Life Design Tool: Challenge Statement

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What | Why | How | Tips | AI-Empowerment | Tips for Coaches | Stories

Part 1: WHAT IT IS

The Challenge Statement is a Design Thinking Life Design tool tailored for the Discover stage, where the focus is on identifying what you know, what you don’t know, and what you want to know about your current situation. This tool helps uncover the core of your challenges and transforms them into actionable “How to” statements.

Adopting a human-centered approach encourages you to connect with your emotions, reflect on your needs, and explore opportunities for growth. This process is essential for developing a clear and focused challenge statement, which serves as the foundation for life planning and the subsequent stages of life design.

Part 2: WHY IT MATTERS

In career or life planning, challenges often feel complex and overwhelming due to a lack of clarity or uncertainty. The “Challenge Statement Tool” uses a structured approach to help you break down such uncertainty, find direction from known information, and uncover opportunities and needs within the unknown.

  • Transforming Uncertainty into Clear Goals: Challenges are often stressful because we lack a deep understanding of their essence. Through this tool, you can gradually deconstruct challenges, clarify what you already know, and identify areas that require further exploration, thereby turning vague problems into clear directions.
  • Shifting from Problems to Opportunities: By reframing challenges into HMW (How Might We) statements, you can adopt a solution-oriented mindset, viewing problems as opportunities to discover new possibilities. This approach not only helps you think more systematically but also stimulates creativity and action, transforming difficulties into a driving force for growth.
  • Aligning with Core Values: The Challenge Statement Tool helps you connect with your emotions and needs, enabling you to focus on what truly matters. Exploring your inner motivations aligns challenges with your values, career goals, and life vision, ensuring that the subsequent plans are more meaningful and sustainable.

Part 3: HOW IT WORKS

Step 1: Identify the Challenge

  • Write down the issue or situation you’re facing. Consider what aspects of the challenge you understand and what feels unclear. Be honest about your emotions and needs.
  • Example: “I feel stuck in my career, but I’m unsure why or what’s next.”

Step 2: Break Down the Challenge: Known, Unknown, Want-to-Know

  • What You Know: List the facts or insights you already have. Example: “I know I feel unfulfilled in my current role.”
  • What You Don’t Know: Identify what’s unclear or missing. Example: “I don’t know what type of work would energize me.”
  • What You Want to Know: Define the information or insights you need to move forward. Example: “I want to know what career options align with my values and skills.”

Step 3: Reflect with Self-Empathy

  • Acknowledge your emotions (e.g., frustration, uncertainty) and unmet needs (e.g., purpose, growth). This step helps you remain human-centered and connect with the deeper reasons behind the challenge.

Step 4: Reframe into HMW Statements

  • Using the insights from the previous steps, transform the challenge into “How Might We” questions that encourage exploration and creativity.
  • Example: “How might we explore career options that align with my values, skills, and passions?”

Step 5: Use the Challenge Statement for Exploration

  • The HMW statements act as a guide for further exploration in the Define stage. They set the direction for brainstorming ideas, uncovering opportunities, and crafting actionable plans.

Remark: Exclusive worksheets, Wall Charts, Apps, and AI tools are available to help implement the above steps. These powerful resources are exclusively for the AI-Enhanced Design Thinking for Life & Career Planning and Life & Career Coaching Certificate Programs.

Part 4: TIPS for Personal Application

  1. Be Honest and Self-Aware: When identifying what you know, don’t know, and want to know, take time to reflect deeply on your emotions and needs. Honesty is key to uncovering the root of your challenges. Acknowledge any fears, frustrations, or uncertainties without judgment—they are important clues for reframing your challenges into actionable opportunities.
  2. Focus on Open-Ended HMW Statements: Ensure your “How Might We” questions are broad enough to encourage multiple solutions but specific enough to address your core challenge. For example, instead of asking, “How might we get a new job?”, try, “How might we identify career paths that align with my passions and skills?” This approach fosters creativity and opens up more possibilities.
  3. Iterate and Refine Your Insights: Don’t settle for the first HMW statement you create. Continuously refine it by revisiting your knowns, unknowns, and want-to-knows. As you uncover new insights, adjust your challenge statement to ensure it aligns with your evolving understanding of your needs and aspirations. This iterative process will lead to stronger, more actionable outcomes.

