List Your Options

What should you do when you’re totally stuck and see no way of solving a problem? I discovered one helpful strategy through a long drama of dealing with a problem that seemed to have no practical solution — yet if I didn’t solve it, I would lose the most important thing in my life. Thankfully, I found a solution using a strategy that is now firmly in my problem solving toolkit.

First, let me explain what the problem was, why it was so critical to find a solution, and why it seemed like I would never find one.

Ow, My Poor Feets

Last spring, I began to experience intense pain in my feet whenever I played or practiced hockey. The pain was so horrific that I thought I would have to give up skating entirely. Keep in mind, I was (and still am) on the ice at least four days a week. Hockey is a major part of my life and it would have been a huge loss to give it up.

I never had foot pain before starting to play hockey. For the first year, I could tolerate the tension in my feet, but I was down on my knee every chance I had during practice. By the second year, the pain was so intense that I couldn’t even stand in my skates. Several times, I was nearly brought to tears when I simply laced up my skates and skated for a few minutes.

When a new pair of skates failed to make my feet happy, I decided to visit a podiatrist for the first time in my life. Seeking the best advice I could afford, I went to the Cleveland Clinic.

The podiatrist looked at my feet and told me straight away that I had a serious problem, but he would immediately send me down the hall to a doctor who knew more about it. Feeling a sense of dread, I asked him what was wrong with my feet. He mumbled something about my joints and mentioned crippling arthritis when I’m older.

As I was waiting to have x-rays of my feet taken, I tried to convince myself that, despite the news, I could still have a good day. It didn’t work.

After an hour of waiting, I finally saw the second doctor. He told me that I have a hyper-flexible sub-talar joint. When I stand on my feet, I can flex my ankles to such a degree that I can place my arch flat against the ground. It’s almost like I have flat feet, even though I actually have a very healthy arch.

He relieved my concern about winding up crippled. Apparently, the first doctor was a bit hasty with his words, and I wouldn’t really have to worry about arthritis. But he did tell me that surgery was the only way to correct the problem and relieve my pain forever. He told me that he would personally insert some pins into my joints to reduce their range of movement down to what is considered normal. It would only cost $16,000 — none of which my insurance plan would cover — and keep me off my feet for six months.

I explained that the only time I have foot pain is when playing hockey. He said it made no difference; I needed the surgery. As a parting gift, he gave me some insoles that he said were designed for feet like mine. He told me to put them in my skates and shoes. They would help relieve some of the pain, but not all of it. Would I have to wear these insoles forever, I asked? The answer was yes. Would I ever be able to go barefoot or wear sandals again, which is how I spend most of the summer? He advised against it.

Medicine Doesn’t Know Everything

The diagnosis left me in a pretty foul mood. I had no intention of spending that much money on surgery to make my feet fit someone else’s ideal. Nor did I wish to give up hockey for a single week, let alone six months. Yet if I did not have the surgery, I was sure I would never play hockey again.

But I was soon to find a ray of hope. I tried the insoles the doctor gave me and had a surprising result: immediate, intense pain, whether I wore them in my skates or in my shoes.

If one of the doctor’s answers to my problem actually made my problem worse, then maybe he wasn’t so smart after all. You might argue, reasonably, that he should be forgiven because the insoles were simply one small step in the process of finding or making what is just right for me. But I would have to wonder: what kind of science is at the root of podiatry if it can’t give me definite solutions to my problems? If the solutions are less than totally reliable, then the science behind it is less than 100% congruent with reality.

I became even more convinced of my hypothesis when I learned that the surgical procedure the doctor urged me to undergo cured foot pain in less than 20% of cases. And even when the foot pain was eliminated, patients often had to wear orthotics for the rest of their lives.

I had no intention of paying a high price to alter my feet forever, while becoming dependent on shoes, which I hated anyway. Especially when I didn’t have any pain except when skating.

What I learned since then about feet, science, and podiatry could fill many more articles. However, it is time to return to the topic I started with and tell you what strategy I used to find a solution to this intractable problem.

How I Unstuck Myself

I was completely stuck. On the one hand, if I made no changes, the only way to cure my pain would be to give up the thing I loved most, hockey. On the other hand, the solution presented to me would be expensive, be painful, force me to wear clunky shoes forever, and maybe not even work in the first place. What the hell would I do?

I spent a lot of time in utter despair. There seemed to be no way out of this hopeless situation.

