It’s easy to get caught up repeatedly solving the types of problems that feel most familiar to us.

After all, the more straightforward the problem, the more confident you’ll be about solving it.

On the other hand…

Ambiguous, unfamiliar, and complex problems have a much lower degree of certainty. And the less confident you feel about finding a solution, the less likely that you’ll want to even bother trying.

But what if that desire for certainty and confidence is keeping you stuck solving the wrong problems, over and over and over again?

The true bottleneck—the obstacle that’s having the MOST impact on your success—is usually the type of problem that you feel LEAST familiar with. The problem that makes you feel LEAST certain, comfortable, or confident.

That’s why it’s still a problem. If you felt confident in your ability to solve it, you probably would have already.

There are basically two ways you can assess which problems to focus on. One is to ask yourself questions like:

• “How confident do I feel about solving this problem?”
• “Will finding a solution be easy or hard?”
• “What’s the quickest path to a ‘good enough’ solution?”

The other is to ask yourself a much better question like:

“What’s the true bottleneck? The weakest link in the chain that, if I were to fix it, would provide the biggest impact and maximize my probability of success?”

It’s your choice to make.

What will you do today to start focusing on the types of problems that will have the greatest impact?

Will you allow yourself to lean into the discomfort of the unfamiliar and uncertain?