If you keep a predatory fish, such as a pike, in an aquarium it will display normal healthy predator behaviours.\u00a0 Put a prey fish in and a hungry pike will attack and swallow it in the blink of an eye.<\/p>\n
If you use a glass wall to divide the aquarium in half, with the pike on one side and a prey fish on the other, then the pike will pursue the prey fish again.\u00a0 But this time it just smacks into the glass and gets a painful bang on the head for its trouble.\u00a0 No matter!\u00a0 It regroups, attacks again and \u2018crack\u2019 the same result \u2013 a whole load of pain and no gain.<\/p>\n
After a while the pike learns that going for the prey fish is not such a smart move.\u00a0 Chasing what you want just ends in failure and pain.\u00a0 You can even remove the glass wall from the tank, surround the starving pike with prey fish and it still will not attack.\u00a0 It has learned helplessness.<\/p>\n
There is a lot of learned helplessness out there.\u00a0 A lot of people who used to have dreams and aspirations, but in pursuing them have just got pain and no gain.\u00a0 Painful experiences and memories from school, parents and peers who do not believe in them and perhaps a history of redundancy and unemployment.\u00a0 You can dangle \u2018opportunities\u2019 in front of them and still they will not grab them.\u00a0 They have learned that this will only end in pain \u2013 and no gain.\u00a0 Learned helplessness.<\/p>\n
And \u2018advice\u2019 even well meaning, technically competent and powerful advice will not help.\u00a0 In fact it will hinder \u2013 it will reinforce the idea that they are somehow deficient.\u00a0 That if they were OK they would not be in this situation.\u00a0 It reinforces the helplessness.<\/p>\n
So what does work?\u00a0 Knowing someone who believes in you \u2013 unconditionally.\u00a0 Who encourages you to pick yourself up, learn the lesson and move on.\u00a0 Someone who has faith in you and wants to see you become the wonderful person that you have the potential to become.\u00a0 Someone who does not preach or advise but just helps you to grow \u2013 and to keep growing.\u00a0 Someone who puts your well-being at the top of the agenda \u2013 and their contracted outputs much lower down.\u00a0 A facilitator, a coach, a true friend who will help tackle the real barriers to progress \u2013 not just the technical challenges to be overcome but the personal ones too.<\/p>\n