Part 5: AI-Empowerment

In the Discover stage, focusing on inner vision, AI can empower Challenge Statement tools to help individuals gain profound self-awareness by reflecting on core values, passions, and long-term priorities. By leveraging technologies like Natural Language Processing (NLP), machine learning, and sentiment analysis, AI enhances clarity, creativity, and actionable outcomes.

  1. Generate Insights and Reframe Challenges: AI uses NLP and machine learning to analyze patterns in knowns, unknowns, and aspirations, helping individuals uncover deeper insights about their values and priorities. It generates diverse “How Might We” (HMW) statements, reframing challenges into actionable opportunities aligned with what truly matters.
  2. Simulate Scenarios and Offer Resources: AI-powered predictive analytics and recommendation systems simulate potential outcomes for different HMW statements. These technologies suggest personalized resources, such as self-reflection tools, courses, or career pathways, to align actions with inner vision.
  3. Track Progress and Enhance Emotional Awareness: Sentiment analysis uncovers emotional drivers, such as frustration or excitement, while AI-driven progress tracking ensures individuals stay focused. This fosters deeper reflection on core values and long-term fulfillment.

By integrating these AI technologies, the Challenge Statement process becomes a powerful tool for exploring inner vision and driving meaningful life and career decisions.

Part 6: TIPS for Professional Coaches

The Challenge Statement tool is an essential part of the Discover stage in Design Thinking for Life Design. As a life coach, your role is to guide mentees in transforming their uncertainties into clarity and actionable opportunities. Below are three major tips to help you facilitate this process effectively:

  1. Foster a Safe Space for Honest Reflection: Encourage your mentee to openly share their emotions, fears, and uncertainties about the challenge they’re facing. Reassure them that all feelings and thoughts are valid and important for understanding the root of their challenge. A safe, judgment-free environment allows for deeper self-awareness and more meaningful insights.
  2. Guide the Breakdown of Knowns, Unknowns, and Want-to-Knows: Help your mentee organize their thoughts by clearly separating what they already know, what’s unclear, and what they want to find out. Use guiding questions like:
    • What do you already understand about this challenge?
    • What feels uncertain or confusing?
    • What information or insights would help you move forward?
  3. Support Iteration in HMW Statements: When reframing challenges into “How Might We” (HMW) statements, encourage mentees to create multiple versions. Discuss how each version opens different possibilities for action. For example:
    • How might we explore career paths that align with my passions?
    • How might we experiment with small changes to make my current job more fulfilling?

By fostering honest reflection, guiding a structured breakdown of challenges, and supporting iteration in reframing, you can help mentees turn uncertainty into opportunity. The Challenge Statement tool empowers them to approach problems with clarity, creativity, and purpose, setting a strong foundation for meaningful life design.

Part 7: Life Design Storiess (Global and Hong Kong)

Design Thinking has been effectively employed worldwide for career development and transition across diverse sectors. Notable figures such as Joe Gebbia in Hospitality, Jane Chan in NGOs, Kiran Sethi in Children’s Education, Paula Davis in Coaching, and Martha Moore in Apparel have leveraged this approach.

Also noteworthy is its prevalent use in Hong Kong for career progression and pivoting among individuals with varied backgrounds. In response to this, we have orchestrated a series of seminars and webinars on “Design Thinking for Life Planning and Transition,” featuring dialogue with 13 distinguished Design Thinkers from Hong Kong.

They are 吳克儉院士、林小湛教授、林偉雄院士、李潔蘭校長、鄧哲平先生、梁智軒博士、葉文謙先生、陳呂令意校長、唐文標律師、尹繼賢博士、林偉強博士、孫美妮女士 及 黎嘉豪先生 (Ordered by sequence of the interviews). We want to express our deepest gratitude to the following guest speakers for their voluntary contributions.