Stop Digging! Solving Problems with Courageous Humility

Everyone encounters problems in their life. The common response to a problem is to blame others or the environment. While other people and the environment likely contributed to the problem, blaming them solely is highly unlikely to lead to a solution. Continuing to blame others or the environment can often make the problem even worse and push you further from finding a solution. Instead, if you can stop digging you may be able to solve the problem with courageous humility.

There is an old adage that says that if you’re in a hole that you should stop digging. Variations of this message have been repeated throughout history from several people. The principle is even found in several spots in the Bible.

• “The most important thing to do if you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging.” – Warren Buffett
• “If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing is stop digging. Find a way out.“- Will Rogers
• “Whoever digs a pit will fall into it…” – Proverbs 26:27; Ecclesiastes 10:8 NRSVCE
• “Those who mislead the upright into evil ways will fall into pits of their own making, but the blameless will have a goodly inheritance.” – Proverbs 28:10 NRSVCE
• “The nations have sunk in the pit that they made; In the net that they hid has their own foot been caught.” – Psalm 9:15 NRSVCE

The basic meaning is that if you find yourself in a difficult or challenging situation and doing the same things again and again aren’t working, or even making things worse, you need to stop doing the same things and plan a new strategy to get your way out. 

Sometimes we are so close to the problem, our emotions are high and we become increasingly frustrated that we keep trying to fix the problem and it’s not working. We need to ‘stop digging’, take a step back, allow our emotions to calm, and then take a new viewpoint of the problem, or the ‘hole’. This new viewpoint could help us think through a new way that does not worsen the problem (digging the hole deeper) and could possibly help us out of the hole and resolve the problem. 

If the problem involves others, we need to understand that we can only change ourselves. We can’t change others. We may be able to increase the chances of influencing them, but there is no guarantee we can change them. In changing ourselves, we may resolve the issue or, we may find, the change that is required is a change in mindset. The change in mindset may be that we need to offer it up to God and move past it. 

Where are the holes in your life?

You may find yourself in holes in different aspects of your life. It could be in relationships with your significant other, your child, your parents, your boss, your coworker, your friend. It could be in your career, your business or your faith. The key is first to acknowledge that you’re in a hole. This can often be very difficult because  pride and our unconscious bias can be very powerful forces. 

Pride Blinds Us, But Humility Can Open Our Eyes

Pride is often seen as the most powerful of mortal sins. Many of the other mortal sins can flow from this sin. The antidote for the sin of pride is often humility. Humility can allow you to be able to look at yourself honestly and how you contributed to the problem, what you can do differently, how you can solve the problem or get out of the hole. Pride often blinds us from the truth and the reality of the situation where as humility can often open our eyes.  

Unconscious Bias Reinforces our Pride

When we encounter a problem, issue or challenge, it is natural to want to try to find a solution. Unfortunately, we all see the world through our own prism based upon our life experiences with some very powerful unconscious bias. With limited, and likely very flawed information due to our unconscious bias, we fill the gaps of information with negative assumptions and make judgments of the situation and of others. More often than not, this leads to digging the hole deeper and worsening the situation.

How does this work? When we encounter this problem, issue or challenge, we often begin with the attribution bias. The attribution bias is when you do something wrong, you conclude that it must be due to being unlucky or due to things outside of your control however when you do something right it must be due to your skill or you being such a great human being. Conversely, when someone else does something wrong, we believe it must be due to their lack of skill or being a bad human being. When they do something right, it must be due to luck. Thus, when we get into a hole, this bias will often tell us that we are a helpless victim of the problem and possibly that they are the problem. 

The attribution bias  compounded by another unconscious bias called the halo and horns effect where we take one thing about the person and assume it applies in all situations. For example, we take one good thing about someone and assume they can do no wrong (halo) or take one Bad thing about someone and assume they can do no right (horns). 

We then often surround ourselves with people like ourselves versus those that are different. This is called the affiliation bias. In other words, we become surrounded by people that think the same way we do and create an echo chamber where we never hear an opposing point of view. 

Then to continually strengthen the belief that we are right and they are wrong, that we’re the helpless victim and they’re the problem – in other words, digging the hole deeper – our beliefs are constantly strengthened by the confirmation bias. This is another unconscious bias where people have the tendency to seek information that confirms their preexisting beliefs. We favor information that supports the point of view we already have and we will often ignore facts supporting a side that opposes our perspective.

With these forces at play against us, you can see how often times the hardest part of getting out of a hole is to acknowledge you are in one! 

