Self-Mastery Tip: Increase “Psychological Flexibility”

by Dr. Brian Higley

January 10th, 2010

Often, being extroverted (or focused on what is happening outside of ourselves) is helpful to the ability to experience or achieve what we want to in life.  On the other hand, introversion (or being focused on what is happening inside of ourselves) is also frequently very helpful as well.  An ability to focus on what is happening outside of ourselves (including the thoughts and feelings of others) and inside of ourselves (including our own strengths and weaknesses) when situations call for it can be critical to personal and professional success.  For this reason, psychological flexibility can help us be more at ease and more effective across a variety of situations in life.

Psychological flexibility can be increased by understanding our current comfort zones and how to broaden them.  Here are some ways people have been able to increase flexibility in their lives:

• Become clear about when you feel more introverted and/or more extroverted and what influences this. The first step in enhancing psychological flexibility is often awareness of our current levels of introversion and extroversion and what situations or people tend to influence these feelings.  It can be helpful to know what characteristics of ourselves, others and our environments tend to influence us to be more engaged in the outside world and/or more focused on our internal states of being.
• Become skilled at using relaxation exercises when feeling overwhelmed. In certain situations, we can all be overwhelmed by too many extroverted activities and/or too many introverted experiences.  Relaxation exercises (such as deep breathing or relaxed stretching) can help us to expand our comfort zones when we feel overwhelmed by too many external stimuli (extroverted experiences) such as other people’s needs or reactions by some of the things that are going on inside of us (introverted experiences), such as excitement, fear or anger.
• Practice becoming more comfortable in different situations at a pace that is challenging, but not overwhelming. Once we know what tends to influence us and how to relax during challenging experiences, we can begin expanding our comfort zones across situations.  For example, if we tend toward introversion and are overwhelmed at board meetings or social gatherings, we can begin by spending 15-30 minutes with others, then going somewhere to practice solitary relaxation exercises before returning to the social experience.  If we are more comfortable in extroverted situations and are overwhelmed by certain internal or solitary experiences (fear, anger, excitement, boredom, etc.), we can start by engaging in 15 minutes of these introverted experiences, then relax with others for awhile.  Once we become more at ease in situations that require introversion and extroversion, we can increase the amount of time spent in all sorts of experiences that we believe are related to our own personal and professional success and satisfaction.

NOTE TO THOSE USING THE MISSION FULFILLMENT SYSTEM: You can work toward increasing psychological flexibility by adding a new Objective to your system by using the “Add New Item” link (for example, “Increase my psychological flexibility”).  You can then develop a SMART Goal related to that new Objective by using the “Add Subitem” link to the far right of the new Objective (for example, “Practice 10 minutes of deep breathing when I am overwhelmed in social situations.”).

FOR THOSE WHO ARE NOT ON THE MISSION FULFILLMENT SYSTEM: Click here to for more information and click here to sign up.

FINAL NOTE: If you were linked to this article by a video or email, please return to that link and proceed with any other instructions that you deem helpful.  For more Execution Excellence tips and tools visit our site at: www.excellencetree.com

Article Filed under: Self-Mastery Tips