IT’S ALL IN YOUR HEAD!

While it’s easy to take the comment in the title (“It’s all in your head”) as a criticism or an insult, it is actually a recognition of your cognitive powers. That is, it’s great that it’s all in your head! Why? That’s because, inasmuch as ‘problems’ do not exist ‘out there’ in the physical world but inside your mind as an inadequate way of thinking, every true and actual problem is in your head. How about that? Problems are in your head. What’s great about this insight is that if it is in your head—then you have the power to change it, to update it, to upgrade it, to transform it.

If a problem is all in your head, then Einstein’s comment explains why the first thing to do is to precisely define the problem. Einstein wrote, “The mere formulation of a problem is far more often essential than its solution.” This explains why solutions typically come quickly and easily once you have a clear, concise, and accurate definition of a problem. No wonder problem formulation is so important. And why a problem well-defined is 50%, and sometimes it is 90% solved. Whatever the percentage is—a well-defined problem enables you to know precisely where to aim a solution.

Next, if a problem is “all in your head,” then it is your frame-of-reference as your way of thinking which distorts things, mis-applies things, mis-understands, mis-perceives, limits, or in some other way creates the problem. And if the frame is the problem (and not the person), then your ability to develop true expertise in problem-solving rests in your ability to detect and break that frame. Consider that. “The person is not the problem, the frame is the problem.” And frames exist in a person’s mind, not ‘out there.’

If that’s the secret to problem-solving expertise, how skilled are you in recognizing a frame and changing it? Can you do it in real time? What’s critical in this process? It is to not keep thinking the same way about the problem. Whatever you do, try on a new, different, and even a weird way of thinking about it. How you look at a problem is a crucial mental process that shapes what you think it is and how you deal with it. The art of breaking a frame starts with your ability to change your way of thinking.

The idea that the ultimate structure of a problem lies in the frame alerts us that solutions will involve working with the frame. For that, we can reframe, deframe, pre-frame, post-frame, counter-frame, analogously frame, and outframe. These framing processes [which you can find in the book, Mind-Lines: Lines for Changing Your Mind] inform us about how to address a problematic frame.

If problems are in the mind, then what is ‘out there?’ What’s out there is the world of physics and actions. There are natural forces—winds, rain, snow, ice, floods, tornados, typhons, earthquakes, and on and on. There are also other forces—gravity, electricity, chemicals, elements, etc. There are also animal and human forces—attacks, threats, insults, robing, stealing, molesting, cheating, lying, defrauding, etc. These are the things we have to deal with. While these are not the actual ‘problem,’ they are or can be problematic to us—and that’s because we want to change these things.

As we want something different, that want is what’s in our mind and points to the real problem. If the way we interpret the external force or action blocks us and interferes with what we want to do or experience, then we are literally have created a ‘pro-blem.’ Now we have an actual external difficulty. The difficulty is that when we want to achieve a goal, our attitude about what is external is what actually stops us. It seems that the problem is ‘out there’ and in the difficulty, but it is not. The problem lies on our thinking and attitude about what is ‘out there.’

All of this enables us to now distinguish the external referent of forces and actions ‘out there’ from the actual problem in our mind. We now experience a gap between what exists and what we want to change. The gap defines the landscape of the problem—a distance between our current state or experience and the desired state or experience which we want.

The next time someone tells you, “It’s all in your head!” thank them! Say, “Thank you for acknowledging that I, as the meaning-maker, am the source and creator of problems because that means I’m also the source and creator of solutions.” Here’s to you having some great problems in your mind and to your creativity in solving those problems!