Category: Health

The Smallest Step

Posted on by Rachel Collis

Like many people, the need to take more exercise is a recurring theme for me. I have repeatedly set goals to do the ‘right’ thing – exercise for 30 minutes at least 5 times a week. And not once have I achieved this. Yes that is right ladies and gentlemen, not one single week. So now, when I resolve to take more exercise, my mind has a field day: ‘Yeh right. You won’t do that. It will be just like all the other times’. 

Russ Harris helped me with this at his Happiness Trap workshop. When he spoke about goal setting, he said:

  1. How does this issue relate to what is important to you? For me it is about wanting to do my best to continue to be a healthy partner, mother, friend, hopefully even a sprightly grandmother.
  2. This issue will likely keep turning up in your life. You will get older and wiser and sometime in the next 5 years you will notice that you have fallen back into your old self-defeating patterns … and again in 10 years…. and again in 15 years. Can you feel compassion for that future you? I found acknowledging that this issue keeps on turning up oddly reassuring. I do hope that in the future I will treat myself with compassion – beating myself up certainly hasn’t helped.
  3. Decide on a very small action you could take that would move you towards your value. I decided I would run up and down the stairs in my house twice a week.
  4. What thoughts, feelings, memories and urges are likely to turn up as you take that action?  Are you willing to experience them in the service of that value? Well if you put it like that…

And here I am not only running up my stairs but also standing at my laptop and meeting friends for a walk rather than a coffee.

In terms of behavioural change, Russ did some important things here. He:

  • Linked the behaviour change to values. This builds motivation.
  • Suggested that lapses are to be expected – and that the best way to deal with them is with self-compassion.
  • Encouraged some acceptance of the unpleasant thoughts, feelings and sensations that are likely to arise. Acceptance of unpleasant internal experiences (thoughts, feelings etc.) is associated with a tendency to persist in the face of difficulty.
  • Encouraged focussing on taking one small step forwards. Taking even a small action towards achieving a goal, builds motivation for more action.

When you are next working towards changing your own behaviour or perhaps coaching a member of your team to improve some aspect of their work – remember to work out how the action links to values, make the first step very small and respond to lapses with compassion.


The Benefits of Everyday Mindfulness

Posted on by Rachel Collis
Everyday mindfulness is about maintaining an ‘open, accepting, present focus of attention during day-to-day life.’  There is increasing research suggesting that this stance is good for us:
This paper finds something interesting – being ‘good’ at formal mindfulness meditation doesn’t correlate with being mindful in everyday life.
I think this is very freeing. Although I know that mindfulness meditation is very good for me, I find it hard to find time for sitting meditation in my busy life. Everyday mindfulness means that each moment I can make a decision to be open and present. And it looks like that has some serious benefits.

What is Psychological Flexibility?

Posted on by Dr Rob Archer

The main focus of ACT is to increase something called psychological flexibility.  But what is psychological flexibility and why is it important?

Of all the psychological phenomena that we have studied, this is the one that is of by far the most help to the people we work with in organisations.  Becoming more psychologically flexible helps people not just cope with stress but to do more of what it is they really value.  So what exactly is it?

Psychological flexibility has been defined as “the ability to contact the present moment more fully as a conscious human being and to change, or persist in, behavior when doing so serves valued ends” (Biglan, Hayes, & Pistorello, 2008).

‘Contacting the present more fully’ means willing to be present with difficult thoughts and emotions and to accept ourselves as we are, not as we think we should be.  This is a critical difference, because research shows that trying to get rid of our difficult thoughts and emotions increases their frequency, strength and duration (Wegner, 1994).

It also helps to understand psychological flexibility’s opposite orientation—experiential avoidance (EA).  EA is the tendency to avoid or control unpleasant thoughts and feelings, even when doing so creates problems for a person.  For example, someone who has the thought that they “are stupid” may avoid situations (e.g., a classroom) that might embarrass them.  However, this strategy has the effect of systematically narrowing one’s options in life.

It’s easy to see how EA can be a problem in career change, but empirical evidence also associates EA with anxiety, depression, substance abuse, poor work performance and chronic stress.  Conversely, becoming more psychologically flexible allows people to cope with life more effectively and to derive wellbeing as a consequence of valued living.

Being psychologically flexible doesn’t make life easier or more pleasant.  But it makes it more vital and  values-directed.  And that, incidentally, is what most of our clients want from their career change; a life worth living.