I will be explaining a diagram to help you understand whether you’re making choices that are moving you closer or further away from the life you want. I’ll be breaking down one example with this model so you can start applying it to your life. The illustration is adapted from psychologist Dr. Russ Harris.

If you prefer to read, scroll down for the edited transcript below.

Watch the video on “Are You Getting Hooked or Unhooked?” here: 

Read the blog on “Are You Getting Hooked or Unhooked?” here: 

Hey Guys, my name is Diana Garcia; I’m a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in South Florida. My business and practice is called Nurturing Minds Counseling. For today’s blog, we’re going to talk about “Are You Getting Hooked or Unhooked? I often ask clients a key question when discussing a choice or a decision they are struggling to make.

“Is this behavior or choice going to move you closer or further away from the life that you want? 

Sometimes I’ll phrase it, “Is this behavior going to move you closer or further away from your values, whatever your values are regarding this situation? When I ask that, sometimes my clients have gotten so used to it that they’re like, “Oh yeah, I know, I know further away.” But it’s still clearly tough to make a decision that’s going to move you closer to your values. The reason it’s tricky is that something’s getting in the way.

I’m going to go through the illustration below to help you understand what could be getting in the way. This model by Dr. Russ Harris, a pretty popular psychologist in the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy world, makes it easy to understand what’s keeping you stuck.

If you can see at the bottom, it says “Situations, thoughts, and feelings,” and then it has two different arrows. One is pointing towards “Away,” and the other is pointing “Towards.” In between, there are the words “hooked” and “unhooked.” To really hit home what I’m talking about, I’m going to go through and explain one straightforward example. See the image below and keep reading so you can learn how to apply this to your life.

Let’s say you’re faced with the situation that your boss comes up to you and says, “Hey, you know what, I need you to take on another project.” You’re immediate thought (you keep this to yourself) “What?! I don’t have the time, energy, or space in my workday to take on another project.” You might even be thinking, “It’s not fair; I know I’m definitely over-allocated compared to some of my peers.” Whatever the story in your head, it’s apparent that you can’t take on another project.

But then quickly, your thoughts start to go this line of thinking “Oh, but I can’t say no! How is that gonna make me look like? I might look like I’m not a team player. ” You begin to feel really stressed out, anxious, overwhelmed, and probably a little frustrated with your boss and the whole situation. If you look at the bottom of the model, that’s the situation and the associated thoughts and feelings.

On a side note, sometimes specific thoughts and feelings just show up without a precipitating situation. So nothing necessarily happened to trigger particular thoughts and feelings. Yet, you’re still experiencing complex thoughts and feelings. Going back to the example, so you have two different scenarios. I’m clearly simplifying here a bit but let’s look at the scenario if you get hooked.

In this instance, you might get hooked by uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. You’re getting caught by the thought, “Oh my gosh, I have to say yes! My mind is telling me that I have to say yes to my boss. I can’t bear to disappoint her; she always tells me how much she counts on me. And I can’t even imagine telling her no or even expressing my concerns”. You also notice that you’re already sweating, becoming anxious, and your heart starts beating faster. Maybe you’re thinking, “There’s no way I could deal with the “confrontation” or disappoint her.” Not that it would necessarily be a confrontation (but your mind is telling it will be).

You’re already concerned about these uncomfortable feelings that you won’t be able to deal with if you actually expressed your concerns and you get anxious thinking about it. So the emotions that are getting you hooked are fear and anxiety. Since you buy into these thoughts and want to avoid the uncomfortable feelings, it influences your decisions.

Let’s look at the top of the left model to focus on your behaviors. You take on the project, don’t express your concerns or how over-allocated you are with your other projects and tasks. Maybe when you get home that evening, you have a couple too many Oreos or stay up until 3am binge-watching Netflix, so you don’t have to think about it.

This would be considered an “away” behavior because, in this situation, your values are assertiveness, self-care, or work-life boundaries. This decision to say yes without even having a conversation will move you away from your values. Maybe that looks like working later, missing your 6:30pm workout class, or the added stress to your life. Now let’s look at another possibility.

An example of getting unhooked with the same situation and the same internal experience could look like this. You still have the same story show up in your head. Maybe your mind is even imaging all the worst-case scenarios happening and how horribly your boss will react, which is causing you to feel anxious.

Now getting unhooked could look like saying, “You know what, let me just take a moment here to pause. Let me see what’s going on here and take a couple of deep breaths to center myself. Let me figure out what’s happening in my body. I need to calm myself down first.” Once you calm down a bit, you start to investigate what’s happening in your mind. You might even say something like this. “Yes, my mind is telling me all these scary things could happen if I speak up. And I’m already getting nervous about having to have this difficult conversation.”

“But let me consider what’s important to me here?”

“If I say yes, it means I’m going to miss my workout class. I’m going to consistently get home late; I will be more irritated and frustrated. I might also drop the ball in terms of other projects. This really is not in line with what I want.” You then consider what would be in line with your values. That could look like having a difficult conversation with your boss and mentally preparing yourself for handling the uncomfortable feelings that might come up for you.

Acknowledge that this conversation could be highly challenging for you. Especially if you’re someone that tends to please people or is known as the yes-man/woman (which bosses tend to love, right?). In the other scenario, you got hooked because you didn’t want to deal with the uncomfortable feelings, and you immediately bought into the story your mind was telling you.

A moving “towards” behavior looks like speaking up to your boss. Requesting a meeting, being clear on your concerns, and potentially bringing a visual to illustrate your point. I want to be clear here that regardless of the outcome (because your boss could easily say tough cookies, you still need to take the project), it would still be a “towards” move.

It’s a “towards” action because you need to focus on what’s within your control and what’s not in your control, and it’s more about you and your process. At least in this instance, what is within your control is speaking up with the possibility of moving you closer to the life you want. And if you do have a value of assertiveness, then this is clearly in line with your values.

All right, guys, if you like this post, check out my blog for more posts on mental health and different tips that could help. I encourage you to continue nurturing your mind, body, and soul, whatever that looks like for you. Have a good one!