Courage and Wisdom of Humility vs the Weakness and Foolishness of Pride 

The humility of being able to look at yourself can be very difficult. Acknowledging the problem, and even harder, how you contributed to it, can be the most difficult thing however it is required to resolve the problem in the right way. The good news is that God is on your side and through God all things are possible! God hates pride, but He loves humility. In order to get closer to Him, in order to get closer to others, in order to resolve most all issues in your life, humility may be the most critical ingredient to all of it. Think of the humility it took for Michael Jordan after being cut from his high school basketball team to look at himself. Instead of blaming the coach. Instead of blaming the politics in the school or any other reason. He looked at himself. He worked harder. He focused on what he could control and became arguably the best basketball player of all time. You can see the humility in one of his famous quotes – ” I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.””

In the widely successful books, training and coaching from Crucial Learning, it is often emphasized that to avoid problems we need to start with ourselves and instead of approaching things trying to win, be right, and defend ourselves. Although we can’t change others, we may be able to increase the chances that we can influence them. In fact, their mission is to improve the world by helping people improve themselves. 

Several organizations have embraced change management processes and risk management which also require acknowledging first that there is something that needs changing or a risk issue that needs to be managed better. 

Several self-help gurus have discussed the benefits of avoiding a fixed-mind set and instead shifting to a growth mindset. In essence, a fixed mindset is where we believe we are who we are and we can’t change or improve for the better in some area. A growth mindset is believing that we can get better through learning, skill and talent development. This is because they worry less about looking smart or good (pride) and they put more focus into learning (humility).

Even with the continuous improvement movements in businesses and self-help, it needs to start with acknowledging the problem first. With LEAN, and Scaled Agile methodology for project management, it emphasizes that when you realize that your assumptions or beliefs are incorrect, you need to acknowledge the problem and pivot. In other words, when you uncover that your belief might be skewed due to some incorrect assumptions, flawed information or unconscious bias, you need to acknowledge the problem, stop digging and pivot your strategy. Pride will prevent you from acknowledging the problem so you will keep digging where as courageous humility will allow you to acknowledge the problem and give hope of finding a solution.

HOW TO GET OUT OF THE HOLE

1. What are the top 1-3 issues, problems or challenges in your life right now? These are your holes.
2. For each of these holes, ask yourself if these holes are important to your top priorities in your life. It is very important to understand your top priorities and put first things first otherwise you may be very busy doing things that are not important to you as your life passes you by. If any of these holes are not important to your top priorities, you may decide to offer the issue to God and remove this from your top 3 holes. If it is still a top 3 hole for you, move on to the next step.
3. Take a look at each of these holes individually and approach them with a humble heart. What have you done or are you not doing that contributed to the issue?  What have you tried? Why didn’t it resolve the issue? What could you have done differently that might have had better results? Avoid the trap of telling yourself what they could have done differently. Focus on what you can do differently. Avoid the trap of making them into some cartoonish character or villain. For example, telling yourself that they’re just weird, stupid, unkind, or just don’t get it. While there may be some truth to this, it is generally highly exaggerated and even if there is some truth to it, it won’t help you find any solution to the issue.
4. Cross out all the things you tried that didn’t work. Approach it from a different angle, with a different strategy. Approach it as a scientist trying to understand the issue with different possible hypotheses that could solve the issue. Pray about it. Throw out any strategy that isn’t consistent with your faith, your morals or values because trying out any of these strategies will cause more issues and definitely dig more holes or a deeper hole. What have others that encountered similar issues done to resolve it successfully in the past? What would my mentor, coach or significant other suggest? How would experts in the field of this issue approach it? How would Jesus approach this issue? What wisdom does the Bible have on these types of issues? 
5. Test the new strategy in a safe environment where you can pivot, change directions or stop if it is clear it won’t work. Don’t let pride prevent this from happening. Approach each strategy humbly. Ask for feedback and actively listen. If it works, great! Issue resolved. If not, go back to step 2 with all that you learned from testing this hypothesis and try another strategy until you get it right. 
6. If this continues to be a top 3 issue, you will want to keep working at it until it gets resolved in such a way that it is no longer an issue at all or at the least it is no longer a top 3 issue.

Take care and God Bless. I’m praying for you. Please pray for me.

Additional Wisdom from the Bible

• “But he gives all the more grace; therefore it says, ‘God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.'” – James 4:6 NRSVCE
• “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.” – James 4:10 NRSVCE
• “In the same way, you who are younger must accept the authority of the elders. And all of you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another, for ‘God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’” – 1 Peter 5:5 NRSVCE
• “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” – Luke 14:11 NRSVCE
• “When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but wisdom is with the humble.” – Proverbs 11:2 NRSVCE
• “The fear of the LORD is instruction in wisdom, and humility goes before honor.” – Proverbs 15:33 NRSVCE
• “Before destruction one’s heart is haughty, but humility goes before honor.”  – Proverbs 18:12 NRSVCE
• “He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way.” – Psalms 25:9 NRSVCE
• “For the LORD takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with victory.” – Psalms 149:4 NRSVCE
• “For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.” – Romans 12:3 NRSVCE
• “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.” – Matthew 23:12 NRSVCE