CHAPTER FIVE
Overcoming Barriers
IN SPITE OF OUR BEST efforts life doesn’t often work out as we intended. That can be a source of marvellous serendipity, but it’s also pretty frustrating. The preceding chapters looked at how we can clarify our values (that is, the things that matter to us) and then set up SMART goals (specific tasks to direct our daily activity) to make our life about those things. That may sound simple, but sometimes even well motivated SMART goals based on our core values don’t last a day. So what is happening and, more importantly, what can we do about it?
Part of the problem is what goes on in our own minds. Research in this area has found that we habitually have negative, inaccurate or just bizarre thoughts that undermine our efforts to do the things we want to be doing. Our minds are wonderful things, but they are inclined to take over and dominate us with their views on life. Our minds are full of thoughts which flow so effortlessly and endlessly that it can be hard to notice that we are even having them. And when we completely believe the literal content of our thoughts, we ‘fuse’ with them. We end up ‘inside’ them and their influence over us is increased. hen this happens, it is important to remember that while our thoughts are part of us, we are more than our thoughts.
Fusing with our thoughts means we look out on the world from their perspective. This wouldn’t be a problem were it not for the fact that our thoughts are usually very negative – about other people, our circumstances and, importantly, ourselves. Having your own mind banging on about how rubbish you are or how hopeless your situation is can be dispiriting. It doesn’t take much to give up on a goal when your own mind is telling you that you aren’t up to it and should just stop trying.
If you believe in your thoughts too much then your mind can exert an unhelpful negative influence over your life. The mind can be dogmatic, opinionated and assertive. It can tell you things with such certainty that you can find yourself in your thoughts so completely and then acting accordingly. When things are tough or not going well, it’s easy to listen to your thoughts and believe them. The American TV talk show host Oprah Winfrey, for example, has been refreshingly open about her struggle with obesity and over the years her weight has yo-yoed up and down. After one period of piling on the pounds, she said felt so completely defeated her mind told her to give up and stop trying to control her weight. What happened when she was guided by these thoughts? She ate even more and got fatter still.
In a debate in the House of Commons to raise awareness of mental health issues in the UK, Charles Walker MP gave a moving speech about the struggles he has had with obsessive compulsive thoughts throughout his adult life.
On occasions [obsessive compulsive disorder] is manageable and, on occasions, it becomes quite difficult. It takes you to some quite dark places … and often it can be malevolent. It is like someone inside one’s head just banging away. One is constantly striking deals with oneself. Sometimes these are quite ridiculous and on some occasions they can be rather depressing and serious … You fight those voices for a couple or three hours and you know that you really should not give in to them because they should not be there and [the nasty predictions aren’t] going to happen, but in the end, … one gives in to the voices and then feels pretty miserable about life.
What goes on in our minds can hamper our efforts to change our lives. Let’s do a short exercise to look at how our thoughts suck us in and impact on us. This exercise, called ‘Ten breaths’, is similar to the mindfulness exercises you’ve done in previous chapters, except that this time we are explicitly focusing on our thoughts as they flow through our mind. In ACT we call this is a ‘defusion’ exercise as it helps loosen up the control our own thoughts have on us.
EXERCISE: TEN BREATHS (THEN TEN MORE AND THEN TEN MORE)
As the instructions are quite long, I recommend you read them through twice before you start. The exercise will take 5–10 minutes. Have a pen and paper ready to write things down.
Find a quiet spot and sit down. Take a moment to orientate yourself to the space you are in and your surroundings. Breathe in deeply. Notice how with each breath air flows into your lungs, your chest rises and your shoulders move upwards. Take a few more breaths focusing on this. Now place your hands on your stomach and feel how it moves in and out with each breath. When you feel relaxed, close your eyes and slowly take ten deep breaths. Your task during this exercise is to keep focused on your breaths. Keep your attention on how each lung full of air affects your body.
During this exercise become aware of how your mind will try to take over. Thoughts, memories, plans and urges will come into your mind and they will take your attention away from your breathing. When this happens, gently bring your attention back onto your breathing. Notice the thoughts as they arrive in your mind and how they suck you into their content. When this happens, be aware of their pull and then let them go. Thoughts can be very persistent and keep dragging you back; be aware of how bossy your mind can be and choose to return your attention to your breath.
