Psychological flexibility – Working with ACT

From ‘computer says no’, to ‘no, computer’

Posted on January 18, 2024 by Dr Rob Archer

There is a famous character in Little Britain called Carole Beer, a computer operator who famously responds to reasonable customer requests with the phrase:

“Computer says no”

This captured something funny and true about our relationship with computers…a tendency to blindly believe whatever they say, and to allow this to override our own intuition (and in Carole’s case, humanity).

I was reminded of this when I watched Mr Bates vs The Post Office, a brilliant series made by one of my clients, ITV.

The Post Office scandal is one of the biggest ever scandals in the UK, where hundreds of sub-postmasters were incorrectly convicted of theft and false accounting, based on the output of a new computer system.

When sub-postmasters recorded financial shortfalls in the new system, people believed the system rather than the humans.

The blank, unquestioning faith in computers destroyed lives and led to despair, bankruptcy and suicide.

Only the scepticism and courage of a handful of people stood in the way.

One, Alan Bates, refused to accept that the computer was correct and instead trusted his instincts that something was amiss with the computers.

He was right.

Learning scepticism of thoughts

In ACT we are taught to treat our own thoughts and emotions with a degree of scepticism.

We learn to see our thoughts not as ‘the truth’ but rather as hypotheses to be evaluated by whether they are helpful or not.

If we were to act as though these thoughts were true, what would that lead?

Could other perspectives or explanations be possible?

It’s like the famous Emo Phillips line:

Learning this scepticism of our thoughts can be liberating, as we learn that we don’t have to do everything our minds tell us to do.

Learning scepticism of technology

It occurs to me that we need to learn this scepticism when it comes to using technology.

We should be teaching people that outputs of technology are products of humanity, and so are flawed, limited, biased and frequently, plain wrong.

In this era of AI, algorithms, quantified selves and deep fakes, it is even more urgent to treat all outputs of technology with a degree of scepticism.

The alternative is a world where we place blind faith in technology, and where we no longer trust our own instincts.

The very definition of inhumanity. I for one say ‘no’ to that.

The 3-Space Model

Posted on April 4, 2023April 12, 2024 by Dr Rob Archer

*UPDATE*

This post by Dan Carter is very similar to the 3-space model described below:

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7184014249415917570

The 3-Space model is a really flexible way of navigating transitions.

It is as relevant to elite athletes as it is to those in business.

Here’s how it works:

Imgine you have 30 or so seconds between work calls or meetings.

It is easy in that context to take the stress or emotion from one call into another. In turn this can impact behaviour in the next call, with the cycle potentially repeating.

This is a tricky challenge – 30 seconds is not long, after all!

And yet there are techniques that can help with fast emotion regulation and help us take more more effective action.

One of these is the 3-Space model.

Instead of doing nothing in the 30 seconds, divide the time into 3, roughly equal parts:

The First Space – Processing your emotions

In the first 10 seconds, try to tune into your body – what are you feeling? What thoughts are you experiencing? What emotions are you feeling? Where do these show up in your body?

The Second Space – Pausing to get present

In the next 10 seconds, see if you can intentionally pause to bring yourself into the present moment. You can do this by taking a couple of deep breaths, looking at the sky or touching a cold surface.

The Third Space – Picking your response

In the final 10 seconds your job is to intentionally pick the most effective behaviour in the next passage of time. For example:

Business: What kind of impression do I want to make in the next meeting? What are my objectives?

Home life: What kind of Dad do I want to be when I turn the key and open the door?

Sports: What can I do to put pressure back on my opponent?

I wouldn’t say the effect of using the 3-space model is dramatic, but I do find its value tends to compound over time.

I regularly use it with my children, especially when tired, and it helps ‘lift and shift’ me away from reactive mode and towards being more connected to my values pretty reliably.

Do you need a high-performance routine? (Plus: FREE quiz…and hedgehogs!)

