Unlearning Helplessness: Take Charge of Your Life
There are ways to overcome learned helplessness. The ways to overcome learned helplessness are: recognizing that you are practicing learned helplessness, learn to stop this behavior, and, last of all, stop being helpless. Find an area of your life that needs an overhaul, plan what you can do with week to take responsibility and take an action today.
Do you know someone who’s always having a problem? Some people are totally helpless. They can’t file their taxes by themselves, but it’s too much bother to get someone to do it, so they don’t file until it’s too late.
They don’t renew their license plates, and would rather pay multiple tickets than do it, because they “don’t want to mess with it.” They live in homes that need attention, because they can’t fix it themselves and “don’t have the money” to hire someone else – though money may be plentiful for frivolous uses.
Everything in their life is a mess, and they can’t do anything about it. They won’t use a computer because they don’t know how, but they won’t go to a class because they don’t have time, and they can’t learn from a book because they don’t have one…
This may be a slight exaggeration, but honestly, not much of one for some people. The annoying thing about these people is that they are only helpless because they choose to be.
It’s learned helplessness. They’ve gotten by with it their whole lives because no one has challenged them on it. People who really care about them ignore it, and everyone else leaves.
I think we all have a touch of this learned helplessness, in some areas of our lives, and I also think we can overcome this learned helplessness in three very simple steps.
The first step is just to recognize that you’re practicing learned helplessness. You can ask someone you really trust if they see this behavior in you at times. You can also start noticing when you tell yourself you can’t do something when in fact you really just don’t want to. Whatever method you use for recognizing your helpless behavior, it’s important that you do recognize it.
Second, you can then begin eliminating this behavior simply by committing to stop. Like anything else, you have to want to stop acting helpless, but fortunately, once you realize you are doing this, you’ll be so annoyed by your behavior, yourself, that you’ll be very eager to get rid of this pattern of inaction in your life.
And of course the third step is to stop acting helpless. Of course, it’s not that easy. I would suggest that once you’ve identified an area in which you do not take responsibility (which is all learned helplessness is), you first find someone who can help you learn the things you need to do, if you don’t know how, then make a practice of doing one thing in that area every day. If it’s not something that needs doing every day, then spend time every day learning or writing about that area of your life.
When I say “area,” I don’t mean that if your computer is messed up or you haven’t figured out how to program the DVD player you should spend endless hours fixing these things. But if you can spend time on that area of your life. Learn what it takes to take charge of those technologies or hire someone else to do so. This way, you’ll be using the technology for what it was intended for instead of watching it gather dust and cursing at it and the world in which we live. Spend time on the maintenance areas of your life.
How can you take charge of your life and overcome learned helplessness today?
- Find one area of your life that needs an overhaul
- Plan what you can do this week to start taking responsibility
- Take an action today
Thanks to Debra Moorhead.com for including this post in the Carnival of Healing: Healthy Living.
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Hi David, what a post! So true… and no, I don’t think your description exaggerates one bit. I’ve known people like this in my life and found them to be entirely frustrating. One can also describe such people as passive. One good thing about folks like this… they leave plenty of room for people who take a more active approach to get where they need to be faster!
Dina,
You said it!
Benjamin Franklin wrote in his letters on life and prosperity, and was published in Poor Richard’s Almanac, as adhering to the maxim: “God helps those who help themselves.”
One needn’t take this literally, nor is it a stretch, to understand that he was cautioning against learned helplessness.
I would say that helplessness often comes from being disconnected from ourselves. Being whole is really the main source of power we have. Our child rearing and educational system can easily contribute to disconnecting our initiative, anger, and “spunk” from ourselves. Trying to change behavior without reconnecting is usually another act of helplessness!
Article I wrote that’s relevant :
Breaking through chains of identity
Mathew,
Agreed that it’s difficult to take responsibility for ourselves, and take action in the form of doing the next right thing, when we don’t take the time to be honest with ourselves and continue to get to know, and be comfortable with, ourselves.
David
Learned helplessness was the first thing that I learnt about when I started personal development, it is one of the most dreadful things ever, and I appreciate this article all the more for it.
Cheers,
Albert | UrbanMonk.Net
Modern personal development, entwined with ancient spirituality.
Everytime when I do something for my growth and development, seems like there’s always someone who will go all the way to undo all that.Then,a friend of mine, made this observation that made me believe her. To make this short, is: everytime I clean my windows it rains which seems to confirm that what I do,there will always be a counter action to undo all that good.- True story.
Your article really resonated with me David, and in so many ways! I see it in myself everyday.
When i was young and foolish (as opposed to my now being old and more aware of my foolishness) i used to fantasize that someone; a mentor, a teacher, a knight in shining armor would come and fix my life.
(better yet a knight in shining amour!!!)
No one is coming to fix me or my life and there are plenty of people willing to step on me to get what they want.
You’ll never get what’s yours if you’re not even willing to reach for it.
There are so many traps to fall into. My worst one is tv. I can easily spend hours watching someone elses life;someone elses journey to wholeness or acheivement, because my life is so empty.
Even knowing as I do, I still have to force myself to turn off the idiot box, put down the twinkie (so to speak), and pick up one of the perfectly good tools that lay like litter around my comfy chair…
..end of rant…thank you.
Deborah,
Well put. I know that situation all too well.
Thanks for visiting and sharing.
David