What's Stopping You?

Overcoming Learned Helplessness and Do What You Never Dreamed Possible.

 

"Males, from birth, are trained to take risks. Females, on the other hand, are new at the game. This book is designed to give women mastery of the tools they need to go beyond their inclination to take only emotional risks and to venture into the traditionally masculine realm of physical, financial and intellectual pursuits."

Nicky Marone, Author

 

EXCERPTS FROM 'WHAT'S STOPPING YOU?'

"Few of us would describe ourselves as helpless. We pay the bills, take care of our families, meet our commitments. We are responsible, adult women.

Yet many of us also live a secret life, which, like the dark side of the moon, is kept hidden from others. It is in this secret life that we understand the meaning of helplessness. It is in this secret life that we can be held in the grip of repetitive and destructive behavior patterns. We may hold steadfastly to unhealthy love relationships; we may struggle endlessly with eating disorders or substance abuse; we may panic needlessly at the unforeseen changes in our lives. Depression stalks some of us like a samurai. Many of us scrupulously avoid risk or challenge in any areas but the ones in which we have already succeeded, fearing the process of learning a new task. Even after achieving most of our goals, many of us remain plagued by the secret self-doubts of low self-esteem.

We labor under a negative force in our lives we can't quite name, a force that depletes us of energy and denies us our right to meet life's challenges with a sense of excitement and joy. We bear an unnecessary burden, which undermines our ability to take risks and act in our own best interests. In other words, we suffer from a condition shared by many women in our society -- a condition known as learned helplessness. Learned helplessness is a debilitating breakdown in our belief system that can produce serious behavior disorders. Fortunately this style of behavior can be unlearned, but, left untreated, it can ruin a life that would otherwise be happy and fulfilling.

The study of learned helplessness has unearthed many intriguing insights, but one is particularly noteworthy: Our common-sense explanations of human motivation and perseverance do not, in fact, explain human motivation and perseverance. For example, common sense suggests that intelligence and ability would be critical factors influencing whether an individual seeks or avoids challenges, persists or withdraws in the face of difficulty, and develops skills adequately and effectively. Research, however, shows that this is not necessarily the case, particularly among females. In studies where confusion is experimentally induced, boys of low ability are facilitated by their confusion; that is, they try harder. Girls of high ability, on the other hand, are the group most debilitated by confusion; that is, they give up.

These self-defeating patterns remain active in adult gender studies as well. When women are asked to predict their performance level on a new task, they consistently underestimate their actual performance. Males consistently overestimate theirs. On later tests, even after women have succeeded at the task and men have failed at it, these different expectations of future success do not change. Finally, if given the opportunity to avoid the task, women will typically opt out.

If, then, our competence does not predict our likeliness to seek out challenges and persist in the face of difficulty, what does? The short answer is our beliefs, or how we explain life events to ourselves. In other words, the critical factors influencing persistence and motivation are the ways we construe the situation, interpret the events, and process the information.

The opposite of learned helplessness is mastery behavior. People who have learned to be mastery-oriented are highly adaptive to new situations, are stimulated by the challenges of change, are persistent in the face of adversity, and seem to enjoy exerting effort in pursuit of a goal. They think strategically when faced with an obstacle and apply unique, creative solutions to their problems. Most importantly, they enjoy doing it!

The range of behavior from learned helplessness to mastery is a vast and uncharted terrain, particular to each individual who undertakes the journey. The price of helplessness can range from producing minor inconveniences, to obscuring one's vision of major opportunities, to blinding one to dangerous or abusive situations.

The important aspect here is that mastery-oriented individuals do more than just cope. They create reality and alter the world to fit their conception of it. For the benefit of us all, they demonstrate in living color that the world will yield to the creative and focused application of a committed psyche.

This book examines the difference between those who, through no fault of their own, have learned helplessness and those who have acquired mastery-behavior. Those with learned helplessness will avoid and fear risk, thereby ultimately avoiding and fearing life itself, which is fraught with risk. Those who are mastery-oriented embrace both life's terror and its counterpart, life's ecstasy.

With these realities in sharp focus throughout this book, we can begin the process of taking risks and replacing the self-defeating behaviors of learned helplessness with the life-giving, self-affirming traits of mastery behavior."

 

Site maintained by Creative Computer Consulting, LLC, Copyright © 1998