Starting and maintaining a new business organization comes with many setbacks. Failure is inevitable. How we bargain with this failure can condition us for how we approach our future goals. It's a feedback cycle that can sometimes go amiss if not examined advisedly. In particular, experiencing failure can cause the psychological response chosen learned helplessness.

Considering helplessness is a learned beliefs, there are ways it can exist unlearned.

What is learned helplessness?

Learned helplessness is a mental country where someone who is forced to bear repeated adverse situations, becomes unable or unwilling to avoid these situations.

This happens because past experiences have made them believe they don't have the ability to avoid them. Substantially, they've trained themselves (and their brain) to believe they have no command over the state of affairs, so they don't fifty-fifty effort.

Filling our minds with limiting beliefs of what we're able to attain (or not) is dangerous. Information technology generates a bicycle of self-defeatist thinking. And when caught in the middle of this cycle, your motivation and overall productivity will inevitably get-go to suffer.

By the end of this article, y'all will have a better understanding of the common ways your encephalon deals with failure and the tools to unlearn these adverse behaviours.

Equally always, our squad of psychology and neuroscience PhDs take gone through a vast number of scientific papers and inquiry so that you can take the utmost confidence in all our recommendations.

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The question is, what goes on in the heed/brain during states of learned helplessness? And more than important, how do you overcome it?

Learned helplessness in psychology

Learned helplessness results from negative conditioned learning. It's mostly unconscious. By experiencing the "helpless" feelings of negativity, you lot go more likely to "learn" that you shouldn't try new things for fearfulness of failure or rejection. And with enough of these experiences, the adoption of these defeatist attitudes becomes highly problematic.

Scientists have documented the causes and effects of learned helplessness. It all begins with some dogs and a few mild shocks.

In a famous experiment in 1965, Dr. Martin Seligman conditioned dogs so that every time they heard the ring of  a bong they would receive (and in time look) a mild shock. I know, non the nicest way to treat our best pals, but this study was done a long fourth dimension ago!

seligman experiment on learned helplessness - 1

source – eosmith.com

seligman experiment on learned helplessness - 2

source – eosmith.com

Afterwards they were conditioned, Seligman put the dogs in a large crate with a depression fence dividing the two sides. One side was wired with the slight shocks. The other wasn't. They figured that if they rang the bell, the canis familiaris would hop over the debate to escape the mild daze and go to the safe side. But the dogs stayed put. They laid downwards and took the shock.

You see, the dogs were conditioned to acquire from the previous feel that there was nothing they could exercise to avoid the shocks.

Seligman attributed this helpless behavior as something that was learned afterwards repeated failure, because when they had done the same test to another dog who had NOT been shocked before, the canis familiaris easily jumped over the barrier.

And equally it turns out, we humans are non so different from dogs.

Methods for unlearning learned helplessness

At the root of it, learned helplessness is a form of conditioning. Conditioning is based on the idea that human behavior is learned via associations and responses in the environment. Only put: If something is reinforced/rewarded, we are more than likely to repeat that behavior again. And also, if nosotros are punished, nosotros're more likely to avert that aforementioned behavior in the hereafter.

Unlearning this association and deconditioning the response takes merely a piffling flake of exercise. In the sections that follow nosotros'll focus on how to reverse this manner of thinking/behaving so that you can grow positively and be motivated in taking risks and trying new things out.

Method 1: Adopt an optimistic explanatory style

You need to first identify your characteristic explanatory way. This refers to how you lot explicate the events that happen in your 24-hour interval to day. The patterns of this are tightly linked to learned helplessness. It all comes down to differences in optimism vs. pessimism.

First, take this survey adapted from Dr. Seligman'due south book, Learned Optimism. This volition tell you lot your baseline explanatory style. Don't read on until yous've finished the survey and gotten your results. We'll explain what they hateful below.

Done? Got your results? Okay smashing. Your final output should await something like this:

learned helplessness assessment

source – spider web.stanford.edu

Before diving into your results though, nosotros'll walk through the different features of the cess.

The primary goal in unlearning learned helplessness is to adopt a more optimistic explanatory mode.

Psychologists believe that you can modify learned helplessness behavior past changing the mode yous look at the causes of events in your life. This is known as something called attributional style or explanatory manner. Your attributional fashion can be categorized in iii means:

  • Internal vs. external (Personal)
    • This is how you explain the cause of an event, and where you attribute the "responsibility". A person who classifies an event as internal will see themself equally the crusade, rather than an external gene. For example, "I'k terrible at public speaking"(internal), as opposed to "people in the oversupply always distract me by talking then I tin can never give a good presentation" (external)
  • Stable vs. temporary (Permanent)
    • This is the caption of the lifespan of an issue and whether the feel of the event will have permanent effects or not. Case: "I always get laughed at whenever I speak up in a meeting. It'due south happened to me since form school" (stable), every bit opposed to "I didn't become enough sleep final night and my colleagues laughed at me when I mixed up a couple words when I spoke up most something today just information technology was only because I was tired and wasn't thinking clearly". (temporary)
  • Global vs. specific (Pervasive)
    • This is how we explain the context of an event; whether the situation is consequent across all environments or specific to one environs. For case, "I don't enjoy coming together people at meet-ups" (global), as opposed to "I didn't really bask chatting with the people at the last encounter-up we went to" (specific).