Posted on February 22, 2022 by Dr Rob Archer

So, for today’s serious analysis of the modern workplace, I want you to imagine you’re a hedgehog.

There you are, snuffling about in the forest, doing all of your normal hedgehoggy things.

Yes, you’re covered in fleas, but you look adorable!

Then one day you reach a strange bit of the forest which feels a lot harder underfoot, and then there are these two strange bright lights coming at you…

Now, we all know what you should do, which is probably run for it.

But we also know what you (as a hedgehog) are likely to do, which is roll up into a ball.

Now, this doesn’t make you a bad hedgehog.

You’re an excellent hedgehog, you just weren’t evolved for the particular environment you’re now in.

This is what is known as an ‘evolutionary mismatch’.

Now of course we humans aren’t like hedgehogs. We are way more advanced! We’ve even developed flea powder!

But in some ways we are a lot like hedgehogs, in that we didn’t evolve for the environment we are in either….

Why it is so hard to be human

For 99.9% of our evolutionary existence, humans would gather in small groups, forage and hunt for food, we were active in the day and slept when dark, our lives shaped by our environment.

Our ancestors moved a lot (over 15,000 steps per day according to Fitbit’s early records), and ate a wide variety of food.

In his book Origins; How the Earth Made Us, Lewis Dartnell shows how evolution and our environment are not separate events – our biology was shaped by nature.

Every cell in our bodies evolved in sequence with a daily rhythm, (primarily driven by exposure to light).

Yet fast forward to today and everything has changed.

Far from being tethered to nature, we now work in a way which is independent from these daily rhythms.

Where once we were connected to the earth and to each other, today we feel more connected but also more isolated.

For many of us, we hardly see daylight, we are largely sedentary (most of us now walking closer to 5,000 steps per day), and we work more or less constantly.

No surprise that work feels a daily grind…

Biologically and psychologically we evolved to work in a daily rhythm, and disrupting this rhythm leads to a kind of dysregulation, affecting everything from sleep to mental health.

This is another evolutionary mismatch.

Covid as the great accelerator

And Covid has accelerated these trends.

I first met Annette, a senior manager at one of the major airlines, in Spring of 2020.

She told me how when the Covid crisis took hold she and her team had moved into ‘emergency mode’, working round the clock to try and save the business, but

‘now it’s 16 months later and it feels like we’re still in the same pattern’.

From speaking to 1000s of people in many different industries last year, I know many can relate.

Many of us have been drawn into routines which we didn’t consciously design, and which have become unsustainable.

The issue is not whether we can carry on – most of us are good at soldiering on – but whether this is the best we can aim for. If you look at the statistics on mental health since Covid, I would argue not.

But what can we do about this, and where should we start?

Understanding high-performance routines

The first step is to build awareness that we are working in routines for which our brains and bodies were not evolved.

We are working out of sync with the rhythms that shaped our entire biology.

Arguably we don’t even notice the cost we’re paying, because it has become the water we swim in.

Yet by operating in a way which is divorced from our biology we create huge challenges to health and mental health.

There is hope, though.

Unlike hedgehogs, we can do more than just roll up into a ball.

In the next article I will explain what a high-performance routine looks like.

But in the meantime you can build awareness of your existing routine by trying this quiz, which will give you feedback as to whether you might benefit from strengthening your routine.

It is freely available to anyone, including hedgehogs (though admittedly you might need a mouse).

What will it take for you to define this year as a success?

Posted on February 9, 2022February 19, 2022 by Rachel Collis

What will it take for you to define this year as a success?

Is it about what you achieved?

Is it about getting a promotion or an increase in salary?

Is it about whether you felt happy?

What if we expand to a larger scale? What would it take for you to define your life as successful? Would it be whether you became a CEO? Or made a million dollars? Or got married and raised some children?