When you get to ten breaths (it’s easy to lose count as you are doing this; don’t worry, just keep going until you think you have got to ten), write down the thoughts you had during the exercise. Notice how they hooked you in and took your attention away from your breathing. How difficult did you find letting them go and returning your focus onto your breaths? How quickly did you slip back into your thoughts?
Now repeat the process. Take ten more deep breaths and write down the thoughts you had. Were they the same thoughts or different? Was it harder to let go or easier?
Now repeat the process for a third and final time. What did you notice this time?
The ten breaths exercise is about experiencing first hand how the mind pulls you into its own agenda. Your task was to concentrate on your breathing, but your mind had other ideas. It wanted to think about all sorts of other things and it wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. It kept pulling you towards what it wanted to think about.
Everyone has different thoughts when doing this exercise, and the thing to notice is just how immediate and compelling they are. They suck us in and hold our attention even when we want to do something else. The exercise helps us learn about our relationship with our thoughts. It can help us understand that we are distinct from them and our views are not always represented by their content.
If you struggled to notice your thoughts during the exercise, don’t worry, it can take a bit of practice. Do it a few more times and you will learn how to become aware of them more easily. This won’t stop you slipping into their content, no one can do that, but being aware that you are distinct from your thoughts will give you the option of stepping out of them when you want to. That gives you just a little more flexibility when dealing with life.
Everyone has odd and unpleasant thoughts from time to time, and if you think they represent who you are, they can be quite disturbing. I once worked with a man who was troubled by thoughts that he would kill people. They were vivid and gruesome images of what he could do and they frightened him. He worried they meant he was an evil man and he limited his contact with people to try to reduce the likelihood he would act on these thoughts. But in the 20 years these thoughts had flowed through his mind, he had never harmed anyone. This reassured him, but he still wondered why he had these thoughts and what they said about him. They are fair questions and at present we don’t really know why human beings have negative and disturbing thoughts (we’ll look at this some more in Chapter 10). All we know is that negative thoughts are common. What do they say about us? Quite simply, nothing. Other people will judge us by what we do, not by what passes privately through our minds.
The ten-breaths exercise enables us to experience first-hand just how compelling our minds and thoughts can be. Of course, there are many occasions when our thoughts are very important and useful, as they can help us plan, weigh up, evaluate and reflect on our options. But they can also disrupt what we are trying to do by pulling our attention into their literal content.
The reason our minds interfere so much with our efforts to achieve our goals might initially sound a little odd – it is because our minds have a different agenda from us. In other words, what we want and what our minds want is not the same thing.
Later in this chapter I will expand on what the mind’s agenda is and how this impacts on the daily goals we set ourselves. But before we look at the barriers our minds can put in our way, it is worth looking at some more basic reasons our goals fail.
When goals fail
When we fail to complete a goal, it is worth spending a bit of time trying to understand why. The following checks can help you work out why you haven’t managed to achieve your goal.
1. Check your value really matters.
2. Check your goals are SMART.
3. Check your goals reflect your values.
4. Check your goals are not DIE goals.
Check your value really matters
This might seem obvious, but the first thing you should check when you fail to achieve a goal is whether the value you have chosen really matters to you at this point in time. Have you ever had a problem with an electrical appliance? When you take a look in the manual, the first thing it will tell you to check is that the power cable is plugged in. This is the most common and basic fault with electrical goods because if there’s no electricity, there is no power to drive the engine. It’s the same for our goals. If they are not ‘plugged in’ to our values, then there is no motivation to complete the goals.
Values also benefit from being prioritized. As your life changes, so will your values. What is important one week might be less important the following week. At any one time we will all have a multitude of values that matter to us and we can’t action them all. We need to choose and prioritize which values we want to focus on. So if you are struggling to complete a goal, take a moment to check the underlying value is a priority for you at that moment.
If you are working on a value that has lost some of its worth or meaning, then your motivation to complete the goals derived from it will also be reduced. For instance, if I hear that a dear friend has become gravely unwell, then my values around friendship are likely to become more important than say education or community values. In the process, any goals based on my education or community values will be less of a priority.
Check your goals are SMART
Once you’ve prioritized your values, it is worth checking your goals are SMART. In particular see if there are any ways you might be able to simplify them or make them more specific. It is tempting to think big and set ourselves ambitious targets, but this can be counterproductive. There’s an old proverb that sums this up: ‘It is better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward.’
