There was an elephant who travelled with a circus. The owner figured that the elephant was one of the main attractions so he always positioned it at the entrance to the big top. All the children had the thrill of lining up and feeding the elephant on the way in.
Except, of course, you can’t just let an elephant loose. It has to be tethered. So, if you looked closely, you’d see that the two-ton beast had a rope around its ankle. And the rope was tied to a tent peg. And the tent peg was hammered into the grass.
Let me revise the scenario. You have a wild animal with a rope around its ankle, tied to a tent peg. It’s been raining so the tent peg isn’t hammered into the ground. The elephant keeper has just pushed the tent peg into the soft turf with the palm of his hand. ‘There, that should hold you.’
Question: Why doesn’t the elephant do a runner? Why doesn’t it take a look at the flimsy and inadequate tether and disappear to Tesco to get some sticky buns?
The answer is, of course, that the elephant is comfortable. It’s being fed and watered. It’s got a routine. And besides, it doesn’t think it can escape. When it was a baby elephant it had a chain wrapped around its ankle. And the chain was padlocked to a lamp post. So, no matter how hard it tried to escape, it just resulted in a sore ankle.
Now the elephant has grown up. It has learned that it can’t escape. Its knowledge and experience is that it tried to escape but was trapped.
So, what’s really holding the elephant back? The rope? The keeper? The fact that it’s getting fed every night?
No. The elephant’s belief system is what’s stopping it.
The elephant is an example of what Martin Seligman calls ‘learned helplessness’.
This next sentence is difficult to phrase. Without wishing to sound derogatory, are you that elephant? Is there something in your belief system that’s holding you back?
If so, we can help.