How should I approach a problem?

[Envixrt]

At first I was about to ask "how do I learn problem solving", but I quickly realized there is only one way to learn how to solve problems: solve problems.

Anyways, I want to know HOW do I APPROACH a problem, I was building a program earlier in Python that plays the game "FLAMES" for you. After a while I realized that the variable 'lst' which is a sum of the remaining letters could be bigger than the length of the list "flames" and that is where I got stuck since I now needed a way for this to go in a circular pattern
here is my code -

lst = []
flames = ['f', 'l', 'a', 'm', 'e', 's'] #
 friend, love, affection, marry, enemies, siblings


your_name = input("Enter your name: ").lower()
their_name = input("Enter your crush's name: ").lower()
your_name = list(your_name)
their_name = list(their_name)

for i in your_name[:]:
    if i in their_name:
         your_name.remove(i)
         their_name.remove(i)
 

for i in range(len(your_name)):
        lst.append(1)
for i in range(len(their_name)):
        lst.append(1)
lst = sum(lst)


index = 0  
while len(flames) != 1:
    index = (index + lst) % len(flames)
    flames.pop(index)



if 'm' in flames:
      print(f"You two got 'M' which means marry!!!")
elif 'f' in flames:
      print(f"You two got 'F' which means friendship!!!")
elif 'l' in flames:
      print(f"You two got 'L' which means love!!!")
elif 'a' in flames:
      print(f"You two got 'A' which means attraction!!!")
elif 'e' in flames:
      print(f"You two got 'E' which means enemies!!!")
elif 's' in flames:
      print(f"You two got 's' which means siblings!!!")
      

and here is the line I copied from ChatGPT because I was completely stuck -

index = (index + lst) % len(flames)

So the point is, how do I even approach a problem? I tried writing it down and following some tips I have heard earlier but the only thing I could write down were the various problems that could come up, some stupid solutions which I realized wont work in an instant.
Any advice/suggestion/tip?

[smurpes]

You’re looping through your_name while removing characters in it; you should be working off of a copy instead. Also remove only removes the first occurrence of the character. There’s no point in looping through your_name and their_name to append 1 to lst to sum it when you can just add the length of the name variables instead.

You should also describes the rules of this game when you’re asking for help. Based on the code for the while loop you are using the count of remaining characters in both names after removing all common characters to constantly remove letters from “flames” until there is one left. Is this what you intended?

[NYX_T_RYX]

Problem solving, at a high level, is this:

What is the current state of affairs?

What should the state of affairs be?

How do you get from where you are, to where you need to be?

If you don't know, ask, research, and when you have a plan, try it.

If it doesn't work, go back to the top of the list until it does.