Check your goals reflect your values
If you are clear that your chosen value does matter to you at that moment in time and you are still struggling to achieve a SMART goal derived from it, then check that the goal accurately reflects the value. The aim of a goal is to help us move in valued life directions, but if that goal does not really represent a core value, it can seem a bit pointless. For instance, suppose one of my values was to be more involved with my family. I might set a SMART goal of calling my mother every weekend. However, if I struggle to do this, it is worth reflecting on why. It may be that, in reality, calling my mother does not leave me feeling connected with her. It can be difficult to talk on the phone as it naturally lacks the richness of contact that direct experience can give. As such, a phone call doesn’t reflect the value I am trying to live by, and a better goal might be to visit her or invite her to see me.
Check your goals are not DIE goals
Finally, remember that not all goals are equally useful and you should definitely steer clear of some. In Chapter 4 I outlined the importance of avoiding 3 broad types of problematic goals – negatively framed goals that ‘dead people’ can do, goals that are impossible to complete and emotion goals.
There is no benefit in giving yourself DIE goals as they aren’t going to work. Check if your goal is a DIE goal and, if so, stop attempting to achieve it and think of a positively framed, SMART goal that is based on your actual behaviour, not what you feel.
The challenge of FEAR
Once you have checked that your goal is SMART (and not a DIE goal) and it really does represent your highest priority value at that point in time, your difficulty completing it might be due to obstacles created by your mind. There are four common psychological barriers that our minds can present. In ACT these are summarized by the acronym FEAR:
F – Fusion
E – Evaluation
A – Avoidance
R – Reason-giving
Fusion
Fusion occurs when we believe the literal content of our thoughts. As human beings we are raised in environments that encourage us to focus on language content, evaluation, problem solving and interpreting things literally. Indeed, language largely works because of its literal content. Statements like ‘It’s raining outside’, ‘What’s your name?’ or ‘That bank is corrupt’ derive their primary meaning from the words in them. Problems arise, however, when we fuse with the thoughts we communicate to ourselves and believe in them literally or 100 per cent. This is a problem because our thoughts are often inaccurate.
Thoughts like ‘I can’t do it’, ‘I’m too tired’, ‘It’s too hard’ or ‘I’m not good enough’ can stop us in our tracks if we are fused with them – that is, if we act on their literal content. We often have particular automatic thoughts when faced with specific situations. When I give talks or seminars, a consistent thought goes through my mind: ‘They don’t understand what I’m saying.’ This thought can be self-fulfilling because the more I believe it, the harder it is to focus on what I want to say.
This happened to me once during a lecture. I became so anxious at the blank stares looking back at me that I felt no one understood a word I was saying. It may have been true, and then again the thought might have been nonsense. But as soon as I began to focus on the thought, I was unable to continue the lecture. I froze. Twenty pairs of eyes looked at me, starting to be more curious about what was happening. I inspected my feet and tried to read my lecture notes, but my concentration flitted here and there and my mind was blank. I could sense I wasn’t going to be able to continue, so I coughed, faked a dry throat and asked for some water. A young man graciously produced a glass of water and we had a short break before resuming. At the time, I was unable to understand what had happened. I put it down to nerves, but, in fact, it was fusion with my thoughts that had derailed my lecture.
Fusion can be a huge problem and it can really hamper our efforts to change. If, for example, you believe the thought ‘I don’t deserve to be happy’, then you might stop doing things that are starting to make you feel more positive. ‘I can’t’ (or in its longer form, ‘I can’t do it’) is a very common thought when we feel uncertain about something. If you believe this thought to be the truth, then it will be hard to continue.
Evaluation
The mind is very good at evaluation and does it all the time. The problem is a great many of our evaluations are negative. Like all animals, human beings are highly sensitive to potential threats around us, and our language helps us to evaluate what’s risky and what isn’t. As a consequence, a lot of our thoughts focus on the negative things around us because this helps keep us safe. Being aware of possible threats and risks in our environment enables us to take evasive action and survive to live another day.
Evaluating the outside world is one thing, but problems arise when our minds turn inwards and we evaluate ourselves. As evaluations are often negative, inevitably we begin to evaluate ourselves negatively. If we are not aware this is happening and we fuse with our thoughts, it is easy to be cut down and demoralized by what we are thinking.
