How to find the right answer to your problems

When we have a problem we look for the right answer. It’s easy to see the world as a binary choice between right and wrong, good and bad, smart and dumb. But anyone who has been faced with a difficult decision knows it’s not that simple.

Our decisions float in front of us as a wisp of smoke — constantly changing and morphing in front of our eyes. The more we think about it, the more sides emerge, and the more difficult the decision becomes, because it’s apparent that there is more than one right answer.

I’m a huge self-development junkie, which means I’ve gone through the 12 steps of recovery from being an advice addict. I’ve seen my friends’ eyes glaze over as I rattle off unsolicited advice for a problem they weren’t looking for my insight on. I’ve learned to slow down and listen instead of jump in and try to fix fix fix. As someone who makes money giving marketing and business advice to clients, I found a way to help that advice stick with each person I’m working with. And it’s shown me a better way to think about my own problems.

There are hundreds of effective marketing strategies. There are hundreds of good answers to my problems. Some of them steer me in one direction, others steer me in another direction. I’ve learned that it’s not so much about finding the “one right answer,” because it may not exist. It’s so much more about uncovering my ultimate goal with the problem, and solving for that. It’s about discovering what value I want to achieve or protect, and solving for that. It’s like a math problem, with not just one variable, but an infinite number of variables, and you need to pick the variable that you’re most interested in, and solve for that, while forgetting the others.

Whenever a client approaches me with a binary choice between two strategies, I respond with a question of my own: what’s your ultimate goal? I’m learning to ask myself the same question with my own problems.