When is a solution not a solution?

A friend once told me that we all have a theme – something we keep coming back to with each level of personal growth. And it usually shows up everywhere: in your clients, in your writing, in your relationships, and most of all, in the things you are most passionate about changing in the world.

One of my themes, which probably comes through in my writing more often than I’d like to admit, is this extreme frustration I have with solutions that aren’t real solutions. A good example is our nation’s obsession with diets. The problem is that people are overweight. The solutions that people come up with are diets. Most of these diets work fairly well too. As long as they are followed. People will follow a diet for a period of time and lose some weight. And then they’ll stop following it. And they’ll gain weight back. And then maybe they’ll look for another diet next time they are frustrated enough to drum up the willpower.

I don’t think diets by themselves are the solution to the problem of people being overweight. I think the real problem lies in the fact that people eat for many reasons, and not all of them have to do with hunger. So as long as those underlying reasons to eat exist, people will continue to eat unless they are focused on forcing themselves not to. And you only have a limited amount of energy to force yourself not to do something you really want to do.

As long as we think the solution to being overweight is to go on a diet, people will continue to be overweight. The real solution lies in working with whatever drives an overweight person to eat when she or he isn't hungry. Which I expect is somewhat different for everyone, although I bet we have many reasons in common.

The weight example works well for me, because I happen to be overweight, and when I’ve decided that I “need” chocolate, chips, or one of my other “crutch” foods to make it through the afternoon, no amount of logic about caloric intake can stand up to that drive. But I am beginning to understand where the drive comes from (in my case it often starts with shame about being overweight – which traps me in a vicious circle). I’ve written many diet plans, but I don’t think I’ve stuck with any of them for more than two weeks. If some well-intentioned person comes to me with a new diet or technique for losing weight – they’d better start running the other way – fast. On the other hand, if someone came to me today and showed me how to make the shame for being overweight in the first place disappear… now I’m listening because we’re closer to a real solution.

This weight struggle has given me a great gift of compassion.

I understand why my clients say they are going to make 50 sales calls each week… and then don’t. I understand why my clients say they are going to leave the dead-end relationship, but then get back together within a couple of weeks. I understand why time-management programs don’t usually work. Except for Franklin Covey’s. But that’s because Franklin Covey is not really about time at all – it’s about living a values-based life. Imagine that! A time-management program that actually gets to the source of how people struggle with time, and comes up with a real solution!

So when is a solution not a solution? And how do you know when a solution is real?

I would say if it doesn’t work, and you try it again, and it doesn’t work again, and you try it one more time, and it still doesn’t work, then it was probably never the real solution in the first place. That’s the time to look deeper.

Looking deeper sometimes feels scary until you realize it doesn’t mean you have to do anything specific about what you find. All you have to do is be honest about what’s going on, and see if you can step out of the emotions around the way things “should” work long enough to see what’s really working.

By the way, I’ve been working fervently on what I believe is the “real” solution to my weight problem, and I promise when I get it down – I will share.

Whatever your theme is – don’t give up. There is always a real solution somewhere – the adventure is finding it.

Copyright 2006 Nahid Casazza and Aspyrre