How many times, have you across this statement? But why is that every time, when you face a problem, you always feel much worried. You sometimes get into fear zone, you get anxious and sometimes you belittle yourselves. One of the reason, is you overestimate the problem. The ability which you have, to solve a problem is far more greater than, the problem itself. Most of the occasion, the reason you fear a problem is because of uncertainty paradox, the problem possess at that point in time. So how do we navigate through any problem. I would call it as APPLE approach. For each of the state I will try and relate a scenario, which can be of close relevance. Help you to look at the problem from a different angle and use them as a guidelines to navigate it.

The Apple approach involves the following

1. Acceptance
2. Puzzle
3. Perception
4. Learning
5. Engage

Acceptance – The first and foremost is when you face a problem, face the problem. At the first instance, accept to yourself that you are in a problematic situation. Hiding away or disowning the problem, is not going to elude you away from problem. It’s only going to make it worse. Let’s assume, you have lost the job. You have credit card dues to be paid. You are slipping on your payments. But when the credit collection guy follows up with you relating to the payment, not picking the call is going to mount internal pressure on you. At the other end, the call agent is going to record that, you haven’t taken the call multiple times. The best way is to accept the situation, accept the reality and accept the fact that you will not be able to pay it this month. Once, you have accepted it, you can handle the call better rather than getting panicked about the call.

We cannot change anything, unless we accept it

Carl Jung

Puzzle – Once you accept the problem, you will get to know there are many puzzles that exist with the problem. There are many unanswered questions. Proceed one step at a time. Acceptance bring you a clarity as to what is that you can act upon immediately. Relating to the same example of job loss, the acceptance of the problem, make you to think what is that you need to do? One step at a time, whom you can reach out to seek help to refer you for a job, where you can apply or how can you quickly adopt yourself, to engage in a part time work.

Thus, you would have realized, the puzzles started to pave ways, when you started to work on what is in hand at that point in time. Anything will still remain a puzzle, if it is after 1 week or a month or even a year. Hence, focus on the current point in time activity, so that you are not puzzled and struck because of the problem.

Remember, even the hardest puzzles have a solution.

Perception – The moment you get into a problem, you face fear. The fear leads to bad visualization of something that’s not in existence. It implants in your head a visual which you get worried much about. This is not even in existence in the first place. Hence, start to perceive positivity. Think positively, how the situation can turn around. Think, what if the rental owner accepts my request for delayed rent payment for the next couple of months. Visualize the same. You would be surprised for sure, how this can turn the course of the events.

It’s not so easy to build positive visualization at tough times. But the speciality, is that the positive visualization acts far more stronger during tiring times. They send those positive vibes of energy around you. The energy around us reflects the vibe what we carry. You would realize whenever you are happy, you carry a positive vibe while when you are sad, you carry a negative vibe. Practice it. Associate yourself with positive vibes. Always bounce back swiftly and quickly like a tennis ball.

Thoughts become perception. Perception becomes reality.

Learning – Every problem is placed in front of you to teach you a lesson. You cannot really know what’s the future would be for you. However, you can plan, how the future has to unfurl itself. The best way, is to carry the learnings from the problems. When you slip on credit card payments, it gives a clear lesson that you spend more than you earn and we don’t control those unplanned purchase. However, this would also teach you, the better you start to save, you would be in better position to face the challenges. That’s the lesson. Start saving.

Every problem when it occurs, can also show you who helped you; the books that inspired you; that dialogue from the movie which pushed you to act; the Starbucks delivery person, who passed on a smile on your worst day, to cheer you up. Look into every bit of activity in those tough times, and each would be an act of kindness, love and support you would have received. Do pay it forward with good gesture, because you would never knew, when you might need it for yourself.

Learning is so wonderful, when it’s from our own life experiences, because we can be mentors to the one who faces it.

Engage – Finally, once you had faced the problem and came out of it do engage yourself to move yourself forward. Don’t be holding on to the same forever. This relates when you loose someone in your life. When you miss your loved one, due to unforeseen situation, it takes time to recover. Take your time. But never hold on there. Because, you might be that light for someone, whose candle is yet to be lit. Gather your hope. Build your strength. Engage yourself again with this beautiful world. Every loss cannot be answered with a purpose. But we can build a purpose out of it, to ensure we can be a guiding force to someone.

You can turn out to be a transformation agent for someone out there. You are never alone in your problem. There are so many people out there similar to you. The only thing is that, you don’t know who they are. Advance yourself with optimism. Embrace it. Be empathetic, so your compassion can help someone. Consider the experience as a thread stitching your broken pieces together. Something similar to Japanese kintsugi – meaning golden repair. In Japanese art of kintsugi, the broken objects are not something to hide but to display with pride. Embrace and engage. Believe once you sail through a problem, you would be far more different, matured and glowing as like this kintsugi. For your information, everyone in this world is a kintsugi. Some glow, because they share; mostly others don’t. Let you be that candle. A candle that looses nothing by lighting other candles.