Category: Values

Working in a harsh environment can mess you up more than you think…

Posted on by Rachel Collis

Have you ever had to survive a harsh environment at work? This woman has…

Most of us have lived through an unpleasant time at work. When it ends, we sigh with relief and assume all will now be fine. Unfortunately things aren’t that simple.

The hostile environment changes us, we learn strategies to cope, to get our work done despite the difficulties. However, the very strategies that helped us to survive a dysfunctional workplace can be counterproductive in a more supportive environment. And in a cruel twist of fate, it is seems to be almost impossible to unlearn something that you learnt when you were scared or stressed. So we often continue to be defensive, aggressive or self-protective even when it is no longer needed.  We can’t seem to get rid of the mental junk we have acquired during our painful experiences.

A reader wrote to us about a problem she encountered when she moved from a hostile, aggressive environment to a much more harmonious workplace.

She was really happy in her new job and was doing well but she was given feedback that her communication skills needed work. This hadn’t been a problem for her in previous workplaces. She realised that she had learnt some unhelpful habits in her last role. Now she needed to relearn how to interact in more workable ways. She was worried that she didn’t know how to bring about this change.

So how do you let go of problematic interpersonal behaviour and start to behave in ways that work? Here are some tips:

1. Start with self-compassion. The less you beat yourself up for your failings, the more you will be able to notice the times when your behaviour isn’t working.

2. Get present. Mindfulness helps us to act on our good intentions. In this moment now, what is happening? Try to notice your behaviour moment to moment.

3. Do a self-assessment and get feedback from people you trust. There are some good questions about interpersonal functioning here that you could adapt to the workplace.

4. Don’t just change as a reaction to what others want. Spend some time thinking deeply about your values. Who do you want to be at work? How do you want others to experience you? Changing your behaviour is a hard slog, linking the change to your values will help you to keep going.

5. Aim to gradually evolve your behaviour rather than suddenly transforming yourself overnight. Just focus on one or two small changes and see if you can repeat those behaviours over and over until they are a habit. Then pick some more behaviours you would like to change.

6. Get really present in your interactions with people. Notice the impact of your behaviour on others. See if you can get out of your head and into this moment now.

7. Accept that when you feel threatened you are likely to revert to self-protective and unhelpful behaviours. Consider what might trigger that in you and make a plan to be particularly mindful and self-compassionate at those moment. Hold those feelings gently.

8. Seek feedback on your progress but accept that it may take people a while  to notice that you have changed. Our opinions of others are quickly formed and slow to change.

Becoming the person we want to be is hard. Facing those times where our behaviour isn’t in line with those ideals is painful. Can you turn to yourself in kindness?

When Feeling Awkward Gets In The Way Of Change

Posted on by Rachel Collis

Have you ever wanted to try something new but because it felt awkward you backed away from the change and went back to what felt more comfortable, even though part of you really wanted to persist with the change?

I have been struggling with such a difficulty.

I recently become aware of something small that could lessen the influence I potentially have in the world. It looks like this:

Dotty Rachel

When you look at that photo do you think – ‘There sits a credible executive coach and corporate facilitator?’ I didn’t think so!

Although I don’t actually turn up to meetings with clients looking this dishevelled and dotty (really I don’t!). I do have wild hair and a tendency to present myself a bit like a kindly lady doctor (as this is what I was for many years!).

However, I recently read this paper and also this one and realised that appearances do impact on whether others take us seriously. Then a dear friend, who is also a client, told me, ‘Rachel, one of the things I love about working with you is that you turn up to run a session and people don’t expect you to be so competent because you aren’t dressed in a sharp suit and you appear so unassuming and then you do amazing work and they are surprised‘.

And I became concerned. I want my work to have a significant impact on others. I want to play a part in helping people to have more vitality and meaning in their work. I don’t want something as simple as my appearance to mean I am starting at a disadvantage with new clients.

So I decided that I wanted to present myself in a way that is authentic but perhaps a little more skilful. Goffee and Jones call this: Be Yourself – More – with Skill.

What does that look like for me? Probably not a sharp suit but perhaps a little tidier?

So I ask my lovely daughter, Ellie, to teach me how to put my hair in a bun. I have found this new skill very hard to learn. I feel clumsy and awkward. My mind kicks into action telling me, ‘Why are you wasting time learning something so silly when you could be learning something useful and important like Relational Frame Theory‘. The bun falls out halfway through the day and my mind says, ‘Told you this was ridiculous’.  I start to wear a little more make up and my mind tells me ‘It is so superficial to focus on your appearance’ and ‘Everyone is judging you‘. I feel like a fraud. But part of me is excited about the possibility of who I could become.

