8 steps to solve any problem

1. Don't deny the existence of the problem. People who say "I don't have problems, it's just opportunities" are idiots. Some problems aren't opportunities - they're just problems. Recognize them as such and deal with them promptly. Denial is foolish and does nothing but prolong the agony of the problem.

2. Understand that problems make you mature and grow, and anything that brings that about is a good thing. Growing up sure is painful. Not learning your lessons, however, is even more painful.

3. Look beyond the problem. It is quite difficult, but try to see through it what your life will be like after you overcome it. This can sometimes help you endure the hardships you have to go through. The good news is that there is life after every hardship – imagine that.

4. Break the problem into small pieces and deal with each one separately. Problems seem overwhelming because they are too big to tackle all at once. Break them down into smaller, more impactful pieces. If you have debts, for example, the total amount may be impossible to repay. But if you break it down into smaller amounts, you can attack each one individually much more easily. Focus on that credit card that hasn't expired yet, or the mortgage payment, or saving a hundred bucks. That way you will have attacked the whole problem again, but it will not seem so big to you. He remembered that joke: "How do you eat an elephant? Easy. One bite at a time.'' The same way you have to deal with your problems.

5. Stop dramatizing. Most of your problems aren't quite the catastrophes you imagine. See problems as they are, not as your stressed-out imagination paints them. The worst that can happen is very rare. My little French Bulldog, Butter, recently got sick. We took him to the vet who ran a thousand tests and found nothing. He told us that the only option was to operate on him to find out what was wrong with him. We agreed and because we were worried about Butter, only thoughts of the worst that could happen went through our heads. My wife and I were so distraught that we saw Butter dead and even mourned her. The operation discovered that Butter had swallowed a small rubber toy that was not visible on the X-ray. The doctors took her out, and three days later, our darling was cooing next to us again. If we had kept our composure and concentrated on the real problem instead of dramatizing the situation, we would have saved ourselves a lot of worry and shed fewer tears. Yet I broke my own rule and suffered without any need to go through such agony. Deal with your problem as it really is, not as it is in your imagination.

6. Describe your problem in detail. When you see your problems written in black and white, they rarely seem so scary. As in the previous step, this is a reminder to deal with difficulties as they are, not as you imagine them to be.

7. Focus on the solution. It's not that important what the problem actually is. What matters is what you do to solve it. So what are you going to do? Focus your energy on that.

8. Get help. Find someone who knows more about solving the given problem and ask them for help. Of course, this should be done only after you yourself have tried to do everything in your power. If you come to me and ask for help, the first thing I'll do is ask you what you've tried to do on your own. Any suitable person who could help you will ask you the same thing.

We also show you a wonderful video by Milena Goleva - How to solve our problems: