self help - Ceed

How To Become a Good Problem Solver

Posted on 23 September 2021 - 12:00 pm by admin

Problem-solving is a fundamental part of society. Without it, nothing would get done. As easy as it may be to just throw in the towel and do something else when a difficult situation arises, that is not something employers wish to see in employees or possible ones. Being a good problem solver is a major advantage, and not just in the line of work. Have you ever encountered a problem at home, or even at a relative or friend’s house? Knowing how to navigate those complex interactions is a skill that we all must master.

If you find yourself struggling to solve problems and want to better yourself, here are 5 tips to help you improve yourself:

1. Identify the problem.

This may sound simple, but it can be a complex issue to identify what it is that is causing a problem. By knowing what the problem is, you’ll know what it is you’re trying to solve. For example, let’s say you have a door that’s broken; that itself is the problem. What you’re trying to solve is how this could have potentially been avoided.

The key thing you’ll need to do is review the situation and closely inspect all the variables involved. Once you have done this, you’ll then need to ask why the situation happened. However, don’t do this just once; ask it five times. Going back to the example of the door, you’d probably be asking:

Why didn’t I oil it?
Why didn’t I fix the lock?
Why didn’t I replace the handle/door knob when I knew it felt loose?
Why didn’t I replace the window on it?
Why didn’t I buy a door that was of a better condition?

By finding the cause of the problem, it will make it easier to determine what went wrong and how a repeated incident can be avoided.

2. Find obstacles.

Now, you’re probably thinking “but I already am experiencing an obstacle”. As true as that may be, the answer to the problem you are trying to fix could have consequences in return. This can go 2 possible ways: the solution is the only one and will lead to another problem that requires solving afterwards, or there are multiple solutions, which will either have little to no repercussions or repercussions that will be considerable in size.

3. Solutions.

That’s what you’re after, after all. Referring back to the two consequences in the previous point, the latter is the one where you need to think clearly, analysing your options, and make a decision if there are going to be ramifications.

It’s important that you do indeed have more than one solution so, if one doesn’t work, you’ll have another to try. Always have an alternative. Another important thing that you must do is to take notes regarding the successes of your solutions; how successful were they? Were they not successful at all? Why was this? What could you do next time if you wish to try that method again?

Remember – focus on the solution, not the problem. Research has shown that you’ll have difficulty coming up with a solution if you focus too much on the problem itself. The problem will be a distraction.

4. Be creative.

Think outside of the box. Don’t limit yourself to what you already have at your disposal. Go that little bit extra. Don’t have that particular tool or item that can help resolve the problem in your possession? Buy it or, even better, find an alternate cheaper (or free) solution. Be resourceful with what you already have; repurpose that particular item for something else or give it a dual role. Creativity, let alone thinking outside of the box, will give you a new approach to solving problems entirely that will come in handy now and in the future.

5. Keep it simple.

It can be very easy to come up with complex answers to a problem, clearly because you’re looking very closely into the situation itself. You may be deconstructing it to the smallest detail or even reverse engineering the problem itself to see how it came about. While there is nothing wrong with using reverse engineering to fix your problems, it’s important to focus on keeping the solution simple.

By keeping things simple, it means your solution will be easier to follow through and to understand. You must take on board that the definition of ‘simple’ varies from person to person, so what might be straightforward for you might not be for another person. Instead of saying “you’ll need to do this and this, but then follow it up with this, that, and the other”, you should rather have an approach that’s more like “all you have to do is this.” Notice how subtle the difference is? If anything, an overly complex solution might mean it’ll take longer to apply it to the problem in the first place!

In Conclusion

Problem solving is certainly something we can’t live without. These five tips are just some of the ways you can improve your own problem-solving skills and abilities. If these weren’t enough, or you just want to know more, contact Ceed today.

The Best Self-Help Advice We Can Give

Posted on 19 July 2021 - 12:00 pm by admin

If you’ve been on the internet longer than, let’s say, a couple of hours, then you’ll know it’s saturated with so-called self-help advice. Everybody wants to find that hidden gem, that top tip to transform your perspective and finally bring you the life you’ve been dreaming of.

What if we told you it’s easier than it sounds? Self-help isn’t about changing and shaping yourself into something based on what a stranger on the internet tells you, it’s about looking deep within, finding that inner sanctum and bringing it to the surface!

