John Place online

This post is for anyone who’s ever felt trapped.

• Workers trapped in dead-end jobs
• Spouses trapped in unfulfilling marriages
• Depressives trapped in despair
• Addicts trapped in a helpless cycle of substance abuse, cigarette smoking, or binge eating
• Lonely people trapped in emotional isolation
• Poor people shackled by poverty

Anyone old enough to read this article has likely felt trapped by something at some point. Some people might say that feeling trapped is just part of living. I know what it’s like to feel trapped by relationships, jobs, and finances, but I also know what it’s like to break free; there is hope.

You have the power to escape nearly any trap that befalls you. And while it’s not feasible to document all the steps that you’d have to take to escape the endless array of claustrophobic life traps available to us in the modern world, it is feasible to discuss the single concept that binds all of these traps together: learned helplessness.

Just as surely as you can learn to be successful, you can learn to be helpless. And once you learn to be helpless, you stop trying. Lack of effort in a situation where change is possible — allowing your life to drift instead of taking the wheel — is a passive destroyer of potential; that’s why learned helplessness is so devastating.

Consider this definition of learned helplessness, paraphrased from Wikipedia:

Learned helplessness is a psychological condition in which people have learned to believe they are helpless in a particular situation. They believe they have no control over their situation and that whatever they do is futile. As a result, they will stay passive in the face of an unpleasant, harmful or damaging situation, even when they actually do have the power to change their circumstances.

Whether you’re trapped in a bad marriage, a dead-end job, or some other unhealthy pattern of living, the question is: are you really trapped? or have you learned to be helpless?

Dogs Teach A Shocking Lesson in Learned Helplessness

Many years ago, I remember hearing about an electroshock experiment conducted on a group of dogs. One group of dogs was taught to jump over a hurdle to escape the shocks; they learned quickly because they didn’t like being shocked!

Another group of dogs was given no means of escape. These dogs quickly learned that nothing they did could help them avoid the electric shocks, so they sat passively, whimpering, until the researchers mercifully ended the experiment.

And what do you think happened when this second group of dogs was moved to an enclosure where they could have escaped the shocks by jumping over a hurdle? You guessed it: they just sat there. They didn’t even attempt to escape. The dogs had learned to be helpless to the extent that they were no longer capable of saving themselves, even when they had the power to do so.

Of course, humans are more sophisticated than dogs, but the aforementioned experiment led to hundreds of others that verify that people can – and do – learn to be helpless, and once we do, the consequences can be dire.

Reclaim Your Power: Learn to Be Successful

Several months ago, I wrote about my experiences with grade school bullies and how I had learned to be helpless as a child through their attacks. If I could learn to be helpless through common bullying, what of the abused child? What of those who lose a parent or undergo serious trauma? The sad truth is that life is full of circumstances – both seemingly innocuous and blatantly horrible – in which a person can learn to be helpless.

And until you learn to reclaim your power, as I did, you’ll never truly be free to live a life of your own design. That’s the real tragedy.

The next time you feel resigned to accept some undesirable fate, stop and consider whether your resignation is a symptom of learned helplessness. Are you sure there’s not a way to make things better? Consider your options. And learn to believe in yourself.

As Henry Ford once said, “Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right.”

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