Learned Helplessness is when you face a situation and you don’t try to change your circumstances even though you have the ability to do so. It comes from a lack of confidence and a lack of belief in yourself.
Learned helplessness was discovered in 1967 by a psychologist of the name Martin Seligman. Basically what he did is he got a bunch of dogs and put them in a small area and would randomly zap them and anytime they would try to get out, they would get zapped. Then he did another part of the experiment where he opened the area up but would still zap them randomly, even though the area was open the dogs no longer tried to escape. That is what learned helplessness is. They have been conditioned to feel that whenever they tried to do something they were not able to escape that situation. So even though they saw a way out, they felt they could not do it because they were conditioned to feel they were going to get zapped.
Put it in place of humans, this is a learned behavior that goes all the way back to childhood. You dealt with some sort of abuse or mistreatment where you tried to get out of it or tried to make it better but you still stayed in that situation. You learned that no matter what you did it was never good enough and you didn’t matter, you didnt have a voice and you were going to stay in that situation.
As a child you are helpless. We rely on our caregivers to give us our basic needs. So if they are not fulfilled or we can’t get out of our negative situations, we then become a victim to our circumstances. So as a child you most likely were told that you couldn’t do things, you didn’t matter and no matter what you did it wouldn’t be good enough. Hearing those things then became a belief in your mind as well as hearing that you can’t do things on your own and you need help.
You now feel like a victim and have the victim mentality where you feel like you need to be saved, you need to be saved and it all depends on your circumstances, not on you. Things happen to you rather than you taking control of it.
This is because you were not able to form problem-solving skills. Instead of learning how to see a problem and coming up with a solution, you were conditioned to believe that when things happen you have to sit and take it and this is what I deserve. S you think you either have to wait for it to change or you have to wait for someone to save you.
Helplessness can be triggered by different circumstances, it all depends on how you were raised. For instance, you may be confident in trying to solve problems for others but when it comes to yourself you become completely helpless or you just have generalized helplessness where every situation comes up you just become helpless.
For example, If you are an addict you may think there is nothing you can do and you are just an addict, or let’s say your computer is not working and rather than trying to figure it out, you call someone else to do it
The good news is that this is a learned behavior and you can retrain your brain to learn new things.
Identify that negative voice that tells you that you are stuck, you can’t do anything and you do not matter. What is this feeling it creates? Be aware of your triggers that trigger you to think that way. A big one you may notice yourself say is ” I don’t know.” So ask yourself, do you really not know, or do you feel helpless? Is this something that is actually out of your control or is it something you can do something about and it is your wrong programming telling you, you can’t?”
So after you identify the feeling, it is important to be aware of the inner dialogue that is going through your head. You may notice you tell yourself things like “I don’t matter”, “I need to ask someone else”, “I have no voice”, “Nothing ever goes my way.” That story you tell yourself is your inner child speaking out. It’s saying you are hurting and you have tried things in the past but you stayed helpless.
What happened as a child is not your fault, what you do now with this pain and helplessness is your responsibility. It is your job to heal this inner child. No one else is going to fix it for you. So you need to tell that inner child, you are not a helpless child anymore. You are doing better now, you are no longer dependent on your parents, you have a say now. You need to change the language from waiting to get saved, to telling yourself you are going to save yourself.
There also needs to be a healthy balance of knowing when to ask for help. You do not want to be too independent or overly dependent. you need a healthy balance. So you want to do things for yourself first and when you are having a hard time then you need to ask for help. It’s all part of your dialogue.
You also want to work on your belief systems. All those negative things you heard as a child, you know need to reaffirm the opposite. This is to help you retrain your brain. You need to tell yourself things like you can do this, you have the answers, you can help yourself. Because you are fully capable of doing things, it’s the story that is in your head that is preventing you.
Now, this where the action part comes in. Find opportunities and situations where you don’t know what to do and practice those problem-solving skills. So look at your situation, whether you think it is realistic or not, think of all the possible solutions for your situation. Now you need to pick one and go for it and do it. It is all about trial and error. This is a skill you are learning so it will take time. Sometimes things will succeed and sometimes they will fail and that is okay, you will learn.
If you have a hard time thinking for yourself, think about what would you tell a friend? How would you help a friend in the same situation? Then apply it to yourself. Gain that courage by telling yourself that you are going to go for it and that you are sick of your circumstances. Rip it off like a band-aid. You also need to focus on what is in your control vs what is not. Because then when you solve that problem, you build that confidence. When you keep building upon it, you’ll eventually get to a point where it is now a skill you have.
What do you guys think? Leave it all in the comments below!