Nowadays, everyone is consumed by a desire to be unique and stand-out from the crowd – but if we’re all trying to stand-out, then nothing will change! Self-help isn’t about comparing yourself to those others in the crowd – think of your own growth relative to yourself. The only way to move forward is focus on what you can do for yourself.

Find your inner you – do what you can to make it happy!

Remember: you can’t help anyone else until you’ve helped yourself. That doesn’t mean: be selfish. It means you should evaluate your own growth – take a deeper look at where you’re at, why it makes you happy and why it doesn’t. Our aim is to find what causes that imbalance, to find out why you’re unsatisfied and help bring about a positive change.

So, here is some of the best self-help advice we can give you:

Focus on Yourself

The clue’s in the name: self-help.

In order to be satisfied with yourself, you have to know who you are and what you want. You have know what it takes to fulfil your own desire and make yourself feel good. You can’t find a remedy if you don’t know what ails you.

It’s also just much, much easier to fully accept, and be, yourself.

It’s a pretty common feeling to reach a certain age and look back on your life in a state of embarrassment. Remember your goth phase? Remember when you went all out to impress someone and failed? Compromising on who you are is part of the journey – but just be grateful to reach a point of self-reflection.

Having regrets is part of life – the important part is to take what you’ve experience, see what it teaches you about yourself and find the best way to be you.

Some Things Can’t Be Controlled

Maya Angelou once said: ‘You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them’. In short, you can’t change your experiences, you can only change how you react to them. By expecting that you can control situations, you allow yourself to believe you have some kind of quantifiable power.

Let that feeling go. If you hold in your mind a belief that you can control situations, you allow yourself to suffer when you inevitably fail. Accept that you have no control – you’ll be much happier for it.

You’ll feel less concerned that opportunities slip through your fingers and you’ll be more grateful when you grab one.

Failure is Normal

Success without failure is a privilege experienced by few. Even then, it sours the taste. Without failure, success has no real meaning. If you don’t know what you have to lose in order to win, have you really won?

Okay, that does sound a bit dramatic. What we’re trying to say is that failure isn’t the end. Failure just teaches you what you could have done better next time. Learn from it. Grow from it. The next time you experience the same situation you’ll have that memory of failure to remind you why you keep going.

If you give up when you experience, you might never know what it feels like to succeed. Listen to any industry leader – whether that be a tech giant or a sportsperson at the top of their game – they’ll tell you just how much they had to fail in order to get it right. You’re only failing because you’re not winning – yet.

When you start to succeed, you’ll look back at those moments and be grateful for the experience.

Failure can help you understand what success really means.

Be Grateful For Your Achievements

In ‘The Art of Happiness’, a novel written by Howard C. Cutler detailing a series of conversations with the Dalai Lama, Cutler details a psychological study involving a number of lottery winners and cancer victims. In the study, both groups – the recent lottery winners and the recently diagnosed cancer patients – were interviewed to determine their levels of happiness. As you can imagine, the lottery winners scored a much higher value due to their newfound financial success, compared to the cancer patient’s life-changing diagnosis.

A year later, the same groups were interviewed again. It may not surprise you, but the cancer patients not only had the biggest change in mind-frame, they also far outscored the initial scores of the lottery winners. The lottery winners, on the other hand, went back below their initial rates and even found themselves more unhappy than they had been before they’d found financial success.

The cancer patients learnt to appreciate what their life was – by finding themselves they understood what it meant to be grateful for the opportunities they did have. The lottery winners, on the other hand, had a taste of a life that inevitably leads to dissatisfaction.

Don’t rue the opportunities you missed, be grateful for the ones you did get.

Do it For You

Every self-help journey is designed for one person: yourself. As well as knowing yourself, you’ve got to appreciate yourself, too. Any change you make should be for your own benefit – you’re not doing this for anyone else!

The only person you need to impress is the one you look at in the mirror. A big part of any self-help journey is realising that you don’t need to prove yourself to anyone. Your priority should be making the right decision for yourself – don’t change yourself to fit in with another’s perception of who you should be. Instead, strive to be the best version of yourself.

Keep This In Mind

The takeaway we want you to keep in mind here is to prioritise your self. By putting yourself first, you give yourself the opportunity to grow – that doesn’t mean you should start being selfish, just to learn what you need about yourself to move in a positive direction.

Don’t let the thoughts of others cloud how you feel about yourself – give yourself credit for the position you’re in now and be grateful for every opportunity you’ve been fortunate enough to receive.

Finally, failure isn’t a bad thing. It teaches us what we should do right next time.

