I recently received a letter from a man requesting help in finding a solution to a major problem in his life. His particular problem had developed over several years and now, as with many of us today, he was looking for a quick fix — an immediate remedy for his predicament. Unfortunately, this simply wasn't possible.

Often in our busy lives, we ignore some of our difficulties rather than dealing with them as they arise. The problem with this is many times these issues never get resolved and build to a point where suddenly we feel overwhelmed and our lives seem hopelessly out of control.

Whether these are problems within our relationships, difficulties at work, or things we wish to do with our lives — starting our own business, making a needed career change, etc. — when we ignore these issues in our lives, at some point the mounting weight of these problems gets to be too much and our world crashes in on us. When this happens, we feel at a loss to resolve these difficulties, as now they appear too large to manage.

If we just focus on the situation as a whole, this can make us feel overwhelmed and unable to deal with the problem. However, by breaking this down into manageable pieces, we can easily conquer these issues, one step at a time. We have to remember that these problems took time, possibly years, to develop, and we can't simply wipe them out in one fell swoop.

Break the problem down, then pick one issue to resolve. Once this is dealt with, cross it off your list and focus in on another issue. As we successfully conquer one aspect of the problem after another, soon we begin to feel in control again, and can see the light at the end of the tunnel. With a little hard work and determination, what once appeared as an insurmountable problem, is soon resolved.

Each of us has the ability to deal with even the largest of life's problems. It's all a matter of approaching these from the proper perspective and breaking them down into manageable pieces.