Breaking Down Overwhelming Challenges: The Elephant Approach
When faced with a task that is much more difficult, overwhelming, and feels greater than your abilities, the best way to approach such tasks is by breaking it to bits and attempting it little by little.
This is exactly how I feel at the moment, with the task right in front of me. It feels bigger than my abilities, but I try to remind myself that nothing is bigger than me, just how I visualise the problem and the method I apply to solve it.
A lot of people are facing quite a similar challenge that they are trying to solve. They may look quite difficult, and most likely, they would be tempted to procrastinate because of the way difficult challenges make us feel incompetent.
What do I do when I feel overwhelmed by a challenge?
Two days ago, I had the most frustrating day in my life simply because I was trying to aim at something in time while the internet chose to be slow, making me wait for hours, and after all the waiting hours, it failed, making me have to source money to buy data again to make the same download. I got frustrated after attempting this about five times, making me waste money and data. This was a result of my frustration.
I knew I was angry, and I hated feeling that way. I hate the feeling of negativity and love to let my mind, thoughts, and heart flow with positivity. I thought of doing things that were unlike me because I was angry at the whole situation, but I found a way to calm myself by distracting myself from the situation. I had to go to sleep while I waited for the download to complete.
And when I woke up, this time the download was complete when I was not following it up. Unlike the past wasted hours I spent looking through the download process and having to see it fail numerous times.
Yesterday, I was working on a task that seemed beyond my level of understanding. I spent hours in front of my monitor trying to understand the problem and what I needed to learn to solve it, but it felt like I was trying to solve a problem in another language that I do not speak. I felt a little overwhelmed by the thought of not having enough time.
To control my feelings and be 100% myself towards the problem, I had to distract myself again from the challenge. This time, I chose to watch a movie (being not a movie fan) to keep my head away from the task, and thereafter I went to bed.
And while I was sleeping, something kept telling me that I was trying to solve the task wrongly. I was looking at the whole problem and trying to do everything at once without breaking it down. This was when this sentence, The best way to eat an elephant is by eating it bits by bits, started ringing in my mind till I woke up.
I woke up with refreshed energy and the feeling that I can now attempt to solve the task by being calm and taking it bit by bit. Due to the activities I have planned for this weekend, I will not be able to start the task until Sunday evening, or probably Monday.
I wish the best for myself on this journey and for you reading this too!
𝙰𝙱𝙾𝚄𝚃 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙰𝚄𝚃𝙷𝙾𝚁
Designed by @ grisvisa
Starstrings01, also known as Giftedhands, attends the Federal University of Agriculture in Abeokuta to study mechatronics engineering. He is a lover of the hive, a guitarist from Nigeria, and a student.
His ambition on Hive is to be more than just an ordinary blogger; he wants to be someone with a purpose. That's why he started the newbies initiative @newbies-hive to help guide and support newbies. Please follow the @newbies-hive curation trail by clicking here.
He tries to juggle education with being active on the chain, but his love and passion for Hive keep him on track..
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You see ehn, I don't give myself unnecessary frustration again oo. Once I see I cannot get something done easily, I just allow myself some sleep or divert to something else while cooling my nerves down. By the time I feel relieved, my head will be settled and would do those tasks easily and slowly.
Hehe😄... You guys are good oo. So I've just been given myself unnecessary headache by allowing these things to frustrate me.
Be like I go just start to dey ignore my problems now too be that 😁. Make me sef start to dey sleep on those frustrating challenges 😌
exactly the point... The brain just needs to be relaxed a bit, then be ready to take it.
I think I've just found myself where I can come get a daily dose of motivation. Lol. Cause following your content in the past few days has in one way or the enlightened me and made me see life challenges through a different perspective.
You really seem to have mastry over these things already. Indeed, life might not always go our way and it is very important to always understand how to take a step back and re-strategize. A very nice approach you've got there brother. Glad learning something I can apply in my life again from you.
I have no mastery oh, I am just thriving to learn and seek personal development.
I am glad that my posts provides something of value to you. I really appreciate your inputs as well.
Smiles... I get. You're doing well.
You're welcome. It's been a pleasure being around lately and stumbling upon your post. It's been making me miss it here and wanting to come around more often 😃
For taking a long walk works too but sleeping is the best. Its very rare that you will still wake up mad and there is the chance that I will see the problem from a different angle and evaluate if its worth it, good old power nap