It can be easy to focus on these external markers of success or failure and believe that this is the route to happiness. One problem with this is that the research suggests that we over estimate the impact of these events (Wilson & Gilbert, 2003). We think that if we get the good job and nice house, we will be happy, so we pursue those goals. But happiness actually seems to be much more about:

Feeling part of a supportive network of close relationships (Slatcher, R, 2021)
Following routines (Archer, R, 2022) of behaviour that tend to create happiness (Kurts, J, Lyubomirsky, S & Nelson, K, 2012) (Hamzelou, J, 2010) and,
Certain helpful habits of thinking (Conkle, A, 2008)

One of those habits of thinking is psychological flexibility.

“Contacting the present moment fully as a conscious human being, and based on what the situation affords, changing or persisting in behavior in the service of chosen values” (Hayes & Smith, 2005)

Psychological flexibility seems to be a key factor in well-being (Kashdan, T, 2010) even helping people to cope better during the Covid-19 pandemic (Dawson, D. L. & Golijani-Moghaddam, N, 2020).

Psychological flexibility invites us to define success differently. It involves developing an internal yardstick for measuring success. Choosing your values and then intentionally putting those values into action based on the needs of the situation.

Using this yardstick, external achievements start to matter less. What matters more is: How much am I showing up as the person I want to be?

And paradoxically, measuring success by whether you’ve lived your values and whether you were the person you wanted to be, is actually more likely to create richness and meaning in life (Aaker, J, Baumeister, R, Garbinsky, E & Vons, K, 2012).

This year, try using these three questions to define success:

Was I present?
Did I show up as the person I want to be?
Did I notice with kindness those moments when I wasn’t being the person I want to be and adjust my behaviour accordingly?

References

Aaker, J, Baumeister, R, Garbinsky, E & Vons, K. (2012). Some Key Differences between a Happy Life and a Meaningful Life. Stanford Business. https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/publications/some-key-differences-between-happy-life-meaningful-life#:~:text=Happiness%20was%20linked%20to%20being,higher%20meaningfulness%20but%20lower%20happiness

Archer, R. (2022). The Great 2022 Reset: You don’t need new habits, you need a (high-performance) routine. Working with ACT. https://workingwithact.com/2022/01/19/the-great-2022-reset-you-dont-need-new-habits-you-need-a-high-performance-routine/

Archer, R & Collis, R. (2013). What is Psychological Flexibility? Working with ACT. https://workingwithact.com/what-is-act/what-is-psychological-flexibility/

Collis, R. (2021). How to Choose Your Values and Why it Matters. Working with ACT. https://workingwithact.com/2021/12/27/how-to-choose-your-values-and-why-it-matters/

Conkle, A. (2008). Serious Research on Happiness. Association for Psychological Science. https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/serious-research-on-happiness

Dawson, D. L. & Golijani-Moghaddam, N. (2020) COVID-19: Psychological flexibility, coping, mental health, and wellbeing in the UK during the pandemic. Journal of contextual behavioral science. [Online] 17126–134.

Gilbert, D & Wilson, T. (2003). Affective Forecasting. Harvard. http://wjh-www.harvard.edu/~dtg/Wilson%20&%20Gilbert%20%28Advances%29.pdf

Hamzelou, J. (2010). Daily Choices Can Affect Long-Term Happiness. New Scientist. https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19545-daily-choices-can-affect-long-term-happiness/

Hayes, S & Smith, S. (2005). Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life. https://www.newharbinger.com/9781572244252/get-out-of-your-mind-and-into-your-life/

Kashdan, T. (2010). Psychological Flexibility as a Fundamental Aspect of Health. National Center for Biotechnology Information. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2998793/

Kurts, J, Lyubomirsky, S & Nelson, K. (2012). What Psychological Science Knows About Achieving Happiness. http://www.sonjalyubomirsky.com/files/2012/09/Nelson-Kurtz-Lyubomirsky-in-press1.pdf

Slatcher, R. (2021). Speaking of Psychology: How close relationships keep us healthy and happy, with Richard Slatcher, PhD. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/news/podcasts/speaking-of-psychology/close-relationships

The future of work: Why Psychological Flexibility is a Key Leadership Skill of the Future

Posted on January 7, 2022February 10, 2022 by Dr Rob Archer

A few years ago in the UK, a Panorama investigation uncovered systematic abuse of elderly care home residents who were being routinely pushed about, belittled and humiliated by their so-called carers.

