Week 1
Leadership Lessons: Problem Solving Skills
Week 1: What is a problem?
“Your ability to solve problems and make good decisions is the true measure of your skill as a leader.”
– Brian Tracy
Problem (Definition):
A doubtful or difficult matter requiring a solution.
Something hard to understand, accomplish, or deal with.
A problem can come in many forms from many different angles in our life. Here are a few examples:
· A huge part of our leadership program is goal setting. We try to set goals, big and small, in all areas of our life. This is a very important aspect of leadership and self-improvement, but what happens when we struggle to meet those goals? What about when things get tough? Maybe your goal is much harder than you thought it would be to achieve.
· Another reality of goal setting is failure. We meet the deadline for our goal and we haven’t yet succeeded. Notice the words in that last sentence (haven’t yet). This can be discouraging.
· Bad circumstances come along all the time in our lives. Maybe you had a bad day at school, a family member passed away, or things are hard at home. How do we deal with these sorts of things?
· Working in teams can cause problems when we don’t see things the same way. Maybe your soccer team isn’t working together or there is a difference in opinion with a school project.
These are a few examples of problems we may face in our lives. Some happen based on decisions that we make and some are completely out of our control. This week first is simply about identifying different types of problems that we may face. As we continue through this month we are going to discuss dealing with these and finding SOLUTIONS!
Homework:
Write down some problems you are currently facing in your life. Try to write as many as possible. The more you have written down, the more you will have to work with in the coming weeks. Think of some of the different areas of your life such as school, home and family, karate, sports and extracurricular activities, friends etc.