Vikram Seth is an award winning Indian novelist and poet. While writing his book, “A Suitable Boy,” he got 100 pages written and got stuck. Try as he might, he couldn’t get beyond this point. One day he realized the source of his real problem. He didn’t know enough about the period he was writing about. He dove in and started doing a lot of research. He immersed himself in interviews and newspapers of people that lived in the era he was writing about. Once he increased his knowledge about his subject matter, he sat down and finished off a 1,500 page book, much larger than the novel he was planning on. It has now been made into a TV series as well.
There are at least 2 important lessons here:
1) Even the professionals get stuck (don’t give up)
2) Identifying the actual root problem in a situation leads to the solution
Discuss: Put your mind in positive thinking mode and share a problem you are facing that is holding you back in some way. Try to brainstorm with your family what the actual root cause of the issue might be. Then commit yourself to a course of action to solve the problem.
If you aren’t comfortable sharing the problem with your family, keep Vikram’s story in mind and after dinner go to your room and write down the problem and potential root causes and the solutions that would solve your problem. Then take small action steps each day to achieve the solution. As you identify solutions to your problem and start to implement them, it will motivate you to work harder to achieve your goal.
(Image by Steven Cukrov @ 123rf.com)
