We can divide problems into two types: Those that rely on skills and those that rely on emotional regulation.

The starting point is knowing whether you need information or ways to lower your emotional temperature.

Anticipating obstacles and dealing with underlying emotional wounds can help you map a successful solution.

Maybe you want to change the washer in your kitchen faucet or learn to play the piano. Or maybe you want to learn to control your temper or stop procrastinating. Or maybe you’ve already known how to change the washer, but you became so frustrated when you tried to do it last weekend that you gave up. Or you’re always able to control your temper, but you found yourself overreacting to your supervisor’s question about your current workload.

The psychologist Rudolph Ekstein wrote in his seminal 1958 text on psychotherapy that you can divide problems into two types: One is what he called learning problems—problems that arise because you lack skills, like problems with the faucet, the piano, and even your temper and procrastination. The other is what he called problems about learning, where you already have the skills but your emotions sometimes override them—like when you experience frustration with the faucet, our struggle with your reaction to your........

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