure becomes apparent, you follow it through to prevent the issue from recurring.”

So to apply it, you ask the question “why” 5 times to discover the root cause of an issue. Yes, it may seem like a simple thing to do, but you’d be surprised at how many times we stop asking why after asking it only once.

For example, you may be finding it hard to focus on working towards achieving a goal, and it may make you feel like you are lazy. But more often, we lose motivation when we feel like what we do won’t make any difference.

So as shown in the picture above, instead of beating ourselves up for not being disciplined enough, we can find the actual reasons why we don’t feel motivated by applying the 5 whys method. This is helpful because by doing this, we can avoid wasting any energy on unnecessary suffering, and instead start working on solving the actual causes.

*I also would like to add that sometimes these issues can be too much for us to solve by ourselves, and in that asking for professional help can be helpful.

Final thoughts

Today I’ve shared with you a life-changing method taught in my engineering class to solve recurring problems and to apply it there were 2 steps to follow. These were:

1-Learn to focus more on the actual reasons and less on results

2-Apply the 5 whys method

By applying these methods, we can achieve sustainable peace due to setting ourselves free from these problems.

Thank you for reading.

-E.K.