Life is difficult enough without our own minds criticizing us. It is quite a challenge, for instance, to keep doing something if your own mind is telling you that you are stupid or ugly or useless. This isn’t just a problem for you and me, it can happen to sports stars, politicians and famous actors – all the people we might think of as superhuman in their self-confidence. The tennis player Andre Agassi – considered one of the greats of the game who won eight Grand Slams – struggled to win matches because his own mind and negative thinking too often undermined his performance. For a while his career was going nowhere and he turned to drugs to try to cope. The turning point came when his new coach, Brad Gilbert, told him, ‘It’s all about your mind, man’ and helped him understand how his own mind was criticizing him. Agassi learned to minimize the impact of his negative thinking and went on to become the World Number 1. Our minds can be powerful tools, but they are not our friends!
Avoidance
Avoidance is when we work to keep uncomfortable or unsettling thoughts and experiences out of our life. Avoidance is a quick and easy way to feel better in the short term. For instance, you can take some aspirin to relieve neck pain or you can push unpleasant memories out of your mind. The problem is that avoidance also gets in the way of long-term change. Change brings a range of consequences and if we are not prepared to accept the more negative ones, then change will stall. For example, if I am not prepared to feel the pangs of hunger, the likelihood of being able to stick to a diet and lose weight is low. All weight loss diets involve a reduction of calorie intake in some form or another and this inevitably leads to feelings of hunger. If I can accept the discomfort that goes with feeling hungry, then I will be more able to maintain my diet.
Avoidance of discomfort isn’t always a bad idea. For instance, scratching an itch, turning down loud music and putting on a coat when it’s cold outside are all positive actions. The problems come when we start avoiding things that we need to accept in order to create the space for change. In short, if we are not prepared to accept all the feelings that go with change, then change won’t happen.
Reason-giving
This occurs when our minds try to explain our behaviour. This shouldn’t be a problem except that our minds are very good at coming up with reasons not to do things. Everyone will have experienced the mind’s capacity to convince us not to do something. If the plan is to go for a run, but you are feeling unsure about it, your mind will come up with all sorts of reasons not to – ‘It’s too wet’, ‘It’s been a busy week and I’m too tired’, ‘My back is a bit sore’, ‘My running gear is in the wash.’
How much we believe the reasons our minds give us (that is, how fused we are with them) impacts on how likely we are to act on them. If I’m really fused with the reasons my mind gives for why I can’t do something, then I probably won’t do it. And something else happens when we speak to other people about the reasons for our behaviour. Saying our thoughts out loud means we listen to ourselves speaking and this can make the thoughts seem more powerful and reinforce their message. But a thought spoken aloud is still just language whether it is public or private.
Being FEARful
To some extent we all experience FEAR – Fusion, Evaluation, Avoidance and Reason-giving. These are natural processes that our minds engage in, and sometimes they are very useful. You can think of these processes as mental tools that have evolved for doing certain things. And like any tool, they have their strengths and limitations. The key to using a tool effectively is to know when to use it and when to put it down and use another one. Hammers are no good with screws, and scissors aren’t much use for trimming hedges.
When our minds give us reasons to do or not do things, the question we need to ask is whether this is the right tool for the moment. Maybe it is. If your mind tells you to take painkillers to manage some back pain (a form of emotional avoidance), it might be this is the best option at that moment. You have a choice about this. The fact is, on some occasions the evaluations and reasons our minds produce to interpret and understand particular events are useful. What isn’t useful is using painkillers to avoid a long-term pain problem or believing our reasons and evaluations when they are inaccurate.
Understanding and managing our tendency to fuse with our thoughts is key because the less committed we are to the literal content of our thoughts, the more psychological flexibility we have. Noticing the language in our heads gives us the choice about whether to act on a thought or not. Not believing our thoughts (defusing with them) doesn’t mean we just ignore them.
If you don’t want to do something, your mind will always generate reasons why you shouldn’t. If your mind is giving you a lot of reasons not to do something, then this could suggest that what you are doing does not really represent your underlying values. Rather than trying to further defuse your thoughts, it might be better to look again at your values and check they are really what you want at that point in time.
Let’s look at FEAR in action with a client I will call William. William was 40 years old and worked as a manager in a large organization. He came into therapy because his wife had insisted that he did something to deal with his stress at work and his behaviour towards his family. He reported that every day he shouted at the children and his wife. He loved his family, but said he felt angry and irritated with them after a long day at work and couldn’t help shouting at them.