In the presence of these conflicting thoughts and feelings I remind myself that the best values and actions are freely chosen. It is okay for something as small as learning how to put my hair in a bun to matter to me. I ask Ellie to help me again..and again. I write down her instructions and follow them carefully.Notes on how to make a french roll I am still rubbish at buns but I persist. One day I will be a lady who weaves beautiful buns, knots and french rolls. Hopefully, as a result, I will look a little less dotty and a little more competent and I will ‘be myself – more – with skill’.

If you were to ‘be yourself – more – with skill’ what would be different about how the world experiences you? Is there a change that you want to make but it feels awkward?Would the change be a move towards your values? If so, are you willing to persist with the change and have the feelings of awkwardness?

I hope so! Because:

‘It is never too late to be who you might have been’

George Elliot

I am going to be the lady who both knows Relational Frame Theory and wears a beautiful bun.

How about you? Who will you be?

Noticing How Desire Can Pull You Away From Your Values

Posted on by Rachel Collis

When does desire pull you away from your values?

It might be the impulse to buy more stuff that you don’t really need; watch TV instead of doing some exercise; let work dominate your  life; make poor choices that change your life forever…

In this TEDx talk, Kelly McGonigal explains that the urges provoked by desire (the promise of happiness) have a tendency to overpower current happiness and satisfaction.

Desire for something you don’t have, but would like (in my case, millions of dollars and to write a best selling book!) can create stronger impulses than the feelings of contentment associated with what you do have (for me now: love, health, safety, meaningful work that uses my strengths). Even though what you have now may be much more important to you than what you desire.

When we feel that experience of wanting something, we feel an urge to do something to get that desire met. If we are to handle this tricky emotion wisely then we need to be clear about who we want to be and what we want our life to stand for. We need to have chosen the values we want to live by. But knowing your values isn’t enough.

Last week, Paul suggested that mindfulness helps us to turn our values into action. When desire is moving you away from what really matters, mindfulness can help you to ride out the urges rather than mindlessly chase what you desire .

You can mindfully notice how feelings of wishing and wanting are pulling you in a particular direction and check if that would be a move towards your values. You can become aware when desire is in control of your behaviour, catch yourself and come back to what really matters to you in the long term – love? kindness? connection? your health? security?

I want to be clear here that I am not suggesting that you abandon your ‘big, hairy, audacious goals‘, what I am suggesting is that you also:

1. Compassionately notice when pursuit of those goals feels driven and addictive. Pause and breathe and see if you can ride those impulses like waves rather than act on them.

2. Keep checking in as to how the goals you are currently pursuing fit with your values and life purpose

3. Have the ‘willpower’ to spend some time paying attention to other important areas of your life even though you may feel the addictive pull of the desire for something ‘bigger and better’ calling to you. Your thoughts might whisper, ‘I’ll just send one more email; read/write one more blog post; sign up for that course that promises to make me rich.’ Can you have those thoughts and the feelings associated with them and still spend the afternoon in the garden with your loved ones? Can you have those thoughts and feelings and bring your attention back to this moment now with all its small pleasures and pains?

Kelly McGonigal suggests that the recurring difficulties we experience in handling our desire well is not a sign that there is:

Something uniquely wrong with us – but it is actually part of being human. it is not just you, it is all of us.

Oddly, for me, accepting this makes it easier to deal with. How about you?

[I am running a low cost, one day workshop on ACT at The Relaxation Centre of QLD on  Sun 3rd March.  All proceeds go to the centre. I would love to see you there.]

The Different Motivational Properties of Values and Goals

Posted on by Dr Rob Archer

When committing to a new course of action it’s useful to distinguish between values and goals because they have different motivational properties.

  1. Goals can be achieved.  This is why they motivate – we enjoy the feeling of purpose and progress this brings.  Yet, once the goal is achieved what then?  Very often we revert to our previous behaviour.  This explains the diet industry.  And why it is hard to get a taxi in New York in the rain*.
  2. Goals can’t be achieved right now.  So they can be bad at motivating right now (when I need it).  For example, I have a SMART goal to lose a half stone in weight in the next 2 months.  The trouble is, I have had that goal for about 3 years….  The problem lies in the fact that whilst I cannot meet the goal today, what I can do is eat a piece of cake.  So, when I see a piece of cake a question arises in my mind; can I eat the cake and still meet my goal?  Then some uncertainty arises in my mind – maybe I can have both?  Minds hate uncertainty and they will do almost anything to get rid of it.  So what do you think I do to get rid of the uncertainty?
  3. Goals are powerful motivators. Humans are intrinsically goal oriented and our minds like the feeling of purpose which goals offer.  Yet goals can be set without us really examining why.  Once set, their gravitational pull can pull us away from the things we truly value.  Hence, for about 10 years I busied myself pursuing promotions which I did not really care about.  Whilst pursuing I felt busy and purposeful, but once achieved I felt empty and sad.  I worked so hard to climb the ladder, only to find the ladder leaning against the wrong wall.

