When you are dealing with a difficult problem, you have two decisions to make:
- Are you going to be open to exploring OR are you aiming to narrow your options and just make a decision?
- Are you focused on the threats (real, perceived, possible) OR are you focused on the opportunities (real, perceived, possible)?
Your responses to these questions help sort out how you’ll be inclined to respond to the complexity:
- Open to exploring + focused on threats: You’re focused on all the possible things that could go wrong. What else could go wrong?
- Narrowing options + focused on threats: You’re aiming to minimize the current risks. What is the most important issue to fix?
- Open to exploring + focused on opportunities: You’re focused on the potential and what could be possible. What other ways could I look at this?
- Narrowing options + focused on opportunities: You’re looking for ways to make forward progress now. What’s the best next move?
There is no right answer, but figuring out which approach you tend to use can help you identify which alternative approach could serve the situation better.
Whenever I’m swirling in my habitual thought pattern (open to exploring + focused on threats), I reference this book, which outlines this concept in more depth.