Making a Molehill out of a Mountain

It all depends on how you look at it

It’s common to see people take an insignificant situation, and blow it all out of proportion. I’ve also seen plenty of people (sometimes the same people) do the opposite – take a hugely complex and difficult situation and make light of it.

I’m sure there are several technical terms for both of these situations and even more reasons for why someone would do one over the other.

I’d like to suggest two factors that come into play:

A) A person’s life experience dealing with similar issues.

B) A person’s skills in breaking down large things into smaller things.

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We see what we know

At one point or another everyone faces difficult times in his or her life – it’s unavoidable. But how we see these times and what we take with us is based on our individual personalities. Some people will look back at a situation and remember the pain and the failure. Others will recall how they addressed a problem and remember winning, even when it was only a partial success.

But it’s not only that your perspective carries forward – if you think negative, you’ll see negative; if you think positive, you’ll see positive. Your view of the current situation is colored by similar, past situations. For example, while no one enjoys being laid off or fired, a person that has been laid off in the past and quickly found a new job is much more likely to remain positive about the situation.

Planning skills help

The other factor that comes into play when dealing with life events is the ability to break a seemingly daunting task into smaller, manageable pieces. Instead of seeing an insurmountable mountain in front of you, you see it as a series of small climbs. Then all you have to do is make steady progress on one small task at a time.

If you haven’t had the experience in doing this, give it a try. I enjoyed Steve Pavlina’s description of “micro-tasking” in his blog the other week – it’s definitely a tool to use.

What’s the scale on that map?

Early in 2006 I took a look at perspective and offer this corollary: The size of any hill – molehill or mountain – depends entirely on how you’re looking at it! Get close enough, and any small pile of dirt starts looking immense. Back up far enough, and any mountain is going to become insignificant;-)

Some people allow the simplest of obstacles to get in their way. Others ignore every irritation, sometimes blindly persevering – failing to heed the warnings that it can’t be done – and prove all the naysayers wrong.

How do you handle adversity?