Why You Keep Having the Same Problem
“It is Monday, let’s try this again.”
That’s how David opened a post in our Locker Room community.
Seven words. You can probably feel them.
The hope of a fresh start. The frustration of needing one. The determination to make this week different from the last.
David continued:
“The behavior I want to strengthen is more consistent follow-through. I give myself a score of 7.”
Then he made his intentions specific:
“Today, I will contact five warm leads, move one speaking opportunity forward, and report my results to my team before the day ends.”
What caught my attention was his willingness to name something he wanted to improve—and put a clear commitment in front of other people.
That takes honesty.
It’s much easier to say, “Business has been crazy,” or “There just aren’t enough hours in the day.”
David named the behavior: more consistent follow-through.
His post raises a question worth asking ourselves:
What keeps happening in your business that you keep promising will change?
Maybe it’s the prospect you meant to call. The deadline your team keeps missing. The conversation you’ve been postponing. The work that somehow lands back on your desk after you thought you delegated it.
You handle it. You get through the week.
Then Monday comes.
Let’s try this again.
When the same business problem keeps coming back
A recurring problem deserves more than another rescue.
It deserves a closer look.
When a customer’s order is late, you rush it through. When a proposal stalls, you step in. When a team member needs an answer, you stop what you’re doing and provide it.
Sometimes that immediate response is necessary. People are counting on you.
But after the urgency passes, there is a question many of us never make time to ask:
What keeps making this happen?
Until you investigate that, you can spend a tremendous amount of energy solving different versions of the same problem.
And being good at rescuing the day can make it harder to recognize what needs to change.
People thank you. The customer calms down. The work gets finished.
You feel useful.
But if the same breakdown happens again next week, your business still needs something your last rescue didn’t provide.
Name the gap before you name the fix
Our Problem Solving Playbook begins with a simple discipline: recognize the problem clearly.
That means getting specific enough to do something about it.
“My team needs to communicate better” expresses frustration. It doesn’t tell anyone where to begin.
“The last three customer handoffs happened without a confirmed delivery date” gives you something to investigate.
“I need to be more disciplined” can leave you disappointed in yourself.
“I postponed my follow-up calls three days this week because I never reserved time for them” gives you a decision to make.
Notice how the conversation changes when the facts become clear.
You can examine a process. Change a commitment. Ask for help. Test a different approach.
You cannot make a useful adjustment to a problem you’re only describing as a feeling.
David’s post offers a starting point: name the behavior, assess it honestly, and make the next action specific.
We don’t need to invent an ending to his story to learn from that beginning.
We need to examine our own.
Where do you keep starting over?
Think about one problem that has followed you from week to week.
Ask yourself:
- What did I expect to happen—and what actually happened?
- Have I addressed this before? What did I change?
- Did that change address the cause, or just help me get through the moment?
Now give yourself a score from 1 to 10:
How consistently do I investigate why a problem happened before rushing to fix it again?
Be honest. The score is a starting point.
You may discover that you have been asking people to try harder when they need a clearer handoff. You may discover that everything waits for your approval. You may discover that an important commitment has never had a protected place on your calendar.
These are possibilities to investigate. Let the evidence tell you what needs attention.
Your move this week: fifteen minutes with one recurring problem
Take a blank page and write down the last three times the problem happened.
For each occurrence, record:
- When it happened.
- Who was involved.
- What happened and what it cost—in time, money, extra work, or lost trust.
Read the entries together.
What is the same in all three?
Write one sentence describing the repeated breakdown. Stick to what you can observe. If you don’t yet know the cause, write down what you need to check.
Then choose one small change you can test this week.
Put it on your calendar, along with a time to review whether it helped.
The goal is to learn enough to make a useful change—and see whether that change reduces the problem.
Get your free Repeat-Problem Log. Use it yourself or work through it with your team.
Come work on it with us
There is something powerful about what David did: he brought his commitment into a room where other people are working to make progress, too.
You can do the same.
Inside the Business Huddle, we take ideas like this and work on applying them to your business. You get practical playbooks, coaching, and a community where you can bring the questions you’re still working through.
Join Antoinette and me in the Locker Room each weekday at 8:30 a.m. Eastern for a focused, ten-minute session to help you turn what you’re learning into action.
Bring the problem you’re tired of repeating.
Let’s work on what needs to change.
Make Progress: No One Can Stop You But You.
— Walter