William had identified one of his values as his ‘having a happy family’, but the goal he originally set was ‘not to shout at the kids’. (This is a dead person’s goal as it describes the absence of behaviour and therefore is something a dead person can do.) William reframed the goal as ‘I will speak calmly to my children explaining what I want them to do’.
THERAPIST: How did you get on?
WILLIAM: Not very well.
THERAPIST: What happened?
WILLIAM: I just couldn’t do it. I tried, I really did. But, you know, when I get home from work I’m tired. I’ve had a busy day and the last thing I need is to be nagged to about things.
THERAPIST: What thoughts did you have when you were being nagged?
WILLIAM: All sorts. I thought, I don’t need this, I’ve had a long day at work and I’m tired. Just give me some peace.
THERAPIST: How did you get on explaining to them what you wanted to do?
WILLIAM: It was really hard. Truth is I couldn’t do it.
THERAPIST: So that’s what your mind told you, ‘I can’t do it’.
WILLIAM: Yes.
THERAPIST: And you believed it?
WILLIAM: It wasn’t my mind. I just couldn’t do it.
THERAPIST: There it goes again. Can you hear it jabbering away? What’s your mind saying now?
WILLIAM: I’m too polite to repeat it.
THERAPIST: Fair enough. Minds can be pretty rude and it’s not always a good idea to share what they say. So it sounds like your mind was giving you all sorts of reasons to do some things and not do other things. But remember that’s what minds do. They are always talking and giving reasons. It’s like you’ve got a monkey on your back whispering in your ear all the time. Do this, don’t do that. Blah, blah, blah. Your choice is whether to listen to it or not.
You also said you were too tired. What do you mean?
WILLIAM: Work is stressful. I mean very stressful. When I get home, I’m knackered. I just don’t have the energy to, well, be relaxed. I’m just so wound up and snap. Before I know it, I’m shouting. Then I feel bad and feel even more wound up. It’s hard to be calm when you feel like that.
THERAPIST: You’re right, it is. But remember your goal isn’t to feel calm, it’s to behave calmly. The truth is how you feel is how you feel and you can’t change it, not quickly anyway. But we can control our behaviour. We can choose how we want to behave when we feel different things.
WILLIAM: Easier said than done.
THERAPIST: I never said it would be easy!
WILLIAM: Maybe I can’t do it. Maybe I’m a useless dad.
This interchange shows every aspect of FEAR. The client was fused with his thoughts, and he believed the reasons his mind gave him for why he shouted at his family (that is, he was too tired). He was trying to avoid feeling more tired and stressed by shouting at the children and his wife in the hope that this would give him some time to himself. Finally, he negatively evaluated himself as a ‘useless dad’. FEAR was dominating his life.
The antidote to FEAR is DARE
The psychological barriers presented by FEAR (Fusion, Evaluation, Avoidance and Reason-giving) can be overcome. The antidote to FEAR is DARE. The acronym DARE stands for Defusion, Acceptance, Reconnecting with your values and Engage and take action.
D – Defusion
A – Acceptance
R – Reconnect with values
E – Engage and take action
Defusion
Defusion is the opposite of fusion. Broadly, it means not believing the literal content of our thoughts. When we defuse our thoughts, we notice them for what they are – just words and stories going through our heads. Defusion is not about getting rid of our negative thoughts because that leads to more entanglement. Instead, defusion is about developing a new relationship with what goes on in our minds. This gives us the option of tuning into our thoughts when they are useful and ignoring them when they are not.
Let’s do a defusion exercise. It might seem a bit odd when I describe it to you, but once you do it, you will see why it’s interesting. It’s called ‘Milk’.
EXERCISE: MILK
Find a quiet spot where you won’t be disturbed for 5 minutes. Find a clock which measures seconds. Take a moment to picture a glass of milk. What does it look like? Pick up the imaginary glass and drink some of the milk. What does it taste like? It is cold or warm? Try to hold onto this image.
Now start saying the word ‘milk’ aloud. Start slowly and then gradually build up your speed until you are saying the word really quickly out loud – ‘milk, milk, milk, milk …’ Say the words as fast as you can. At times you’ll stumble over the words, but don’t worry, stick with it for not less than 30 seconds and not more than 45 seconds.
Don’t worry if before you start you mind tells you’ll feel silly. Just notice that thought and do it anyway.
