Psychological Flexibility

Psychological Flexibility is a set of thinking and behavioural skills that supports holistic wellbeing, resilience and performance in the workplace.

By practicing these skills, we become more self-aware and mindful of our approach, we learn to use values rather than emotions to guide our behaviour, and we learn how to pursue meaningful objective goals. We do more of the stuff that truly matters to us in life.

The scientific evidence supporting psychological flexibility is impressive and the approach has been used in a wide range of organisational settings to boost employee health and satisfaction at work. Principles-led, it can be developed in a variety of ways, which is reflected in our approach.

What does it mean to be psychologically flexible?

When we’re psychologically flexible, we bring our best selves to each context. We don’t take passing thoughts and flashes of emotion as guides for action, but rely on our values.

These skills help us avoid pointless struggles with unwelcome inner experiences, ground us in the present here and now, while giving us clarity on what really matters so we can make progress towards our goals.

“Psychological flexibility is the ability to feel and think with openness, to attend voluntarily to your experience of the present moment, and to move your life in directions that are important to you, building habits that allow you to live life in accordance with your values and aspirations.”

Steven Hayes, ‘A Liberated Mind’.

While there are six key skills involved, we can also summarise them in the following easy to remember call to action:

Show up!

Become more aware of the present moment and avoid getting caught up in the disappointments of the past or worrying about the future. Show up in each context, mindful of what it requires of you.

Let go!

Let go of the struggle with your thoughts and emotions, while accepting the discomfort that can come when doing something meaningful. Thoughts are just thoughts, and not always great signposts for action.

Get moving!

Clarify your values to identify what really matters to you in life, then use these values to help you guide your actions, as you pursue those most important goals.

So am I psychologically inflexible then?

If psychological flexibility represents a set of skills, then many of us could benefit from practicing these skills a little more.

Think about how you respond to challenges and setbacks. The types of situations you try to avoid. The actions you’ve taken which you later regret. Common examples of psychological inflexibility include:

Lashing out emotionally at others and regretting your actions later
Responding to events around you impulsively
Making decisions based on imagined futures
Getting caught up with worries to the detriment of taking helpful action
An unhelpful attachment to aspects of your identity, such as seniority or profession

Moving from inflexibility to flexibility is a learning journey. We’re not born responding to the world around us in an ideal and helpful way. It’s a function of our upbringing and life’s experiences. But change is always possible.

How you can learn more about Psychological Flexibility

There are a number ways you can learn how to implement the principles of psychological flexibility in your everyday life. We offer structured training options, outlined below, as well as one-to-one coaching.

To get you started on our journey, check out the various psychological flexibility articles on our blog and have a listen to our podcast to find out more.

If you’d like to know more about our training options, have a look at the summary below. When it comes to one-to-one coaching, you can find out all about our coaching solutions here.

Training options

To maximise access to the training, we’ve created several training routes. Regardless of the route you choose, you’ll get an excellent introduction into these important life skills.

We have three Psychological Flexibility courses, ranging from a 90mins introductory session, through to a one-day workshop. All courses can be run in person or via webinar. Additionally, all our training courses can be augmented with the addition of one-to-one coaching following course completion, providing an end-to-end solution in personalised development. We have something for every audience and context.

Thriving with Psychological Flexibility

Our new course for 2024 brings Psychological Flexibility together with a focus on wellbeing. We’ll cover all the core skills, examined through the lens of wellbeing. Whether your focus is physical wellbeing, psychological wellbeing or social wellbeing, you’ll learn how to cultivate skills and habits to make valued changes in your life.

A blended learning course, delegates will cover the essentials in a self-directed online format, then attend a series of three interactive webinars to explore and practice the skills. Find out more here.

First steps in Psychological Flexibility

This is an introductory two-hour session to give delegates an overview of the skill set and guidance on how to cultivate the key habits that support it. ‘First steps…’ is the perfect introduction to this impactful skillset, well-suited to all-hands webinars, or intimate face-to-face training sessions.

Delegates will leave with the tools to start their psychological flexibility journey. This is followed up with a live online Q&A session once delegates have had an opportunity to practice their new skills.

Show up! Let go! Get moving!

This half-day course goes into more detail about psychological flexibility and its constituent skills. We explore how to show up in the present moment, let go of struggles with thoughts and emotions, and get moving in the direction of what really matters in life – our values.

We then schedule a live online Q&A session, where delegates can discuss what it’s been like to bring the skills to life, get answers to their questions and plan for continued application of their new psychological flexibility toolkit.

Me at my best

Our flagship Psychological Flexibility course can be run as either a one-day face to face workshop with an online follow-up, or as a series of four online training sessions, scheduled to meet your needs. We’ll explore how our innate psychological inflexibility shows up and makes life more difficult.

Each subsequent session covers two of the key skills of Psychological Flexibility and their implementation. Then, we schedule a follow-up online session to cover off delegate questions, stories of how they’ve put the skills into practice and a road map for future skills practice.