half full glass

source – atbreak.com

Pessimists fall into patterns of learned helplessness by seeing personal situations as:

  • Internally related:
    • "Something is incorrect with me …"
    • "I'g never good at … "
  • Stable and long-lasting:
    • "This will happen over again, I know it …"
    • "I'one thousand doomed to repeat this again …"
  • Global and all-encompassing:
    • "I will botch all my pitches …"
    • "This screw-up volition be everywhere …"

Optimists avoid patterns of learned helplessness by seeing personal situations as:

  • Externally related:
    • "I didn't get plenty sleep and then I wasn't thinking as clearly as normal …"
    • "My business organization partners missed a central point …"
  • Temporary and short-lived:
    • "This is probably a one-off occurrence …"
    • "It happened once, but who knows what'll happen in the future …"
  • Situation-specific:
    • "My weakness is in this one area, not all …"
    • "This setback is only related to X not Y …"

Now let's become back to your personal results table. It shows you your mode of optimism vs. pessimism for good/bad events based off of these 3 explanatory styles:

  • Personalization
      • Personalization bad score: Optimistic score hither means you lot blame bad events on external causes rather than continuously blaming yourself.
      • Personalization practiced score: Optimistic score here means you internalize positive events instead of externalizing them.
  • Permanence
      • Permanence bad score: Optimistic score here indicates that you view bad events as temporary and tend to bounciness back quickly from failure.
      • Permanence good score: Optimistic score here ways you believe that good events are permanent and happen for a reason.
  • Pervasiveness
    • Pervasiveness bad score: Optimistic score hither means you compartmentalized helplessness and don't allow i failure to reflect failure in other areas
    • Pervasiveness skillful score: Optimistic score hither ways you allow the good things to burnish other areas in life

The total bad score volition give you an idea of how yous expect at bad events in life (whether from an optimistic or pessimistic point of view). The total practiced score will requite you an thought of how y'all expect at skilful events in your life. And finally, the good minus bad score is the total difference score summary statistic of your baseline explanatory manner.

This baseline will assistance you figure out which of the three attribution styles you should work on in order to view events more positively. Each time you find yourself trying to make sense of a situation, take a shut expect at the patterns of your explanation. Aim for those that are rooted in optimism, not pessimism.

Method two: The ABC Method for reframing negative situations

When faced with disappointment or whatever sort of negativity, you can brainstorm to change your helpless and pessimistic perspective by using the ABC method adult by Dr. Albert Ellis and Dr. Martin Seligman. This method allows a more flexible response to negativity and is the perfect next-stride antidote to the defeatist mindset of learned helplessness.

Here's the step-by-step process to strengthen your optimistic thinking:

  • A- Adversity
      • Describe the event that happened. Here leave out whatsoever evaluations or judgments. Simply put a description to the result that happened in a fashion that's as unemotional as possible.
      • For case: "A team fellow member missed an important deadline and put u.s. behind schedule for the rest of the checkpoints."
  • B- Belief
      • Explain how adversity was interpreted. Non how you think it ought to exist, but what your default belief/estimation was.
      • For case: "I tin can't believe they are so selfish and are unwilling to take the business seriously … it must be a sign of their overall lack of dedication."
  • C- Result
      • Think well-nigh the feelings and deportment that result from these beliefs. Go back with a level of introspection and ask yourself how you handled things. Dig deep. How and when do those emotions/feeling atomic number 82 to certain behaviors and actions.
      • For instance: "I'1000 overcome with anger and frustration. I feel betrayed and discouraged. I noticed I began raising my voice and I became hostile towards the team member."
  • D- Disputation
      • Practice you have any grounds to dispute these automatic reactions? What are the possible repercussions of following through on those emotions? Think about whether there are greater benefits to moving on from the situation and stopping that baseline (often impulsive) response in its tracks.
      • For example: "Perchance I am overreacting here. I don't know what the exact situation is. Perchance he/she has had a actually stressful week, tried to become the work done but ran into some problems along the way."
  • E- Energization
    • This is the terminal step that's done when successful disputation occurs. Did you manage to turn things effectually? Put all your focus on the positive feelings that ensued as a result of reframing your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Ask yourself, what'due south unlike between how I just handled this situation versus how I would ordinarily handle it? Savour in those personal rewards.
    • For case: "I feel proud of myself that I was able to intervene in my automatic reactions and end my reactions part way through. I'm happy that I'k accomplishing more by looking at things in a more reasonable manner."

The regular application of this method will get you into the habitual groove of optimistic responding. Here are some different techniques for altering your perspective (to overcome anxiety specifically). It volition go you out of the damaging design of cynicism. In a curt fourth dimension you'll discover a natural reframing in response to negative situations. Positivity is a primal step to unlearning learned helplessness.