How did you get on? What happened to the mental image of the glass of milk? People usually report that as they do the exercise, they become aware they are making a funny sound rather than saying the word ‘milk’. Well, that is the actual sound of the word ‘milk’, it’s just you don’t normally hear it as you are instead engaged with its meaning. People also usually report that the image of the glass of milk disappears during the exercise. Why? Well, by repeating the word you have decontextualized it and thereby rendered it meaningless. Hence the images disappear. All you were left with was the sound. In effect, you ‘delaminated’ the word and split the sound from the meaning.
What you did with the word ‘milk’ you can do with any word. All those words you think and hear each day are individual sounds that you don’t notice because you are fused with the meaning. That’s how language works, but it also means we are so tuned into the meaning that it’s hard to notice that words are sounds or things that we write down. We live in language and it is so much part of our lives that it can be hard to notice. Defusion is the process by which we become more aware of the language which surrounds us.
Acceptance
Acceptance is about being willing to experience the full range of thoughts and feelings that life brings. It is about being prepared to make room for these experiences, rather than avoiding or running from them.
Let’s do an acceptance exercise. It’s called ‘Thanks for the thought’.
EXERCISE: THANKS FOR THE THOUGHT
Get a pen and a blank A4 piece of paper. Cut the paper into six rectangles about 4 in by 4 in. On each piece of paper write down some of the thoughts you have been struggling with. For instance, ‘I’m useless’, ‘I’ll never be able to make it right’, ‘I’m ugly’, ‘My life is hopeless’, etc.
Put the pieces of paper in a pile in front of you. These are some of the thoughts that have been getting you down or stopping you from getting on with life. Pick up each piece of paper one at a time, hold it in front of you and read the statement out loud. Then pull each piece of paper towards you and place it on your chest. Even though this is a negative thought and something you don’t want, be willing to have it in your life at this moment. As you do so, say out loud, ‘Thanks, mind, for that thought’.
Repeat it with each piece of paper several times.
How did you get on? Were you able to accept the thought and thank your mind for it? It’s not easy as who wants to be thankful for difficult or troubling thoughts? But remember, willingness is not about wanting, it is about accepting part of our experience for what it is because fighting it is a wasted effort.
We can also be accepting of our emotions. It is common for people to assume that if they have negative feelings, urges or cravings, then there’s something wrong. But actually these experiences, although negative, are quite normal. They are our body’s natural response to the situation we are in. Rather than trying to avoid them or change them, we are better off noticing them and accepting them for what they are – our past experiences showing up in the present. If we want to feel differently in the future, we need to give ourselves new experiences.
Reconnect with values
This is about making sure that what we are doing really matters to us. If you notice your mind is giving you lots of reasons not to do something or you are lacking motivation, then it may be that your goal is not connected with your underlying values. Checking in with your values means looking again to see if they really represent what you want your life to be about. Have a look at the work you did on your values (for example, your valued living questionnaire compass or bull’s eye diagram on pages 70) and ask yourself honestly if they are what you want at this point in time.
When checking in with your values, beware of a common trap. It’s very easy to pick certain values because we think we should want them, or to pick values that we think other people would want us to choose. When this happens, our values are being selected by other people or by social norms around us, rather than what we really want. If this is the case and the value you have chosen is one you think you should choose, rather than one you want to choose, then it is unlikely you’ll be very motivated by it. This will make it difficult to achieve any goals related to this value because when the going gets tough (and it usually does) you won’t have the motivation and drive to see it through.
How can you tell if the value you’ve chosen is really what you want? Trust yourself to know. If, when you are checking your values, you don’t feel much energy, excitement or risk then it probably is not that important to you. If that happens, it’s time to choose another value to prioritize.
Engage and take action
This is the process by which we redouble our commitment to doing things. A precursor to committed action is a willingness to experience whatever comes along. And willingness is about being prepared to accept the good and the bad that life brings. We do this not because we want to experience discomfort or pain, but because doing so enables us to live.
Effective action benefits from setting SMART goals. This means your goals should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-framed. Check your goals are SMART and if not, ask yourself how can you improve them so they are. If you realize the goal just isn’t relevant or achievable even when you make it more specific and measurable, then its best to set yourself new goals and check it’s not a DIE goal. For example, you may have the goal ‘To be happier at work’. This is an emotion goal and brings with it the agenda of wanting to control your emotions (and not feel the bad ones). It is a form of avoidance and is largely unachievable because we cannot directly control how we feel. If we could, then no one would ever feel anxious, sad, lonely, hungry or anything they didn’t want to feel. A better goal to set would be to do something that you feel happy while doing.