Worse, when whistleblowers drew attention to the abuse it was they themselves who were disciplined by senior management. Empathy for the victims seemed in short supply as it took a TV investigation for action to be taken.

This is just one example in a long line of depressing stories about toxic leadership. From MPs to journalists, and leaders in organisations from Big Tech to oil, the modern era seems one where empathy, care and values in leadership can be in short supply.

Values and leadership

Theorists like Bruce Avolio have argued that we need a more authentic form of leadership, which connects leaders to what really matters to them. This acts as a kind of compass for leaders, which is especially useful in times of uncertainty (read; now).

Connecting leaders more powerfully with their values is also important because it has been shown to generate positive psychological outcomes in followers.

And yet…

There is one slight problem with these ‘authentic’ forms of leadership: they are bloody difficult to do.

Leadership values easily get derailed by circumstance and expedience as well as by existing organisational cultures. It takes a special kind of courage to execute values in practice.

Yet most modern leadership theories (and training) deal with values as though all that remains after identifying them is to go off and do them.

Good luck with that.

Understanding our values is only half the battle. Values have a flipside – an admission price.

Put simply, pursuing our values makes life psychologically harder, not easier. We tend to hurt where we care.

It is much easier to avoid this psychological discomfort – something that psychologists call experiential avoidance. However in the turning away from our discomfort, we often turn away from our values.

This is why experiential avoidance is perhaps the biggest driver of substandard leadership behaviour (as well as in clinical contexts, poorer mental health).

After all it’s far easier to avoid that awkward but important conversation than to have it.

how can we help our leaders live their values in practice?

Psychological flexibility is a concept which started in the clinical context (over 8 50 randomised control trials show its effectiveness in improving mental health) but is now gaining traction in organisations.

Many of my organisational clients are introducing this training, not least because psychological flexibility is so practical, and especially effective with difficult situations involving ambiguity or uncertainty – what Todd Kashdan ‘calls the messiness of human life’.

Psychological flexibility is important in leadership for three reasons:

It helps people clarify and understand their values in practice, not just in theory.
It helps people stay more aware of the present moment, which means that they are more likely to notice opportunities to be empathetic and engaged with other people.
It gives leaders the skills to move towards their values and deal with the psychological cost of doing so. By building willingness to have difficult thoughts and emotions, it reduces the natural human tendency to avoid them.

Too many leadership training programmes focus on values and forget to train people in the skills that help them live their values.

Yet unless we do this, leaders will continue to run from the pain that empathy brings them.

How having a messy car might actually align with your values

Posted on September 16, 2021 by Rachel Collis

Do you have some activities that you just avoid? You never quite get them done and you feel bad about not getting them done?

It could be cleaning out the kitchen cupboards; sorting out your email; exercising; updating your LinkedIn profile; cleaning your car…

We know we should do it, but we kind of don’t choose to do it.

And that would be okay, but if you are like me, your mind sometimes uses this lack of action as evidence that you are lazy, disorganised, neglectful…

I drive a 5 year old car. I almost never wash it. It is usually messy on the inside too. Hats, sunglasses, shoes (including, I am embarrassed to admit, a pair of red Crocs), sundry shopping bags and wrappers from chocolate bars are scattered around the seats and floor. Discarded bits and pieces that found their way into my car but never seem to find their way out.

Why is my car like this?

The logical reason is that having a clean, tidy car is low on my list of priorities. Now and again I write ‘Clean out car’ on my job list for the day, but other, more interesting (Write blog post) or more urgent (Invoicing) tasks crowd it out.

