[This article is part of a series of articles focusing on my professional experiences over the past 5 years.]
In December of 2010, I wrote an article as part of a series entitled “Mental Evolution” where I focused on a topic known as “learned helplessness.” Here’s a short excerpt:
“When one experiences a stream of continuous failures, one’s ability to remain optimistic becomes more difficult. While there are those that have “bulletproof” levels of optimism, I unfortunately, do not currently fall into this category.
“Crises that I can “plan” for (e.g. burglary, fire, etc.) are easier for me to maintain a high level of optimism than those that I cannot foresee. Since there will be many challenges that will not display an “early warning signal”, my main challenge is to learn how to develop the skills necessary (i.e., an enhanced explanatory style) to ensure my optimism remains high independent of the crises encountered.”
The applicability of this excerpt will soon become clear, but it’s important to share a brief refresher on “explanatory styles” and how this pertains to feelings of “learned helplessness.”
When examining past performance, it’s important to understand one’s level of relative optimism and pessimism. Pessimists and optimists differ in many ways, but their primary difference involves their explanatory style: (Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_optimism)
Permanence: Optimistic people believe bad events to be more temporary than permanent and bounce back quickly from failure, whereas others may take longer periods to recover or may never recover. They also believe good things happen for reasons that are permanent, rather than seeing the transient nature of positive events. Optimists point to specific temporary causes for negative events; pessimists point to permanent causes.
Pervasiveness: Optimistic people compartmentalize helplessness, whereas pessimistic people assume that failure in one area of life means failure in life as a whole. Optimistic people also allow good events to brighten every area of their lives rather than just the particular area in which the event occurred.
Personalization: Optimists blame bad events on causes outside of themselves, whereas pessimists blame themselves for events that occur. Optimists are therefore generally more confident. Optimists also quickly internalize positive events while pessimists externalize them.
I consider myself a realist, which, for me, is a combination of long-term optimism and short-term pessimism. The former helps me manage the challenges (real or perceived) that I may encounter on a given day, while the latter provides strength and helps me distinguish the “forest from the trees.”
The relative levels of permanence, pervasiveness, and personalization vary depending upon the situation. I’m fortunate to have examined these feelings over the past 6+ years, and thus I’m increasingly aware of these explantory styles & underlying feelings. I also have greater “control” over them, yet this does not equate with true mastery.
When a “negative” situation extends for a lengthy timeframe (in the midst of continuous and purposeful responses to the contrary), one’s explanatory style is likely to drift to that of true permanence, pervasiveness, and personalization. Combined, these equate to feelings of “learned helplessness.”
“Learned helplessness is behavior typical of a human or non-human animal that has endured repeated painful or otherwise aversive stimuli which it was unable to escape or avoid. After such experience, the organism often fails to learn escape or avoidance in new situations where such behavior would be effective. In other words, the organism learned that it is helpless in aversive situations, that it has lost control, and so it gives up trying.” (Wikipedia)
The opposite of learned helplessness is learned optimism. Learned optimism is the idea in positive psychology, coined by Martin Seligman, that a talent for joy, like any other, can be cultivated. Learning optimism is done by consciously challenging any negative self-talk. (Wikipedia)
In my particular situation, and expanding slightly for emphasis, years of adjusted strategies and tactics to realize a natural, and necessary outcome (i.e., increase digital revenue), eventually resulted in a period of non-action, a direct contrast to the continuous investment that I and my team had pursued in the years prior.
Interdepartmental communication and collective understanding, while originally low, now began a steady decline. Our return on investment (real or perceived) was fast approaching zero. Harboring feelings of learned helplessness, my only real alternative was to strengthen the position that was well-understood by the organization (e.g., “run the engine”), and focus less attention in areas that were originally seen as creative and intellectually advancing.
Unfortunately, this behavior and negative mindset reinforces itself to a greater extent over time.
For example, “students who repeatedly fail may conclude that they are incapable of improving their performance, and this attribution keeps them from trying to succeed, which [results] in increased helplessness, continued failure, loss of self-esteem and other social consequences.” (Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness)
In this situation, these feelings of helplessness were also intertwined with feelings of optimism; the feeling and belief that better things were ahead. This contrast, this pulling between two opposing forces, can be challenging to navigate and comprehend. However, expending energy to manage this contrast is a far better situation than one void of such polarity.
Ultimately, and the reason why I’ve re-introduced these two concepts here, is that my explanation for why things happened the way they did is biased and oriented primarily around my explanatory style(s) and personality. Asking an optimist to examine the same events that took place over the same timeframe would likely yield a much different explanation.
One benefit in looking back to 2010 is that I can compare my relative performance in this space. While I still need to respond more rapidly (i.e., fail quickly) to seemingly changeless situations, the time spent in pure analysis and reflection has been significantly reduced.
While possessing a realist mindset goes against “positive psychology,” it affords me a unique perspective to look beyond surface-level interaction and reasoning, and instead dive deeper into alternative mechanics that relate to the events at play. This understanding will enable me to take effective action much more rapidly and purposefully over time.
In summary, what I need to work on at this stage is to learn how to identify “failing” situations sooner and determine whether “first aid” or “surgery” is required to avoid a relapse of learned helplessness. Optimism is useful to a point (e.g., we can do it …), but pessimism may ultimately save the day (e.g., this project is failing, and we need to pursue a different course).