Workability is your benchmark
In ACT the aim is to live a life with meaning, purpose and vitality. All the exercises you do in this book (and beyond, hopefully) are designed to help you achieve this. So the question you need to ask is whether what you are doing is giving your life meaning and purpose and vitality. If the answer is ‘yes’, then keep doing it. If the answer is ‘no’, then stop and start doing something else.
The test for whether your goals (and your behaviour in general) are working is to check that your life is moving in the direction you want it. This can be difficult to judge because how you feel and what you think are not necessarily good indicators for the effectiveness of your goals. You might, for instance, be in considerable physical pain while running a marathon or you might be feeling very nervous before going on a date. Your mind might also be saying, ‘My legs are aching, I can’t do this’ or ‘What a stupid idea to think she might want to go on a date’. If you rely on your mind or how you are feeling to decide whether what you are doing is working, you are likely to come to the wrong conclusion.
It might seem ridiculous to think you can’t trust your own mind, but unfortunately minds are not always reliable witnesses. Remember minds have a bias towards the negative and they are set up to tune into risks and negative things. If you listen exclusively to what your minds tells you, you won’t get very far.
The only way to judge whether what you are doing is working is to review your actions in relation to your underlying values. You have to decide whether what you are doing is taking you in a valued life direction and not whether it is making you feel better or have more positive thoughts in the short term at least. You might be feeling better, you might not – that isn’t the main issue. Workability towards your goals is your benchmark. Is what you’re doing today delivering your short-, medium- or long-term goals? If the answer is ‘yes’, then keep doing it no matter what your mind might be saying or your body is feeling.
It’s not always easy to know when you have stopped trying to live according to your values; we can slip back into our old ways of doing things without noticing it has happened. A useful way to check where you are is to use a technique called ‘Which side are you on?’ (adapted from the psychologist Kevin Polk’s Life Manual). On a piece of card or paper, print out the table below.
EXERCISE: WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?
Values domains |
How important? |
Success? |
1. Family
(not including parenting)
2. Parenting
3. Friends
4. Work
5. Health
6. Intimate relationships
7. Leisure/Fun
8. Personal development
9. Community
10. Spirituality
On the other side of the piece of card have two headings, one at the top and the other in the middle. The headings are:
1. Suffering: Write down the thoughts, feelings, images, memories or any sensation you do not want.
2. Old Solutions: What have you done to avoid, eliminate, reduce or get rid of your suffering?
Fill out the values domains identifying which areas are important to you and how much success you feel you are having in each area. Then flip the card over and write your particular experiences under the two headings. For instance, under the first heading write down what you usually suffer from. This might be stress, anxiety, low mood, difficult thoughts, cravings, etc. Under the second heading write down the things you usually do – your old solutions – to deal with your suffering. This might be drink alcohol, use drugs, watch TV, eat too much, take painkillers, etc.
At this point, you have a piece of card which on one side outlines your values and on the other side outlines your suffering and what you have done in the past to deal with it. Now, flip the paper over and back again and ask yourself, ‘Which side am I on?’ If your answer is you are on the ‘suffering’ side, then you are not living in line with your values. What should you do next? It’s written on the other side.
The paradox of happiness
It’s probably clear by now that the aim of ACT is not to help us feel better. Wanting to ‘feel better’ is an emotion goal and is part of an unworkable control agenda. Emotion goals are problematic because (a) we can’t directly control our emotions (if you could, you would just do it and you wouldn’t be reading this book) and (b) they encourage more emotional avoidance because wanting to feel good also means we don’t want to feel bad. Not feeling bad might seem a reasonable goal, particularly if you are overwhelmed by feelings of anxiety or depression, but the aim of wanting to ‘feel better’ is putting the cart before the horse. We don’t feel better and then behave differently – we behave differently and then feel better.
What is interesting is that people who live meaningful, purposeful and vital lives will usually feel happier than people who are living without purpose or direction. So you might reasonably conclude the way to be happy is to engage in purposeful and meaningful activities. But if your ultimate aim is to feel better/happier/not sad and you are hoping to use ACT’s techniques to bring this about, then you will fail. This is because you are still following an emotional control agenda that is simply unworkable. ACT would become just another technique in a fruitless pursuit of controlling how you feel. And eventually you would have to discard it along with all your other failed techniques.
