The methodology of thinking outside the Box.

If you are someone at least 20 years old – you may have come across someone saying its easy for them to solve other people’s problems but when it comes to their problems,they can not think it the same way.

lets dive into this.

How do you think ? or lets phrase it better, How do you start to think about something ?

in the following Case lets imagine it as a problem and lets take it from the two possible situations mentioned earlier.

Starting with other people’s problems, when someone is approaching you with an issue they have. you usually put everything else a side (you dont think about other things) and start listening to what they say. – worth mentioning that the situations vary depending on how clear your mind is at that moment, how important those people to you and vice versa.

your brain starts taking input from the words you hear and within the moment you start formulating patterns, comparing to situations you been in, other stories you heard before and you may come up with something that helps them

just like a normal 1 + 2 = 3. you got some input → you think it out → you come up with a solution.

the picture above expresses roughly two people exchanging a conversation – as on our subject ,the one on the top is lost inside the problem they have,trying to explain it to the person sitting at the bottom.
While the second person is in a status of listening and analyzing.

The second Situation – where you are on the other side of the table , where you are the one inside the problem and not finding a way to solve it,
you sit alone in a quiet place, go for a walk ,drink a coffee or maybe doing your favorite sport trying to get your mind-off the issue but why do we do that ? getting our mind-off something . stop thinking about it while we are in the need to do so.

Information filtering : getting your mind-off something actually helps you think more clearly about it. allowing the time for your mind to filter the information its dealing with- which involves a scientific term called Mental Bandwidth.
after a period of time your mental bandwidth is filled with the key information that describes the problem and the way to solve it. this filtering takes different periods for different people, you be doing some activity and out of nowhere, someone says something or you see a clue which triggers the path to the right solution for the problem.
Or simply you laugh over a joke you heard days or weeks before.

when you are listening to someone else’s problem. your mind goes in that status where you suspend the motion and start listening to the other person’s words and looking at his body language/eyes unconsciously the default mode, when you are listening. at this moment your bandwidth is being filled and simulateously filtering the information you are getting.

for example your friend tells you the following: Yesterday around 8:00 pm someone was knocking on my door. i went to the door to see who is it. I opened the door , it was my little brother,he greeted with a hello, i asked him to come in. he said he was in a rush and needed 20 euros to get some game he wants to buy.

simple story right ? from that story right now , you mostly remember 8:00 pm, Brother, 20 euros, game.
by default you will not be focused on things like : „he knocked the door,greeted with a hello instead of good evening, he asked him to come in – he refused. you filter what is important and recall other events on need. just like taking notes in a meeting or conference.

the problem with that mechanism when you are the one inside the problem, you can not just sit and filter each piece of information because its all important to you in a way or another, some information could be important because it holds emotions. for example you heard something when that issue raised and it caused you to feel bad. If I want to apply it to the last short story, lets say the little brother knocking was too loud, and that loud knocking disturbed you,you will remember the knocking then, but mostly it was not the cause of the problem or the result or even the solution. just like a what i want to call : A side Quest. even if its not a quest, i want to call it this way to elaborate more on the following example :
Imagine you are playing a video game, an adventure story game , your main object to finish the game is to gain skills and upgrade your abilities to be able to defeat the monster holding your beloved ones. during the story you may come across a „side Quest“ where you help a farmer,build a house, collect a rose or a rare item. These Side Quest do not affect the destiny where you want to reach but they are part of the main story (imagine it as the problem).

Now as the character being inside the game, you dont know which one is the side Quest and which one is the main Quest, unless you were given clues , and thats exactly what i am trying to do here.

when you are trying to solve a problem that happens to you personally, your brain (mental bandwidth) is occupied with too many information, some of them matter and most of them don’t.

Since we now understand the Idea, you are probably asking the question, How do i get my mind to separate what matters and whats not. or deeper, How do i get to think about what i am thinking ?

The Good news you dont have to. it happens in the background, one thing that helped me personally is doing other things while reminding myself of the problem every once in a while. its like putting that task for your brain in the background to keep working on it.

How does this look like thinking outside the box ? your probably got some hints from the previous examples and we will dive further into this in the next article on why you should learn something about everything.

The information in this article and/or the examples mentioned are purely out of personal view on the life and the human body. Its not backed with any scientific research or said its psychological advice or fact.

Always Do Your Own Researches.