In contrast values have different motivational properties which can help us in many different ways.

  1. Values can never be achieved.  So values retain their motivational properties long after a goal’s have been ticked off.  Whilst my goal of losing half a stone could be achieved, acting in accordance with the value of health can never be.  Is it important or not?  If it is, then when will it cease to be so?
  2. Values can be lived in each moment.  So, although Viktor Frankl was not free inside Auschiwtz, he was able to make the value of freedom important by choosing his response to the tyranny he saw.  In this way, values can bring us powerfully into the present moment and, over time, can bring greater coherence to patterns of behaviour over far longer periods.  This builds a much more powerful sense of meaning in life.
  3. Values are what we most want to stand for in life.  They are how we want to be remembered and what we want to stand for in life.  When we act in line with our values we act authentically and in alignment with our deepest motivations and aspirations. Maybe (like me) you have spent much of your life pursuing meaningless goals before realising that life is a musical thing – and we are supposed to sing and dance whilst the music plays…

*They knock off earlier because they meet their daily goal earlier

How You Can Make 2013 A Successful Year

Posted on by Rachel Collis

So here we are in 2013. What will it take for you to define this year as successful?

Let’s start by looking back on 2012. What did you achieve? What mistakes did you make? Where do you feel you failed?

measuring up
measuring up (Photo credit: woodleywonderworks)

Did you get a promotion or an increase in salary? Did you buy something important like a house or a car? Did you fail to get elected to serve as President of the USA?

It can be easy to focus on these external markers of success or failure. But what about your internal yard stick? How much were you the person you want to be? How often were you mindful or generous or brave or loving or …(insert your own values here).

How good were you at noticing the times when you weren’t living your values and then gently adjusting your behaviour so it aligned more closely with who you want to be?

‘Values are your heart’s deepest desires for how you want to behave as a human being. Values are not about what you want to get or achieve; they are about how you want to behave or act on an ongoing basis.’

Russ Harris  – The Happiness Trap

Measuring your life by what you achieve isn’t wrong but the research suggests that we over estimate the impact of these events. We think that if we get the good job and nice house we will be happy and so we conscientiously pursue those goals. Sometimes we are so busy striving that we neglect other important aspects of our life, like nurturing our health and our relationships, and we forget who we are and what we want to stand for.

The second way of measuring your life – Did I live my values? Was I the person I want to be? – is both more likely to create richness and meaning and will tend to support you in making those moment to moment choices that determine the direction of your life.

So as you review 2012 and before you set yourself some goals for 2013, spend a few moments revisiting your values.  Lundgren’s Bull’s Eye activity is a cool way of doing this.

How Moments of Joy and Pain Can Help You Work Out What Really Matters To You

Posted on by Rachel Collis

In this noisy world, where we are bombarded with messages telling us what to think and do, it can be hard to work out what is really important to us.

In this Big Think Interview, Steve Hayes gives two suggestions for how to connect with your values:

1. Take a moment to focus on what causes you emotional pain. What upsets, saddens or angers you? Then ask yourself, ‘What do I care deeply about here?’.

‘Look where the pain is. Flip it over; you’ll find that’s where the values are.’

This approach of looking for what our pain is telling us about what really matters can protect us from responding to pain in a way that narrow down our life. For example:

‘most people are hurt deeply by betrayals in relationships. And what your mind tells you to do is, don’t be so vulnerable; don’t be so silly; don’t open yourself up; don’t be so trusting; you can be betrayed. In fact, the reason why you hurt so much is that you want relationships that are loving, committed, intimate; you want trust. And what your mind is telling you to do in a way is, don’t care about that so much so that you won’t be hurt so much. It might be better to really get up against and sort of contact that caring, and maybe take a more loving stance even with your own pain, and keep your feet moving towards what you really want, because the cost in terms of intimacy and connection and caring that comes when you try not to be vulnerable, when you’re constantly looking out for betrayals of trust, is too great. It makes it very hard to have relationships of the kind that you really want.’

2. Notice what brings you joy and ask yourself, ‘What does this tell me about what matters to me? About who I want to be in the world?’