It can seem contradictory that the same ACT techniques can produce different results. The reason for this is the techniques are not context free. The underlying agenda you bring to using them will shape how effective they will be. If you are using ACT techniques to help you feel better (or not feel bad/discomfort/pain, etc), then you are following an avoidance/control agenda and it will not work for you. Whereas if you are using ACT to help you live with purpose and meaning, irrespective of how you are feeling, then it can work.
That’s why the goal of wanting to feel better rather than seeking to live with meaning is putting the cart before the horse. Meaning and purpose come before happiness, not the other way around. This means that for the ACT techniques outlined in this book to work for you, you have to commit fully to the agenda of being open to whatever life brings. Therein lies true happiness. It’s a paradox that you can only really be happy when you are open to feeling unhappy. There will be times when you are happy and there will be times when you are unhappy. That’s just the way life goes. But if you aren’t prepared to feel unhappy, then your opportunities for happiness also diminish.
If you aren’t sure about this, then don’t take my word for it, what does your own experience tell you? Think of those times in your life when you felt happy and unhappy – how open were you to experiencing all that life had to offer, the good and the bad, during those times of happiness? And how closed or avoidant were you to experiencing life during the times of unhappiness?
Keep on keeping on
What ACT teaches us to do is not easy. The truth is that being fully open to all that life brings is really hard, and in all likelihood you won’t always manage to do it. This isn’t a failure, it is part of the learning process. Sometimes you will be defensive and avoidant, particularly at the beginning when you are learning the skills. Buddhist monks, for example, spend years practising these skills and they don’t always manage to maintain full openness. This means sometimes you will revert to an avoidance agenda. When this happens, you will probably fail to keep some commitments to achieve your goals.
It’s worth remembering that no one keeps every commitment. You might have set a SMART goal to iron your work shirts the night before rather than waiting until the next morning. But when it came to it, you were just too tired to do it or you were so engrossed in something else like along phone call from an old friend that you forgot. There are too many reasons to list for why you might not keep your goal. The important point is not to give up on a goal just because you don’t always manage it.
It might be easier to accept failing to keep a commitment when the reason is external to us and/or beyond our control. Things happen (for example, irons break) that are unpredictable and interfere with what we are doing. But when we break a commitment to our self, we can feel a failure and this can lead to further lapses, particularly if our minds are being critical about it.
Total self-control is often presented as the model solution to managing our urges and addictions. The 12-Step Alcoholics Anonymous programme has the phrase ‘A drink equals a drunk’ and encourages people to go for complete abstinence. But people can interpret a failure to achieve this as meaning they are a failure. If you have a problem with alcohol, drugs or food, then it must certainly be appealing to think you could just stop. But new research suggests that such black-and-white thinking can be counterproductive. For example, psychologists have found that people who felt particularly bad about having the odd cigarette relapsed much more quickly than those people who felt less self-critical about it. In other words, the worse people felt about breaking a commitment to themselves, the more likely they were to break a future commitment to themselves. Most people who successfully quit smoking have a cigarette or two along the way. The trick is not to be too critical when these slips happen.
Most people who try to change their behaviour will at some point slip up. And when this happens it is important not to implode, give up and go back to how things were. Alan Marlatt, director of the Addictive Behaviors Research Center at the University of Washington, has likened it to learning to ride a bike. You will wobble, feel unsteady and make mistakes, but don’t give up because that is how you learn. Slips are how we find our balance, and it’s of no benefit to give up when they occur.
When you fail to keep a commitment to yourself or relapse into an earlier pattern of living, it is useful to ask if your values have changed. If they haven’t changed, then what next? Try again or give up? It’s up to you. If they have changed, then you will need to look once more at your goals so they reflect your values more accurately.
When you break a commitment to yourself (and in all likelihood you will), remember you have a choice. You can either stop trying to change, give up and go back to how things were. Or you can pick yourself up, dust yourself down and renew your commitment to trying again. That is not easy and it helps if we show ourselves a bit of kindness and understanding when things don’t work out as planned. Try to behave towards yourself as you would towards a close friend in the same situation – understand, sympathize, forgive and move on.
Notes
1 Charles Walker, MP, Hansard, June 14, 2012
2 Andre Agassi, Open: An Autobiography, Random House, New York, 2010