Solving Problems at the Root Cause

People have problems; they’re a reality of living life.  However, most people are trying to solve problems at the level of the symptom, while the disease goes untreated.  I’m going to tell you how to determine if the action you take is only solving the symptom while the root-cause is left untreated and left to manifest more problems again in the future.

Let’s explore how to identify the root cause by diving into a very common dilemma that surfaced this week for a client.  With her permission, I am going to share how we got to the bottom of her problem - the inability to create work-life balance.  I want to be clear that it would have been easy to jump right into setting priorities or boundaries, but just taking any action is not the answer to all ailments.  No, what we want is to solve the real problem with right action, which means we want to know why this woman created the situation in the first place.  So, we start there:   

Step One:  Do you own the problem?
Yes, owning the problem has to be the starting point.  Most, if not all, of our problems are self-created by our beliefs.  This woman could have easily blamed the culture, her manager, or the heavy workload.  Instead, she said she wanted to figure out how she was creating this situation. This was a perfect starting point.

Step Two:  Are you specific enough about the problem?
Once there’s ownership, you want to determine how this situation is a problem.  Though a lack of work-life balance is commonplace in our society, the way it impacts this woman’s life will be specific to her.  She shares that she isn’t able to leave the office until everything is done.  As you can see, this is still too broad - so we explore how she continues to do this problem almost every day of the week.  This is called a strategy.

Step Three: How do you do the problem?
In this step we are exploring, in detail, how someone runs a strategy that creates a specific problem time and time again.  You want them to relive the experience as if they are looking through their own eyes.  Using the same level of intricacy she would use to describe tying her shoes or making the bed, the client provided step-by-step details of what happens when the clock says it is time to leave but her head says stay a little longer.  As if we were watching a movie together…frame-by-frame…in slow motion…she walks me through how she does this problem.  Early in the process, she explains she feels guilty…bingo!

Step Four: Can you connect to the emotion of the problem?
At some point, an emotion will be part of the strategy.  It could be anger, sadness, guilt, anxiety, or fear.  In fact, often the problem itself is an attempt to avoid a more exaggerated emotion.  For our purposes, the emotion tells us we are getting closer to the root cause by tapping the beliefs held at the unconscious level.  If emotions aren’t surfacing, it means the person is trying to rationalize their behavior instead of exploring it fully.
  
Step Five:  What does the emotion tell you or what comes after the emotion?
Once you connect to the emotion, this is the time to pay close attention.  Language always holds important clues to what’s really going on.  For this client, there was an internal conversation that said, “If I don’t get everything done or say no, it would mean people might not want me.  They might go to someone else in the future.”  As we explore this statement together, the client discloses it is almost impossible for her to say “no.”  The problem is getting even more specific — her inability to say no — and we’re on the threshold of uncovering the beliefs behind the behavior.

Step Six: What would it say about you as a person if you abandoned this problem?
This step will uncover the beliefs behind the behavior.  In her case, by saying “yes” all the time, she has been attempting to avoid disappointing people and being viewed as selfish or unproductive.  Here are the beliefs she uncovered:  it’s not okay to disappoint people, to be selfish, lazy.  And not being nice is absolutely out of the question…even if it generates self-sacrifice and resentment in the process.    

Step Seven:  What is the earliest experience that comes to mind as you talk about these beliefs?
Our job now is to connect to the experiences that created these beliefs.  The easiest way to do this is by asking the unconscious mind to give you the first or earliest experience that comes up after talking about your beliefs.  And like magic, the unconscious mind will serve up some important insight.

What came up right away for my client is a memory of getting that look from her father if she ever disappointed him; no words were necessary.  So, this woman learned early in life that being nice, obliging and productive was the perfect way to be loved and, more important — to stay out of trouble.  As you can see there was no malicious intent or childhood trauma involved; just the work of the little brain creating a well-intentioned strategy to make her feel loved.  In fact, this is the root cause of the problem — an overriding need to be loved and wanted.     

Can you see that putting first things first, making schedule changes or delegating wouldn’t have solved the problem at the level of the root cause?  Once she feels she is truly wanted, needed and loved as a result of who she is—not by what she does— she can show up fully unencumbered by old strategies. Until then, she has the invaluable opportunity to negotiate, reframe or let those old beliefs go, allowing her to determine what new strategies she’d like to employ in order to have more balance in her life.

Red Lights Are Not an Invitation to Park Your Car

You’ve probably known someone who spends their life at the mercy of circumstances, people, or “dumb-luck.” Their life appears to be a series of disappointments punctuated by all the red lights, obstacles along the way. Some people call them victims, but I’ve never been a fan of that term because it discounts those who experience real tragedy. I think a more suitable label would be people who haven’t learned how to remove obstacles by asking more empowering questions.

I know—it's not as punchy as victim, but it explains what can differentiate a results-oriented person from someone who has lots of excuses. I'm very clear that the person who enjoys more of what they want in life asks fundamentally different questions in the face of adversity or setbacks. When they hit a “red light,” they don’t sit idly by and complain about the unscheduled stop. Instead, they look for the good or lessons in the brief pause. Then if the light doesn’t change quickly, they ask questions which are meant to move them forward in a different way. They understand that they own 100% of the responsibility, so excuses and reasons aren’t an option.

The opposite is also true; people who relinquish responsibility ask themselves disempowering questions meant to keep them stuck in the effect of their disappointment. Just yesterday I witnessed a conversation that highlighted this exact scenario.

This person had been at a red light for over three weeks and was showing no progress. The excuses started with a cancelled meeting, but quickly turned into a one-sided discourse highlighting all the self-imposed reasons that made progress impossible: the time difference, busy schedules, competing priorities, a lack of commitment on the part of the other person. I knew the conversation all too well, since excuses and reasons were easily a part of my earlier existence. Though I had no idea what specific questions he’d asked himself to keep his progress stalled, I was pretty clear how I used to handle a situation like this.

First, I have to say I was brilliant at complaining and a master at using external diversions to my benefit. So, I probably would have spent time stewing and/or speculating why the meeting was cancelled: wasn’t my time, the commitment, or our work together just as important? This could have easily taken me down the unproductive path of projecting my problem onto the other person, which solves nothing. I would have certainly entertained all the reasons why this scheduling snafu would impede my progress, because this is where I’d validate the interference and compile the reasons to give up. None of this is pretty to admit, but I suspect I might have come up with very similar excuses as what I heard yesterday. And like him, I would have reached a dead end.

But dead ends don't exist when we take 100% responsibility for what we want. When a meeting is cancelled, this becomes nothing more than a momentary setback. Instead of questioning the motive or reason for the cancellation, you ask yourself what outcomes you need from the meeting that you might get in a different way? Rather than calculating how the temporary pause will impede progress, you ask yourself…how can I make this setback irrelevant? This ability to get deeply curious about how to move forward in the face of adversity is the characteristic of empowered folks. Simply, they change circumstances by asking questions that fuel on-going momentum.

So much so, it’s easy to spot them. They talk about progress, solutions, and results. Not because of luck or a lack of obstacles, but because they’ve come to understand that a red light is not an invitation to park your car.