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Changing environments have a habit of exposing us

Take away the routines, roles and structures we normally rely on and we get to see, sometimes rather quickly, what we actually do when things don’t go according to plan. Do I control harder? Avoid? Push through? Overthink? Retreat? React before I have properly understood what is happening? And perhaps the more uncomfortable question: do I keep doing what I have always done, even when the environment is now asking something different of me?

I was thinking about this while reading a piece about what wilderness expeditions can teach us about leadership and teams. A hot spot develops on your foot while hiking. Deal with it early and it is probably insignificant. Ignore it and it becomes a blister. Keep walking and eventually it may become an injury. What began as one person’s small discomfort can now affect the progress of an entire team.

Psychologically, we do versions of this all the time.

What worked before may not work now

Our less helpful patterns are often not inexplicable at all. Quite the opposite. They worked.

Being extraordinarily self-reliant may have served you extremely well. Working harder when things become difficult may have built a career. Anticipating problems may have made you excellent at your job. Avoiding conflict may once have kept an important relationship intact. Taking control may have got you through circumstances in which nobody else was going to do it for you.

There is nothing inherently wrong with any of these behaviours. Until the context changes and we can’t change with it. This is where the theory of psychological flexibility, central to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), becomes useful. Psychological flexibility is sometimes reduced to the ability to adapt. That misses something important. It is the capacity to be in contact with what is actually happening, inside us and around us, and to persist with or change our behaviour in the service of what matters.

Sometimes the flexible response is to accept something we cannot change. Sometimes it is to persist despite considerable discomfort. And sometimes it is to stop, say no, leave, challenge something or have the conversation we have been avoiding.

Flexibility is not compliance!

Back to the hot spot

Imagine the first signal is discomfort. The response is: It’s fine. Keep going. Perhaps that works for another mile. The discomfort increases, but now stopping means acknowledging the problem, inconveniencing other people or admitting that we need help. So we keep walking. By the time the problem becomes impossible to ignore, our options have narrowed considerably.

This is where psychological inflexibility can show up. Not because pushing through is inherently wrong. Sometimes pushing through is exactly what is needed. The problem is the automaticity of the response: I push through because pushing through is what I do, regardless of what this particular situation requires. We do the same when we avoid the difficult conversation, work harder rather than acknowledge that something isn’t working, or continue with a strategy simply because it worked before.

The discomfort isn’t necessarily the problem. The rigidity of our response to it might be.

Knowing isn’t the same as changing

ACT maps psychological flexibility in the Hexaflex: six processes that influence how we respond to what happens to us. But recognising an old pattern doesn’t mean we can simply stop doing it. These behaviours are familiar for a reason. They worked. Some of them may even be part of what made us successful.

The challenge comes when the environment changes, but our response doesn’t.

Start with what you actually do

You don’t need to understand the entire theory to begin. The next time something changes: a plan fails, someone challenges you, a relationship shifts, your organisation changes direction, notice what you automatically do next. Not what you think you should do. What you actually do. Then ask: Is this useful here, now, for what actually matters? Not: Is this good or bad? Not: Why am I like this? Is it useful here, now, for what matters?

Because sometimes the behaviour that got us here is not the behaviour that will take us where we want to go.

References

Hayes, S. C., Luoma, J. B., Bond, F. W., Masuda, A., & Lillis, J. (2006). Acceptance and commitment therapy: Model, processes and outcomes. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 44(1), 1–25. ResearchGate

Kashdan, T. B., & Rottenberg, J. (2010). Psychological flexibility as a fundamental aspect of health. Clinical Psychology Review, 30(7), 865–878.