DON’T TRUST YOUR FIRST ANSWER

As a problem-solver, here’s a warning. When you are working on solving a problem and you come upon an answer—be very, very careful. More than likely, your first answer will probably not be the best answer. In fact, it is more likely to be either a superficial answer, a wrong answer, or an irrelevant answer. And yet, we all tend to get excited when we get an answer to a problem and because we’re excited and it seems like we have an answer— a solution! we jump on it and start to use it as the solution. Obviously, this is not a wise way to go about solving problems.

Now if you are adding numbers, then in the closed field of mathematics, jumping on the first answer may not be a bad solution—especially if you are skilled at adding, subtracting, dividing, or doing any other mathematical process. That’s because in mathematics there will be one answer which is correct. And if you are thinking in a mindful and careful way, once you get a correct answer— you cannot make get a better answer. If you keep adding the list of numbers, once you get the correct answer, additional attempts will not get a better answer. That’s because mathematics is a closed and self-contained system, the world is not.

The world you and I live in and the world in which we have problems to solve is not a closed or self-contained system. In this world, there can be many answers to a problem. Now if you assume that there is one answer and you get an answer (your first one), you are likely to stop thinking. Now we have a problem! Well, you have a problem—you have stopped thinking!

In real life when you stop thinking and when you jump on the first answer that you or someone else comes up with— it has a high probability of not being the best answer. In fact, it is more likely that it is a superficial answer or an inadequate answer. So here’s the warning: Don’t be seduced by an answer, especially the first answer. Check it out. Test it. Challenge it. Set out to find out what additional answers there may be. In spite of how delightful it is to ‘have an answer,’ don’t let it seduce you from continuing your search for a solution.

I learned this some years ago about writing. I had falsely assumed that if I wrote an article, chapter, or book and it struck me as providing a good answer, it was good enough. The result: I often wrote ‘answers’ that later proved to be superficial or inadequate. Slowly I learned that the first answer is the beginning place for exploration and discovery. Once I had a first answer, I could begin to explore it, dive into it, test it, challenge it. That led me to always write three drafts of articles and seven drafts for books.

What I discovered in that process was a principle of reflexivity. Reflexivity is your ability to reflect back on your previous thinking, feeling, choosing, and experiencing. In this way, you move from the outside world to your inside world where you have generated your ‘first answer.’ Now you can “think again” about it. And because you will do so after your first thinking, you will be in a different place— a different state. And that means you will be thinking about it from a different perspective. And that is the richness you have in using your reflexivity.

My strategy these days is this: I write an article and then I let it set for a few days. Then I read it as if it is new to me, as a reader might. That brings a new perspective to it. After updating it, I let it set another day or two. Then I think of another perspective that I’d like to bring to it. With a book I do that seven times, letting each draft set for 2 to 4 weeks.

When the Eureka Moment struck me in 1994 at the NLP Conference in Denver and I first discovered the idea of Meta-States, I immediately went home and wrote a 40-page document on the discovery. That 40-page document then won me the NLP Award from the International Trainers’ Association as the most significant contribution to NLP in 1995. Flushed with amazement and seduced by my first answer, I then wrote the first edition of the book, Meta-States. Soon thereafter I realized that in four aspects of the Meta-States Model, I jumped on the first answer as if it was well-developed. They were not. That meant four significant corrections and updates in the second edition of the book.

My justification at the time—my excitement. I was excited about what I found and I assumed that the mechanisms and dynamics governing the meta-levels were fairly simple. Wrong! It was only later as I tried to teach the ‘simple first answer mechanisms’ that I realized I had jumped the gun. It was through the tough questions of many people that I learned to probe deeper, to ask more questions, to test the assumptions. I also learned that if I took the time I could do that myself from the beginning. In that way, I learned to not trust my first answer, but engage in probing questions.