Method 3: Use the SMART method to feel in control

smart method to be in control

source – edubirdie.com

Now that we have figured out how to find our attribution style and how to overcome pessimistic thinking, the third and final method is to sympathize a basic principle of self-hood: That y'all are in control.

Psychological research has shown that a belief that failure is beyond your command or that a situation is unlikely to change, is associated with worse performance and lower cocky-efficacy.

One style y'all can accomplish this is through active goal setting. Goal setting has been shown to increase behavior modify every bit it increases your desire to act in a particular way (motivation). Setting reasonable goals that are likely to be achieved, will provide the sense of control over your outcomes – especially every bit you lot begin to come across those goals on a consequent footing.

A highly actionable way of organizing your goal-setting is through the S.One thousand.A.R.T method.

South pecific

Information technology'south important to exist completely aware of what information technology is you want to achieve.

For example, if your goal is to have your company first bringing in acquirement this yr you lot would ask yourself what exactly this means to you (and/or your team). Remember, you lot desire the goal to be every bit clear equally possible.

Here are some of the questions you should ask yourself:

  • What is it exactly that I want to accomplish? Listing concrete, tangible outcomes.
  • Where is this going to happen? Requite names, locations, offices, cities, etc.
  • When am I going to brand this happen? Give specific dates and timelines. Work backwards.
  • Who is going to be involved? Give names and squad members too every bit potential partners and others to lean on.
  • How am I going to make this happen? With all the information above, lay out a detailed strategy, tactic, and plan.
  • Why practise I want to reach this goal? Tie it into your bigger vision for yourself and your business. These relate to your principles, values, missions – the things that you stay true to.

M easurable

Making sure your goal is measurable is important for determining how you will track your progress. The encephalon prefers this in gaining a sense of control.

For instance:

  • Using the instance from higher up y'all might brand your goal quantitative by saying you would similar your business to striking $8K in monthly recurring revenue.  This will:
    • Go far easy to determine where you stand up with your progress
    • Help refine exactly what it is you desire.

Important! This is where many people go wrong with goal setting. Micro goal-setting, as it's called, improves the likelihood that each stage will be accomplished.

A chievable

This is an important ane. Is your goal achievable and realistic? If it's not, you lot're just going to get stuck in the same learned helplessness cycle because of the likelihood of failure.

Things you should consider:

  • Is the sales target y'all made (from above example) doable?
  • What will happen to your business organization if you fall short of this goal?
  • Consider whatsoever constraints or obstacles you may face and whether you'll be able to overcome them.

R elevant

This is where you sit and determine how relevant the goal is to you. Will it exist fulfilling towards you equally an private? This is where you're going to come back to the "why?" question. Why is earning $8K in monthly recurring revenue really important for y'all and your company this yr?

At this stride, information technology is also of import to effigy out how your goals fit with your other plans and things set up for your life. Possibly getting upwards to that $8K /month earning will require you to put in 12 hour days so you won't have fourth dimension to work on your other hobbies/things that brand yous happy. Are yous going to exist ok with that?

T imed

This ways setting a timeline/deadline for this goal. This will assistance y'all place the necessary steps then stick to the actions y'all need to accomplish in society to achieve them. If you don't set a timeline, there will be no internal pressure level to accomplish the goal which allows or things to slip abroad. Hither are the steps yous should try to have with footstep:

  • Establish a time frame
    • Set a deadline or a time for completion
  • Prepare benchmarks
    • This is particularly useful if your goal is set over a long catamenia of time
    • This will keep you motivated and makes your progress more measurable
  • Continue to bank check in between the present and the future
    • Are there certain steps you can be taking right now that tin can help your long-term goal to be accomplished?
    • What should you lot get washed over the adjacent week to contribute to your goal?
    • What should you go done over the side by side month to contribute to your goal?

We recommend pairing the South.M.A.R.T method with any of the handy goal-setting apps available out there. One program that's particularly skillful, called Stickk, incorporates personalized nudges to assist in goal-setting, such as donating to an anti-charity (where you requite coin to a cause you lot strongly dislike if you fail to hit the goal) or involving a friend to concur y'all accountable.

Recap on methods to overcome learned helplessness

Learned helplessness is a dangerous state for any developing business organisation. It volition cut motivation, productivity and negatively affect the culture of a squad. Following these steps will help you overcome entering this learned state of mind. Let'south take a look at what we've covered:

How tin we unlearn this behaviour?

  • Effigy out if your explanatory fashion is inherently optimistic or pessimistic:
    • Optimistic = external, temporary, and specific
    • Pessimistic = internal, stable, and global
  • Use the ABC method to alter your interpretation of negative situations:
    • A- Adversity;  B- Belief; C- Consequence; D- Disputation; E- Energization
  • Use the S.K.A.R.T method to reinstate control via goal-setting:
    • Make sure goal-setting is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timed.

Implement these actions throughout your 24-hour interval to keep track of potential learned helplessness behavior. As an entrepreneur we deal with many repeated failures. Don't autumn into the learned helplessness mindset.