The core skills

However you develop you psychological flexibility with us, you’ll acquire six key skills. Each makes a unique contribution to our experience and each supports the others.

Where is your focus right now? Present moment awareness is our ability to connect with the present moment, to bring our attention to the here and now, and use what it tells us to guide our behaviour.

When we are present, we can guide our attention with intention, minimising unhelpful mental time-travel and day-dreaming. We can pay attention to what really matters to us in life. That person, that conversation, that meeting, that TV show.

You can learn all about the benefits of cultivating present moment awareness and mindful focus in Ep 157 of our podcast, ‘My Pocket Psych’. The video of this episode is available here.

Our mind often provides us with thoughts, images, memories and predictions that can take us away from the present moment. We can give these mental experiences far more attention than they’re worth, and let them exert a larger influence on our behaviour than is helpful. We can ‘buy into’ unhelpful stories about ourselves and others, spend precious time debating with our own thoughts, or use our energy to work at suppressing mental experiences we don’t want.

When we learn the skill of Cognitive Defusion, we learn how to step back from this kind of mental ‘stuff’, seeing it for what it is. Rather than attempting to change it, suppress it, or remove it, we learn to accommodate it and just let it be. Find out more about defusion in this episode of the podcast and this video on YouTube.

Our values act like an internal compass, giving us a sense of direction in life. When we’re clear on our values, we are clear on what really matters to us in life. We can then use them, rather than fleeting thoughts or temporary and volatile emotions, to guide our daily decisions and behaviour.

Bringing our values to life regularly contributes to our sense of meaning and purpose, supporting our sense of authenticity and our wellbeing. And this doesn’t mean personal reinvention or drastic action. Often, the smallest of values-align habits are all that is required.

In this episode of the podcast, we look at the value of our values, and explore some simple ways you can get clear on what really matters to you. You can watch our conversation on YouTube here.

When we cultivate the skill of committed action, we move away from unhelpful, automatic responses to our environment and instead act with intention, bringing our values to life. We do more of what matters, not because it’s easy or fun, but because it’s worthwhile, values-aligned, supportive of our goals or simply necessary.

Doing more of what matters also helps us be clear on who we are through our actions, not just our intentions, and moves us closer to our valued goals and outcomes. Learn more about this important skill in this episode of the podcast and watch the conversation on YouTube here.

So much of the meaningful stuff we do in life comes with a healthy dose of psychological discomfort. All the psychological experiences we would much prefer to avoid: fear of failure, rejection by others, being in the spotlight…the list goes on. It’s all too easy to focus on minimising or avoiding these experiences completely, but when we do, we miss out on valuable opportunities to grow and learn. We get a short term sense of relief, but the longer term impact of avoidance is never positive.

When we learn the skill of Acceptance, we learn to make room for the discomfort that comes with doing important and meaningful things. We give up struggling with it or avoiding it, and simply persist in a valued direction. We ask the question, we put ourselves forward for the job, we approach the stranger, we start the boring task. Find out more in this episode of the podcast and in this video.

Our self-concept is incredibly complex and made up of so many facets – yet we regularly over-simplify it, conflate our worth with a slice of our identity and get caught up in stories about ourselves. “I am my job”, “I’m only as good as my last piece of feedback” and so on.

While these stories are compelling, that’s often all they are. As you’re so much more than your eye colour and your address, more than your job title and your salary, you’re more than your annual appraisal and the beliefs you hold about your skills. Cultivating a flexible self-concept means you can appreciate all that makes you who you are. Learn more in this episode of the podcast and this YouTube video.

Check out our Psychological Flexibility videos

What our clients say

We asked Richard to run a few of his ‘Psychological Flexibility 101’ sessions and 55 of my colleagues signed up for the initial workshops.

I was really impressed with their feedback and their comments in the brief online survey we used afterwards illustrated just how keen they were to learn more and start putting this all into practice.

Lorraine O'SullivanGroup People Director, Dentsu Aegis Network, Ireland

We are extremely pleased with the programme and its impact and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Richard and WorkLifePsych. They have exceeded our expectations.

Conall LaveryCEO, Real World Analytics

We recently invited Richard to our first learning festival, to deliver a keynote as well as a workshop on the topic of psychological flexibility.

Working in the public sector brings its own challenges and this is why it was really important to us to offer personal development opportunities centred on wellbeing, and practical tools for us to use on a daily basis when we may be feeling overwhelmed or experiencing anxiety.

Feedback from those taking part was extremely positive and we are already looking at working with Richard on other initiatives.

Ruxandra StewartLearning & Development Lead, Essex County Council

I initially attended the course in the summer of 2018 after which asked Richard to deliver the course to all our colleagues, at every level. Because, quite simply, the information was so very useful to maintaining a healthy mind.

Hamide AhmetHR Director, Tulchan Communications LLP