In the 1960s, Richard Solomon and his team of researchers conducted a simple experiment.
They got some dogs, restrained them, and, gave them about 64 electric shocks.
The following day, the dogs were placed in a special box with two compartments separated by a short barrier.
The idea was that if the floor of one compartment was electrified, the dog could hop over the barrier and escape into the other side.
However, that wasn’t what happened in Solomon’s experiment.
When the dogs were placed in the special box and the current turned on, they didn’t move an inch.
The dogs were in discomfort, yet, they didn’t do the one thing that could relieve their pain – Jump to the other side!!!
As it turned out, the experience of being restrained and shocked 64 times in one day taught the dogs one thing: No matter what you do, you can’t escape the pain
This phenomenon is called Learned Helplessness
Unfortunately, as a human, you do the same thing.
Unlike computers and phones that are constantly updating to access better functionalities, humans love to build their lives on faulty and incomplete mental models established on incorrect and untested assumptions.
As a result, when you’re pushed to the wall, you are ill-equipped to view the situation from another angle where the solution is more obvious.
In this state, you forget that you are never really helpless or powerless.
You ignore the fact that God deliberately designed you to be a partner with Him in the continually unfolding story of creation.
You forget that God made you to institute order on chaos.
There’s good news, though.
You’re not a dog.
You can make a decision to seize your power back and step into the original way God designed you to function.
I share 3 useful ideas:
1. Elevate Your Perception
The beauty of a painting is not appreciated when you’re kissing it, with your eyes a few millimeters away from the picture.
To enjoy the painting, you need to step back away from it.
In the same way, you fail to see the masterpiece that God is making with your life because you’re too wrapped up in the minutiae of everyday living.
If you simply take a step back, it’s easier to find perspective and find what God is doing in you and through your circumstances.
Learned helplessness melts in the heat of perspective.
2. Your situation is not an isolated one
When going through trying times, humans forget that they are not the only ones who have experienced such circumstances.
No matter how rough the situation it is you’re going through is, there are people who have gone through worse and came through on the other side.
It’s easier to snap out of learned helplessness when you realize that: (a) your situation could have been much worse, and (b) other people in similar or worse circumstances pulled through.
3. There’s always a way of escape
Gavin de Becker once said, “When you worry, ask yourself, what am I choosing not to see right now?”
Learned helplessness is built on a foundation of faulty mental models that are in turn established upon incorrect assumptions of reality.
Once you understand this, you’d realize that you have no problem but a perception problem.
The fact that you’re faced with a situation means you have what it takes to get out of it.
Open your eyes and heart and stay sensitive, you’d realize that the answer is closer than you think.