What is my realistic path to better health?
While most people want to make healthier choices, life gets in the way of exercising more, eating healthier, and getting enough outdoor time. To balance your effort against the results, you can think more broadly about what it is you’re really trying to accomplish.
Complex problems are often vague and have many possible solutions. The Meta-Problem Method may lead you far away from the dilemma that started your quest. That’s because the method forces you to clarify what you really want and what you are willing to give up. It enables you to compare objectively the possible pathways and their trade offs. It prevents you locking into solutions mode too early and then doubling down on solving a low-yield problem that does not serve your goals as well as the alternatives. At the end of this process, you will have a better understanding of your priorities and how to achieve them.
Steps in the Meta-Problem Method
Dilemma
The high-level issue you are trying to address
Build sustainable healthy habits.
Goal
The changes you want to make to address the dilemma. There are usually many options.
Supporting Goals
- Exercise more.
- Eat healthier.
Other goals could include more time outside, improving heart health, minimizing the mental effort of changing your habits, and enough time and energy in the day for your other commitments.
Problem Space
The set of problems you could chose to solve to advance your goals, plus the constraints that hold you back.
Example problems
- How can I exercise more? Maybe the problem to solve is “What exercise fits in my life best and what stops me from doing it?”
- How can I eat healthier? Maybe the problem to solve is “What system and options do I need in place to make healthier food choices?”
There are many other potential problems to solve related to improving your health. Each goal has many possible problems we could link to it. Are there other problems linked to these first two goals? Which options come to mind for the other goals?
High-Yield Problems
Sometimes solving one problem helps make progress towards several goals. In this step, we identify these “two-for-the-price-of-one” problems.
Which options will advance more than one goal?
- Developing a lunchtime walking habit can help you exercise more, improve heart health, and get more time outside without taking too much time or energy out of your day. However, depending on how you fit walking and lunch into your break, it may have a negative or positive effect on your food choices.
- Meal prepping on the weekends can help you to eat healthier, improve heart health, and give you more time in the day for your other commitments. However, it can be a big change to adjust to and won’t increase your time spent exercising.
There are many potential solutions that will have varying effects on the set of goals. Which alternatives improve the most important goals? How might the unknown change the right path forward? What other possible solutions are there to address the dilemma?
Problem Selection
Which of the many possible options in the high-yield problem step is the best set to address the dilemma?
- Which solutions make the most sense to you?
- Which solutions will best address the dilemma?
- Which solutions will deliver the best outcome for the least amount of time, effort and money?
Implement, Learn and Adapt
Check continuously that you are still solving the best problem, as new information emerges.
Observe and learn as you go. As new information reveals itself, check continuously that you’re still solving the best problem.