Why utilising evidence-based psychology for work is a high-performance decision.

Sep 6

5 min read

... and continuing alone can be plain inefficient

Why do successful people find it hard to ask for help? Uptrained Brain psychology programme showing evidence-based psychology applied to work, wellbeing, relationships, education, performance and government policy.

Evidence-based Psychology is applied to far more than mental wellbeing—from work and performance to advertising, education, sports performance and public policy. Why is it, then, that we resist applying psychology to our personal development? Is this the superpower you're lacking?

Something I've noticed over years of working as a psychologist and executive coach is that some of the people who find it hardest to ask for help are the people who are most used to being capable.

They're the problem-solvers. The dependable ones. The people others turn to. They've often built successful careers by working hard, taking responsibility and finding a way through when things get difficult.

And then, when they start struggling, those same strengths can work against them.

They think:

I should be able to sort this out.

Why can't I just get a grip on this?

Other people seem to cope.

I don't need help. I just need to try harder.

I've always found that interesting. Because in almost every other area of high performance, we think completely differently.

Nobody thinks an athlete is weak for having a coach

Elite athletes don't wait until they're failing before they work with experts.

Sports psychology is used to help already talented people understand their thinking, manage pressure, build confidence and perform more consistently.

We don't look at an Olympic athlete working with a psychologist and think, Well, they obviously can't cope. We think they're serious about performing at their best.

Yet put a successful professional in a psychologist's office or an executive coaching session and they can feel they ought to justify being there.

There's a strange double standard in that. And, there's another irony.

We're surrounded by psychology anyway

Psychology is already being used on us all the time.

It's used in advertising and marketing to influence what we notice and buy. It's used in education to understand learning and motivation. Behavioural science informs public policy in the government's 'Nudge Unit'. Technology and social media companies employ an enormous amount of knowledge about attention, reward and human behaviour. Their algorithms and user interfaces are carefully crafted to exploit your dopamine receptors and build expectation, keeping you hooked like a fish on a line.

So, other people are quite happy to use an understanding of your brain to influence what you do.

Why wouldn't you want some of that knowledge working in your favour?

For me, that's one of the most useful ways of thinking about psychological support and executive coaching. It isn't about somebody fixing you.It's about understanding yourself better.

Evidence-based psychology for work that nobody teaches us in uni or at work.

We spend years training for our careers.We learn the technical knowledge. We gain qualifications. We build experience. If we're successful, we take on more responsibility.

But there's another set of skills most of us are simply expected to pick up along the way:

How do you stop thinking about work when work is finished?
How do you make a difficult decision and then leave it alone?
How do you maintain high standards without becoming perfectionistic?
How do you respond to a mistake without mentally beating yourself up for the next three days?
How do you say no when being helpful and dependable has become part of your identity?
How do you deal with uncertainty when your brain desperately wants an answer?
And how do you recognise that you're heading towards burnout when, from the outside, you're still performing perfectly well?

These are psychological skills. And being intelligent or successful doesn't automatically give us them.

Sometimes our strengths become part of the problem

This is something I see repeatedly in my work with professionals.

Often, the characteristics causing difficulties aren't obvious weaknesses at all.

They're strengths that have gone into overdrive.

High standards can slide into perfectionism.

Responsibility can become feeling responsible for everything.

Careful thinking can become overthinking.

Being dependable can turn into never saying no.

Drive can become an inability to rest without feeling guilty.

Self-improvement can become a relentless inner critic pointing out the next thing you need to do better.

These patterns can work remarkably well for quite a long time. They may even be part of the reason you've been successful.

Until they don't.

And that's one reason burnout can be so confusing. You can be good at your job, outwardly successful and still find that the way you're operating is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain.

Asking for help isn't the opposite of being capable

I think we need to challenge the idea that asking for help means you've reached the point where you can no longer cope.

Sometimes it's simply the most efficient and resourceful response to a problem.

If I have a problem with my car, I don't spend six months feeling ashamed that I haven't independently acquired the skills of a mechanic. If I want to improve my fitness, getting advice from a physical trainer seems entirely sensible.

Our brains are considerably more complicated than either.

Working with a psychologist gives you access to knowledge and tools that you have never have been taught. You still have to do the work.But you don't have to invent the tools yourself.

This is exactly why I created Uptrained Brain

Over time, I realised I was seeing many of the same patterns again and again in the professionals I worked with: work stress, overthinking, perfectionism, self-criticism, difficulty switching off, imposter feelings and a sense that however much they achieved, it somehow wasn't quite enough.

And very often these weren't people who needed to care less about their work.

They needed to learn how to keep the qualities that made them good at what they did, without those qualities costing them their wellbeing.

That's the thinking behind Uptrained Brain, my 10-week psychologist-led programme for professionals struggling with work stress, burnout and self-doubt.

It brings together practical psychological skills to help you understand your patterns, quieten the inner critic, respond differently to stress and uncertainty, switch off more effectively and feel more calmly confident. And it's delivered in flexible, bite-sized resources, perfect for tired, foggy brains.