Most people solve problems by copying what everyone else is doing.
Someone wants to get in shape, so they download the same workout plan their friend uses. Someone wants to start a business, so they copy a competitor’s pricing. Someone wants to save money, so they cut out coffee because that’s what every personal finance article tells them to do.
Sometimes that works.
But when the problem is complicated, unusual, or important, copying other people’s solutions has a major weakness: you’re assuming they understood the problem correctly in the first place.
Engineers approach things differently.
Instead of asking, “What’s the standard solution?” they ask, “What are the fundamental truths here?”
This approach is called first principles thinking, and it’s one of the most powerful ways to solve problems.
Rather than reasoning by analogy—comparing your situation to someone else’s—you strip everything down to its most basic components and build upward from there.
It’s essentially taking apart a machine to see how it actually works before deciding how to fix it.
The Difference Between Thinking by Analogy and Thinking from First Principles
Imagine someone in 1900 trying to build a faster mode of transportation.
Most people would look at horses and conclude that the solution was a stronger horse, a lighter carriage, or better roads.
They’re working from analogy. They’re improving what already exists.
A first principles thinker would ask a different question:
What is transportation, fundamentally?
The goal isn’t a horse. The goal is moving people from one place to another as efficiently as possible.
Once you define the actual objective, suddenly entirely new solutions become possible.
The automobile doesn’t look like a better horse because it wasn’t designed by someone trying to improve horses.
It was designed by someone solving the underlying problem.
This distinction matters because most of us spend our lives optimizing horses.
How Engineers Actually Break Down Problems
When engineers encounter a difficult challenge, they don’t start with solutions.
They start with constraints.
What absolutely must be true?
What can be changed?
What assumptions are we making?
What evidence supports those assumptions?
What evidence contradicts them?
Let’s say you’re trying to reduce your monthly expenses.
The conventional advice might be:
- Cancel subscriptions
- Stop buying coffee
- Eat out less
Those suggestions aren’t wrong, but they’re solutions borrowed from other people’s problems.
A first principles approach asks:
What is the actual goal?
The goal isn’t spending less money.
The goal is creating more financial flexibility.
Now new possibilities emerge.
Maybe cutting expenses isn’t the highest-leverage move at all.
Maybe increasing income by 10% would have a far bigger impact than eliminating small purchases.
Maybe refinancing debt matters more than meal prepping.
Maybe the problem isn’t spending but housing costs.
By focusing on the underlying objective instead of the traditional solution, you often discover options everyone else overlooks.
The Five Questions That Reveal Hidden Assumptions
Whenever you’re stuck, ask:
- What am I assuming is true?
- How do I know it’s true?
- If I started from scratch, would I do it this way?
- What is the actual goal?
- What’s the simplest possible path to that goal?
These questions sound almost embarrassingly simple.
That’s exactly why they work.
Most bad decisions survive because nobody stops long enough to question the assumptions underneath them.
Entire industries operate this way.
Entire careers operate this way.
Entire relationships operate this way.
People inherit beliefs, habits, routines, and systems from others without ever asking whether they still make sense.
Why First Principles Thinking Feels So Uncomfortable
There’s a reason most people don’t naturally think this way.
It’s mentally expensive.
Copying existing solutions is efficient.
You don’t have to analyze every detail of how a refrigerator works before buying one.
You don’t need to reinvent arithmetic every time you calculate a tip.
Analogy-based thinking exists because it saves enormous amounts of time.
The problem comes when you use it in situations where the existing solution is failing.
That’s when first principles thinking becomes valuable.
Unfortunately, that’s also when it becomes difficult.
Questioning assumptions means questioning things you’ve probably believed for years.
It means admitting that the obvious answer may not actually be correct.
It means abandoning comfortable explanations in favor of accurate ones.
Most people would rather protect their assumptions than examine them.
The Real Benefit Isn’t Better Answers
The biggest advantage of first principles thinking isn’t that it always produces brilliant solutions.
Sometimes it doesn’t.
The real benefit is that it helps you avoid inherited mistakes.
You stop doing things simply because everyone else does them.
You become less vulnerable to bad advice, conventional wisdom, and outdated assumptions.
You develop the ability to think independently.
And in a world where most people are recycling ideas they never questioned in the first place, that ability is surprisingly rare.
The next time you’re facing a difficult decision, resist the urge to ask, “What do people usually do?”
Instead, ask, “What problem am I actually trying to solve?”
Then keep digging until you reach something that can’t be broken down any further.
That’s where engineers start.
And more often than not, that’s where the best solutions are hiding.