Even though I often have ‘good reasons’ for not cleaning out my car, when someone else sees how messy my car is, my ‘I am not good enough’ story pops up. I worry that they will see me as lazy and disorganised. (Which sometimes I am, but I don’t want other people to know that!)

I could use this concern to motivate me. I could clean my car to avoid the pain of other people’s judgment. In ACT terms this is an avoidance move. An avoidance move is where a behaviour (e.g. cleaning the car) is about avoiding painful internal stuff (e.g. fear of other’s judgement). There is a lot of research to tell us that a life that is organised around avoiding unwanted emotions isn’t healthy. It is clear that repeated avoidance doesn’t lead to a rich and meaningful life. So, perhaps, for me, having a messy car might just align with my values?

This is where is gets tricky. Just because cleaning my car could be an avoidance move, it doesn’t mean that ‘not cleaning my car’ is a move towards my values.

It depends what I do instead of cleaning out my car. If, instead of cleaning my car, I engage in activities that link to my values – writing a blog post; spending time with people I love; learning something new – then, over time, those choices will likely help me to build a rich and meaningful life.

But if, instead of cleaning out my car, I obsessively watch videos of Beyonce, trying to figure out if she and JayZ are happy or not. Then it is likely that I am caught in avoidance, which is usually a bad idea.

So what do we do, when we are in the grip of avoidance? The first step is to take a breath and notice. How are you feeling in this moment? When you pause, see if you can notice, with curiosity and kindness, the whole range of thoughts and feelings that show up. And then, pause some more and see if you can notice what thoughts or feelings you might be avoiding.

For me, as I pause my YouTube video, I could notice that I don’t want to feel:

Bored whilst I clean out my car, or,
Anxious whilst I write a blogpost ‘What if people think it is stupid?’, or,
Challenged and a bit stressed as I try to master a new piece of theory.

Could I make room for those thoughts and feelings? And, if I did make room for them, and chose what to do next based on what really matters to me, what would I do?

Sometimes, just now and again, that might even be to spend ten minutes cleaning out my car.

New E-book: Thriving in Uncertainty

Posted on November 26, 2020May 3, 2021 by Dr Rob Archer

I am happy to release version 2 of our e-book, Thriving in Uncertainty.

thriving-in-uncertainty_may-21 Download

In this short guide, we cover the two key issues related to uncertainty:

How to make effective decisions even when outcomes are hard to predict
How to deal with the negative emotions (like stress and anxiety) that come with uncertainty

As with all our e-books we have packed it with links to free tools and resources, ideas for further reading and TED talks that illustrate key points.

We have also included a range of templates and interactive PDFs that can be used either by individuals or groups.

This is version 1 – we would love your feedback about how we can improve it.

Enjoy!

The Marginal Gains Handbook – Practical ideas to survive and thrive in the age of Coronavirus

Posted on May 7, 2020 by Dr Rob Archer

We are delighted to release VERSION 2 of this free, practical guide of evidence-based ways to survive and thrive in the age of Coronavirus.

DOWNLOAD HERE

This version includes improved ideas for thriving in the age of Coronavirus as well as a new section on parenting in lockdown.

This is from a CEO who’s been using it with his organisation:

Your Covid Marginal Gains booklet has been a great source to help me during this once in a life time roller coaster. It deals with so many layers that we are all going through and gave me confidence in what I was telling my team, give me solace in what I was feeling, and hope for what despair we all go through.

Continue reading “The Marginal Gains Handbook – Practical ideas to survive and thrive in the age of Coronavirus” →

Using the ACT Matrix to Help You to Be The Person You Want to Be…More Often

Posted on July 29, 2015July 29, 2015 by Rachel Collis

I use the ACT matrix a lot in my workshops and with my coaching clients… and on myself! It is a tool that helps to build mindfulness, self-awareness and valued living. It is based on contextual behavioural science and is very easy to use.