If you need help with your mindfulness, or just want some extra advice, get in touch with our experts to see how we might be able to help you!

Three Tips to Nurture your Confidence in the Workplace

Posted on 29 March 2021 - 11:59 am by admin

Confidence is a key factor in nurturing success in the workplace – it can make or break your colleague’s perception of you. Not only that, but many workplace skills derive from confidence.

According to a survey ran by indeed.com, an extraordinary 98% of workers say they perform better at work when they feel confident. Nearly all workers recognise the value of confidence and what it can bring to your success.

Without confidence, it’s difficult to become a trusted colleague or be relied upon as a teammate. But confidence doesn’t just come from anywhere – it has to be nurtured and grown from within yourself.

So, where do you begin?

Let’s start by trying to understand what confidence is.

Simply put, confidence is the driving factor of self-belief. Having confidence means feeling assured in your value as an individual and knowing that you’re good at what you do. This doesn’t have to be entirely internal – external factors of confidence do exist. When colleagues or superiors have confidence in your ability, it can help perpetuate a positive working attitude.

External confidence, however, often comes as a consequence of nurturing confidence in yourself. By being confident, you can excel in three key areas: assertiveness, productivity, and communication.

By believing in your ability and speaking with conviction, colleagues take your word more seriously. Being assertive will result in greater success in the workplace as people will be more likely to listen to your opinion.

If you exude confidence, it is much more likely that you’ll push and challenge yourself to excel. Your productivity rates will increase as your confidence does. You’ll begin to feel more assured that what you’re doing is right – that you can take on and face challenges you previously may have been intimidated by. Consequently, colleagues will respect and have faith in your ability – they may feel reassured that you’re the right person to manage a project or lead a team.

Communication in the workplace is probably one of your most important assets. Being able to speak clearly and concisely to your colleague and supervisors can really shape your position in the workplace. Speaking effectively and with confidence helps you become a more active member of your workplace. This can help in the long-run with career advancement.

So, how do you improve your confidence in the first place?

Three key changes you make today can completely revitalise your attitude and start you on a path of growing confidence.

Confidence breeds Confidence

The first change might seem counterintuitive, but it really does work. Acting like you’re confident will eventually make you feel confident. Let’s say you start slowly – pitching that idea you’ve been too afraid to pitch. If you suggest it with confidence behind your voice, you’re simultaneously being communicative and assertive – even if you don’t really feel it! Once that first barrier is broken, it becomes so much easier to grow that feeling into something more sustainable.

So, the first step here is a small one – but one that can revolutionise your position at work. When you act confident, you portray a certain image of yourself to your colleagues. That image is one of reassurance. Your colleagues are much more likely to come back to you with trust and faith in your position if you exude some confidence. Whether the confidence is fake or not, your colleagues won’t know and eventually that false confidence will breed real confidence. Before you know it, that assertiveness and effective communication will just be a natural skill.

Assessing your impact

This is true for all walks of life: those who lack confidence are often concerned with how others perceive them and the impact this will have on their mindset. Instead, try considering the reverse. Starting with small instances, think about how your actions and decisions at work affect your colleagues.

By reversing your mindset in this way, you start to think more critically about how to be an efficient colleague. Your actions feel more impactful when you consider how it affects others instead of how others affect you. This puts you in the driver’s seat.

When you start to appreciate the impact of your voice, it’s easy to see why having a confident attitude is so important.

Self-recognition

As we said earlier, gaining internal confidence comes from a place of self-belief. The only way to do this is to recognise the value you bring to your team. It’s really helpful to take some time to think about your position in the workplace. You have the skills to be a successful employee – that’s why you were hired in the first place! All that’s missing is the confidence to drive those skills.

Putting them into practice and showing your value to your colleagues is a good way of reassuring your confidence in your own ability. If you’re struggling to do that right now, then think about those little moments of confidence: speaking your mind; pitching an idea; or even just talking to your fellow colleagues.

Our Final Word

The benefits of confidence in the workplace are clear – it’s a seemingly small quality that can seriously advance your career aspirations.

Confidence is not an easy thing to come by. Hopefully these tips are a good starting point for nurturing and developing a sense of confidence in yourself and your abilities. Maybe take a look at some of our other informative guides for more tips on productivity, motivation and mindfulness.

We at Ceed started our business to help nurture and encourage your personal development.

If you need a helping hand in growing you or your employee’s confidence, take a look at our services for more information.

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Tag: self help