I kept thinking about my options: do nothing and lose, or do something I don’t want to do and probably also lose. It’s pretty hard to choose between two equally horrible, disgusting options — just like modern Presidential elections.

As I considered my two options, I thought how funny it was that it was just like an election. Except, not really. There are more than two options for deciding how to vote. There are other parties to choose from — you’re just throwing your vote away, but they are valid options. And you can choose not to vote. That’s an option. Heck, you could move out of the country. Or run for office yourself… you can create your own options!

Within a few minutes I came up with a dozen creative options for voting in an election. Not all of them were practical or desirable, but it proved that a rock and a hard place need not be the only two choices to consider.

Could this idea apply to my foot problem? Could I try listing as many options for dealing with my problem as I could imagine, practical or not?

I didn’t think I could do it, but I knew I had to try. To rise out of my funk, I set the goal of coming up with a list of ten things I could do about my feet. I placed the two choices I loathed, “do nothing” and “have surgery,” as the first and last items, respectively. I wanted to fill the space between them with as many options as I could think of, and maybe one of them would work.

My mood improved significantly just by making the list, and I more than reached my goal of coming up with ten options. In fact, I came up with thirty things I could do to solve my problem.

To show you how broadly this exercise made me think, I’ve reproduced my list below. Not all of the options are great ones, of course, but I was truly surprised that I could come up with far more than I thought possible.

Wait and see if the skates break in or my feet adapt.

Take out the insole that came with the skate.

Use Superfeet insoles.

Take cheap insole and cut out the arch to reduce arch support.

Call Dave and explain problem.

Have arch punched out.

Try Dr. Scholl’s gel insoles.

Have new custom insoles made.

Find and perform arch or foot exercises to strengthen arch.

Ask a different podiatrist why the support they tell me I desperately need is causing intense pain.

Find another skate shop and try a different brand.

Go to that place in Edmonton.

Get skates custom made for my feet.

Try ankle wrap thing.

Walk barefoot a lot…

…Or the opposite — Wear shoes with lots of arch support (get used to it?)

Massage feet before playing.

Look up and understand the nature of muscle cramps, which muscle is cramping, how it moves, and how to counteract the cramping movement.

Relax when skating (practice this.)

Stand around at home in skates.

Strengthen ankles.

Try goalie skates.

Try figure skates.

Cure it with vitamins.

Convince doctor to give me opioid painkillers — with daily use, I’d probably become addicted, but is that as bad as not playing hockey?

Treat it as a psychosomatic problem.

Try meditation.

Find a topical anesthetic for my feet.

See a podiatrist at the Mayo Clinic.

Have foot surgery.

Solving Problems With Lists

As it turns out, making a list of your options — crazy ones included — is a great way to find a solution. I found my solution because of that list above. I’ll spare all of you non-hockey players the details, but it involved completely disregarding what the doctors told me. I also developed a healthy distrust of podiatry in all its forms. If you happen to play hockey and have pain as I’ve described above, contact me and I’ll explain how I solved it.

Now, how might you apply this to your own life? Suppose you don’t have enough money and you want to make more. Just about everybody has that problem!

Challenge yourself to list at least ten things that you could do to earn more. As you write, you’ll find it hard to stop at just ten. Yes, many of those options will be silly or impractical, but some of them will be good.

When most people dream of (or desperately need to) make more money, they usually think about prosaic options like working longer hours or cutting expenses. The trouble is, there is a limit to how many hours you can work and how low you can cut your expenses. You just can’t work 24 hours a day and live on $100 a month.

Earning more money requires thinking more, rather than just doing more of what you’re already doing. If you confine yourself to crummy options like putting in more hours at the job you already have, you’ll always be poor, because you’re only thinking enough to come up with the obvious answers that everyone else has thought of as well.

When you don’t like your options, make more. Often, you weren’t thinking beyond the obvious ones in the first place. It makes no difference whether you have a financial problem, a relationship problem, or a medical problem.

There are a thousand things that you might do to solve any problem, no matter what limitations you have (or think you have). Despair often comes from having too narrow a focus. Listing your options — all of them, even the weird ones — can take your focus off the choices you don’t like and help you find something you do like.

If every problem has a solution, then solving a tough problem may only be a matter of listing every possible solution until you find the right one. Next time you find yourself totally stuck, make a list of your options and remind yourself of all the reasons why you have many, many choices beyond a rock and a hard place.