‘Think of the times that you’ve felt most with yourself, most connected, most vital, most energized, most flowing, natural. And if you take some of these specific memories and you walk inside them, you’re going to find that there’s things in there that you care about. There’s things in there that, when it’s really working well, are kind of a lighthouse, like a beacon in the distance, that you can move towards.’

‘Go inside the sweetness of life, catch the places where you genuinely were moved by or connected with life, and you’ll find in there kind of a light that can direct you when the cacophony gets very noisy and you get confused and lost, that can direct you towards what you care about.’

According to Steve, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is about:

‘living in accord with your values and in a way that is more open and accepting of your history as it echoes into the present, that’s more self-affirming, self-validating and values-based.’

…and it is based on science!

(For Brisbane based readers: I am running a session on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy at The Relaxation Centre of QLD on Sunday 16th December. We will be doing both of the activities above plus a lot of others – I am very much looking forward to it! If you are in Brisbane and you happen to be free it would be lovely to see you there. All proceeds go to the centre.)

 

Tackling Our Culture of Cruelty

Posted on by Dr Rob Archer

A recent Panorama investigation found systematic abuse of elderly residents going on in a UK care home.  Some of the most vulnerable people in our society were being ritually abused by their so-called carers:

On the top floor of a special hospital, locked away from their families and friends, a group of men and women are subjected to a regime of physical assaults, systematic brutality, and torture by the very people supposed to be caring for them.  The victims are some of the most vulnerable in society – the learning disabled, the autistic, and the suicidal.

Sadly, this may be merely the tip of the iceberg.  In this week’s Sunday Times Minette Marin wrote of the terrible neglect of nurses that she witnessed first hand.  Similarly, the MP Ann Clwyd has told of her husband’s inhumane treatment at the hands of the NHS and asked whether cruelty is now normal in the NHS.  Today I listened to a phone in programme where one man described a ward of vulnerable geriatrics and simply said:

“Nobody seemed to care”.

How does this happen?  Presumably no nurse goes into that profession for any other reason than to care for others?  So what happens?

Organisational culture is clearly a factor and a number of systemic problems contribute –  poor job control, lack of autonomy, lack of a proper leadership.  But at some level cruelty is an individual choice.  We create our cultures, then they create us.  So what can we do about that?

I think this is a problem of experiential avoidance.  I propose that nurses dealing with ‘difficult’ or elderly patients are brought into contact with their own fears and insecurities about becoming old, infirm, or mentally impaired.  These fears – being intolerable – can only be dealt with by distancing themselves from the patients and dissociating from them.  And we don’t have to go far back in history to see the terrible, shaping effects of dissociation on human behaviour.

So what can be done?  Plenty, and we could start by not dissociating ourselves from the nurses.  The problem is that the alternative – empathy – is not the simple panacea that most people assume.  It takes real effort and psychological skill.  It is not something we can just do, any more than we can suddenly start sticking to diets or going to the gym five times a week.

The key to empathy is reducing experiential avoidance.  And we know how to do that.  Firstly train people – help them – to gently reconnect with what they care about.  Then help them to defuse from the difficult thoughts and emotions that will arise from taking valued action.  We know we can’t get rid of those fears and demons, but we can respond to them differently, and in so doing shift the context for our behaviour.

People often talk about practicing empathy and practicing compassion.  That’s good, because these things do take practice.  But in order to practice we need to understand what prevents us from practicing.

In most cases, it is our own demons.  And we have been running from them for too long.

warning, this is a harrowing clip:

Find Your Passion At Work! (Just Don’t Expect to Feel Passionate About It When You Do)

Posted on by Dr Rob Archer

One of the reasons I left consultancy is because I felt that the work was meaningless.  In meetings I would try not to fall asleep as people droned on about project dependencies and stakeholder management and at the weekend all I did was dread Mondays.

It wasn’t unpleasant exactly, it was the lack of something that bothered me.  I wanted to feel passion and meaning at work, instead I experienced a sense that I did not care about the low hanging fruit as much as other people seemed to.

Now, many years later, I have created a working life which I do feel passionate about.  Some nights I have to force myself to go to bed – like a child on Christmas day – because that will make the next day come faster.  Some days I work with a client and it will hit me: I love this.

So for all the people who write about finding your passion at work: good for you.  It is possible.  It is necessary.  Well done!

But your books are still at best horribly misleading and at worst, dangerous…

passionatwork

The thing about passion at work is that it is rarely characterised by feelings of passion.  It is, if anything, characterised by feelings of anxiety and doubt, particularly in the early days.  For me those years were filled with thoughts about whether this was really the right thing, whether I could do it, whether I was falling behind my peers.