I have made a video explaining how I use it:

You can download a pdf handout of the ACT Matrix here.

Kevin Polk (who is one of the people who developed the ACT matrix) has lots of free resources relating to the ACT matrix at his website.

How can Behaviour Analysis Help in Coaching? (part 1)

Posted on June 8, 2015June 8, 2015 by Dr Rob Archer

So many people in ACT are attracted to its focus on values and connecting to what matters that it can be a surprise to learn of its roots in behaviour analysis. After all, isn’t that what they do with rats?

After attending an excellent talk on this subject by David Gillanders, I wanted to write a short series on how behaviour analysis might help in coaching.

The Lingo:

In behaviour analysis, “A” refers to the antecedent, or the event or activity that immediately precedes a behavior. The “B” refers to the observed behavior, and “C” refers to the consequence, or the event that immediately follows a response.

Insight from Behaviour Analysis:

If an event (Antecedent) leads to a Behaviour whose immediate Consequence is less negative than alternatives, the chain is strengthened.

Useful for:

Clients who are really stuck.

Brief Example Completely Unrelated to Me:

OK so let’s imagine that someone feels anxious before going to a party. This someone always fears being judged and found wanting by those around me them.

To be clear, this never actually happens to me, but let’s go ahead and imagine anyway. And let’s get behavioural and call this the antecedent…

*Pause to high-five my bad inner behaviour analyst self*

This person then decides to stay in and watch Netflix instead (House of Cards since you ask). This is the behaviour.

The consequence is immediate feelings of relief – no more anxiety – and this therefore acts as a reinforcer of the behaviour, making the chain stronger.

Another example – Duncan – had been experiencing career paralysis for a few years. His work in finance brought acute feelings of meaninglessness. At the end of the week he consoled himself by going out and getting hammered. This was reinforcing because 1) he had a great time with his friends and 2) he forgot about his job.

Whilst there was plenty of good stuff going on (Duncan was popular) he was also anaesthetising himself from his feelings of meaninglessness. As the chain got stronger he also started to drink during the week, especially if he’d had a bad day.

In the short term this meant he could solider on whilst ‘living for the weekend’. But in the long term this pattern was reinforcing his stuckness, eroding his spirit, and draining his energy.

Helping to Unravel Clients who Feel Stuck

By viewing stuck patterns through the lens of behaviour analysis, clients can make more sense of their experience and see how avoidance behaviours provide immediate, short term reinforcement that easily become entrenched into habit.

Another client, Mia, has been stuck in her law career for over 5 years. She’s seen many coaches in her time with always the same pattern: initial hope and excitement, followed by lots of research and analysis, but then slowly tailing away. This she puts down to ‘laziness’.

In this case we see that antecedents, behaviours and consequences can take some teasing apart – but that it can be revealing to do so:

Antecedent

Mia feels like a ‘cog in a machine’ at work. Her feelings are most acute when she reads articles about people working for themselves and when she meets her friend Katherine who seems to have loads of autonomy as a freelance graphic designer.

Behaviour

Mia’s behavioural pattern then is to research alternative careers – from yoga teacher, to charity worker and in-house lawyer. This phase feels rich with possibility which is highly reinforcing.

However, as she then moves further into analysis mode, she begins to find problems with each option…. Yoga teacher? No proper pension. Charity sector? Badly paid and badly run. In-house lawyer? Same lack of autonomy.

Each option is analysed and rejected.

Consequence

The consequence is that she begins to experience acute disappointment and loss of hope. This acts as another antecedent, which cues a period of plunging herself back into her work, trying to forget how miserable she feels.

Conclusion

Teasing out the antecedent from the behaviour (and exploring the consequences in each case) helps clients make sense of seemingly ingrained or embedded patterns of behaviour that are keeping them stuck.

This approach can also help coaches make more accurate case conceptualisations, and to track interventions more accurately from moment to moment.