You should never rely on others to tell you how you prefer to do things.

We are living in a world where we act as though there is exactly one way to do everything. Partially due to to individuality, there is generally not a single approach to a task that works best for everybody. Besides, letting others live your life for you is no way to live.

This was actually a part of the reason that I started my Mental Exercise blog. It’s one thing to tell you how I accomplish tasks. Encouraging others to find their own way is something else. By challenging people to figure out an answer that can be highly variable (although I have been developing single-answer exercises as well), they are encouraged to develop a sense of what works for them.

I also feel that letting others tell you how to do things is neglectful to problem solving skills. What’s more beneficial, being able to apply a specific example of how to do something in Excel, or being able to find out how to accomplish specific tasks when asked to do so? This is why I changed my mind about simply handing out Excel tips. I wanted to help promote these problem solving skills.

There’s actually one more thing that I need to emphasize. If everybody is obligated to perform tasks in the same way, how will anybody ever develop a superior approach? If you rely too much on others, you are not going to experiment with alternative ideas. If everybody falls into this trap, then we lack any alternatives. Since better ideas would have to be alternatives to what is already in place, we ultimately inhibit progress.