Even today those moments where I feel  passionate about what I do are rare and fleeting.  Working with people who are stuck can be draining and usually I am assailed by doubts about my own ability to help, my mind telling me what a terrible psychologist I am.  Plus it can be very painful working with people who are themselves in pain.

Is this what I left consultancy to find?  Is this really passion at work?

Well, yes.  I am truly passionate about what I do and I am so thankful that I get to do it (well, most days).

But if I had not been show how to grow more willing to respond flexibly to painful thoughts and emotions, then I would have never have reached where I am now.

In short, if I had defined passion as feelings of passion then the journey would have stopped long, long ago.

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Psychological Flexibility in Difficult Conversations

Posted on by Dr Rob Archer

It struck me that psychological flexibility is very powerful in relationships, and particularly in having difficult conversations.  However, this is something I rarely talk about on this blog (Rachel maybe more so).  So I thought sharing a personal example of how psychological flexibility has helped me could be useful.

Earlier this year my Grandfather died and I wrote a bit about that at the time.  Having dreaded his death for much of my adult life I am grateful for the skills that psychological flexibility gave me because they helped shape my response to his decline.

In May 2011 I went home to Liverpool to visit my Grandfather, who was then aged 92.  He had been moved to a home, much to his disgust. He was grumpy because he felt he’d been locked in there against his will. He was surrounded by old women, many of them even grumpier, so we went outside for a cup of tea.

It was cold outside and windy. For some reason, we got onto talking about the gloomiest of subjects – unusual because we usually kept things light and jovial. But that day we both felt low. We talked about how he missed his daughter, Rowena, who died before I was born. It felt uncomfortable and sad.

It was sad. I felt like crying.

Some years ago I would have taken this discomfort as a sign to run away. I may have cracked a joke, or left a bit earlier, or hurriedly changed subjects.

But this time I sighed and stopped and just sat there. In the middle of the day, sitting with my Grandfather, sharing time, sharing life. I gave up the struggle with it, and just shared what was.

I look back now and am proud of what we did that day.  Above all, I’m so glad I didn’t just run away.

Psychological flexibility has not saved me from difficult conversations.  But it has lessened the struggle I have with my own thoughts and emotions during them.  That has given me more energy to focus on what matters and I have been more willing to ‘show up’ to what matters to me in everyday life.

Doesn’t the workplace need more of this?

About the same time as seeing my Grandfather I went to a workshop run by another hero of mine, Kelly Wilson.  He showed me this poem, and it means a lot.  But not as much as the difficult moments I shared with my Grandfather last year, drinking lukewarm tea in the cold.

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Naomi Shahib Nye, “Kindness”

If You Can’t Have It All, What Can You Have?

Posted on by Rachel Collis

I believe that we have been sold a myth. A myth that tells us ‘If you try really, really hard then you can have it all’ – love; money; success; a wonderful family; happy kids; health; a beautiful body; a lovely home…

This myth can exhaust us. We run around trying to get everything right. Feeling anxious about all we haven’t done.

My messy garden. I decided to grow some veggies – then I neglected them and they died

The messy garden; the plump belly; the distracted attention we give to our partner. The job list at work that never seems to get any shorter. The school tuck shop duty we didn’t do.

We think that if we were just more organised, smarter, better in some ill-defined way; then we would be doing all of these things with grace and flair.

But what if we were to accept that we can’t actually do it all or have it all? What would that be like?

Instead of focussing on getting everything right, perhaps we could give our attention to becoming more and more like our ideal self. We could focus on living our values.

Perhaps you can’t have it all but instead over time you can become a better version of yourself.

In order to become more like your ideal self, you have to decide what you want that person to be like. Rob has gathered together some values clarification exercises here that might help you to decide who you want to be.

However, I need to give you a warning.

Knowing your values may not actually make your life easier. Moment by moment, again and again, you will still have to choose – do I give my attention and energy to my kids, my work, my partner, my health, the housework…?

And that choice is sometimes painful. At those moments, try asking yourself: What would the person I want to be do now? It might help you to make choices that lead to a life that is rich and meaningful And that might just be better than having it all.

What do you think? Can we have it all?

(This blog post has developed as a result of some conversations I am having with CEO’s and senior managers about their experiences of meaningful success. I would like to thank Jayne Gallagher, Manager Product and Market Development at Australian Seafood CRC and Tristan White, CEO of The Physio Co for exploring this topic with me.)