By Sherif Attar
In a world of ever-changing ambiguity and uncertainty, executives have to face two challenges: excellent performance and people development. Where many managers think those endeavours are “competing”, this author believes they are “completing”. GET DOWN TO BUSINESS argues.
Adapted from Britt Frank
Britt Frank, an award-winning professor at the University of Kansas, shares key insights from her book, The Science of Stuck.
1. We need anxiety.
People often enter therapy suffering from severe symptoms and think that all they need is to “get rid of” their anxiety. While anxiety can be debilitating and, in some cases, must be medically managed before any other interventions can be applied, trying to get rid of anxiety is as pointless as trying to disable the smoke alarm in your home.
The alarm is not attacking the house; the noise is a sign that something needs attention. Anxiety is not a character flaw or an illness – it’s the “check engine” on our brain. If we disable our anxiety indicators, we won’t know where the problem is. Anxiety is a roadmap that points us towards a real or imagined threat, or something that needsattention. In short, we need it.
2. Motivation is not a mindset issue.
We love to work with the logical, analytical thinking part of our brain. There are mechanisms inside our nervous system responsible for survival physiology, known as the “fight, flight, or freeze” responses. If you are shut down (freeze), or if you are stuck in fight or in flight (sympathetic overreaction), you are not able to think your way out because that is a physiological state.
Turning the amygdala response off is the key to motivation. The amygdala is the panic button in our brain that sounds the alarm that something is wrong. This is an automatic process. If your brain is perceiving a threat, it will put your system in a state of hyper-arousal or shut-down, and we call that procrastination and lack of motivation.
3. Mental health is a physical process.
Our survival physiology responses often get misdiagnosed as mental illnesses. The pain of our symptoms is real, but it is important to know that many of the things we call “illnesses” are often our brains doing exactly what it is designed to do.
There’s no shame in having a disease or illness. Most therapists aren’t trained in the physiology
of mental health and don’t know to assess for
these body responses. If we shift our language from mental health discussed as a mental process, to mental health as a physical process, then we have a greater chance of finding our way to tools that can get ourselves unstuck.
The framework we’ve historically used to view our troubling feelings needs to be changed to a model that is more biologically accurate, as well as empowering.
4. There is no such thing as “self-sabotage.”
What we call “self-sabotage” often happens because if you achieve a goal, things will need to change. And all change involves a degree of loss and grief. We are hard-wired for repetition, pattern-seeking, and habit formation, so all changes to our status quo can trigger a threat response by our amygdala.
Behaviour comprehension is required for behaviour modification. Achieving any goal requires emotional risk, new boundaries, financial resources, and other risks.
5. All behaviour is functional.
Our habits and compulsions interfere with our ability to live our best, most productive lives. Addiction is an example of a toxic, but functional behaviour. If I am addicted to a substance, then I don’t have to deal with whatever awaits me. While “explanation” is not synonymous with “excuse,” it is important to know that focusing on behaviour modification will almost always render us inert. It takes way more work to avoid the work than to actually do the work. You don’t need to make giant behavioural transformations to get unstuck – getting unstuck requires tiny micro-shifts, and those shifts compound rapidly. Before you know it, you’re in motion. Once you get going, all of that wonderful cognitive work suddenly becomes powerful.
For questions or suggestions, please send your comments.
Sherif Attar, an independent management consultant/trainer and organisation development authority, delivers seminars in the US, Europe, Middle East and the Far East.
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