The Stockdale Paradox

How To Deal With The Attrition Factor

When it just goes on and on and there is no end in sight...


The Stockdale Paradox. How To Deal With The Attrition Factor. When it just goes on and on and there is no end in sight... Graphic from Amnesty International of a prisoner being tortured.

Amnesty International


What Is The Stockdale Paradox?

The Stockdale Paradox is named after the late James Stockdale, former vice presidential candidate, naval commander and prisoner of war during the American-Vietnam war.

It became well known having been featured in author and business guru Jim Collins’ book “Good To Great” following extensive interviews between Collins and Stockdale exploring how Stockdale survived 8 years of imprisonment and torture.

Collins’ specific focus was to identify the principles that underpinned Stockdale’s survival and emergence at the end of the war as not only unbroken but as source of practical inspiration.

Balancing realism and optimism in a dire situation is a key to survival and success

What the Stockdale Paradox means is that in times of prolonged and seemingly never-ending hardship, set-backs, suffering and distress we need to maintain optimism that we will survive and pull through, and yet at the same time balance that with a total realism and practicality about the harsh present realities.

In Stockdale’s own words:


Admiral James Stockton


Paraphrased to its core:

Hope for the best, but acknowledge and prepare for the worst.

Such paradoxical thinking is one of the defining philosophies of many who have made it through severe hardship and eventually reached their goals.

The stockdale paradox offers a balanced approach to surviving hard times that seem to go on and on, with no end in sight.

Suffering IS an integral part of the human condition . It is as though there is an inbuilt design flaw that ensures that we all suffer at some point, one way or another.

Right now, at time of writing, we are all suffering in some way as we come to terms with the aftermath of the Covid pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war and increasing economic and financial hardships.






The Stockdale Paradox - Coping With The Attrition Factor


Coping With The Attrition Factor

Many, maybe most, of us are capable of coping with challenges and difficulties in the short to medium term.

But in my experience once a challenging situation drags on beyond the one year mark we start to flag, and after two years – with no end in sight – it gets really tough.

This is what I call the attrition factor.

It is this point that we need to apply the Stockdale Paradox.

This means that in addition to maintaining a hope for the future and a pragmatic realism about the present you need to do 3 further things:


(1) Find a way of dealing with the emotional side of your pragmatic realism.

  • There are times when there is nothing more we can do to alleviate the situation. In these circumstances we have two powerful options: we can resist it or we can accept it.
  • The biggest key to all this is to behave and respond in ways that may be completely alien to us by allowing and cultivating a very deep acceptance of what is happening and acknowledging that we are not in control of circumstances and - counter cultural and counter intuitive as this sounds - to go with the flow.
  • The more we can surrender to the flow then the more we automatically become aligned to a far greater dimension of our consciousness than we may have ever previously experienced - this really is the key.
  • It is this alignment with the flow that is the dynamic that will pull us through this difficult situation and it is this alignment that is the source of our self-motivation through and beyond present difficult circumstances.
  • Whether we realise it or not, whether we accept it or not, there is always a spiritual - or energetic - dynamic at work in these situations.



(2) Recognise and understand that you are not your thoughts.

  • Our thoughts can drive us crazy, especially in these difficult situations that drag on, and on…
  • We don’t have complete control over our instinctive emotions, they’re largely involuntary and that’s part of being human. What we do have, though, is control over how we choose to respond to those feelings.
  • The key to this lies in understanding that:
  • What matters is not the content of your thoughts but your relationship with your thoughts
  • See here for practical guidance in dealing with your thoughts and here for further practical support in living with your thoughts.



(3) Transform your “dead time” into “alive time”

  • In Recognising Limbo we talked about "dead time" vs "alive time" and I asked the question: “When you can’t work because you have no work, when you feel stuck and can see no way out of this situation, when you don’t even know if there is an end of the tunnel, what do you do with your time?”
  • In difficult times like these, we can choose to just sit around and feel impatient, resentful, or angry.
  • Or we can we can exercise control over our use of this time figure a way to solve a problem, reach a goal, or help someone else with these things.
  • Dead time can be revived and transformed and used to our and others long term benefit. We can use this time to emerge from this overall situation a better and more resourceful person.













    I never lost faith in the end of the story. I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.

    [Admiral James Stockton]










Next Article: Embrace Your Fear Of Failure And Uncertainty

Return from "The Stockdale Paradox" to: Walking The Talk

Contact me





English Chinese (Traditional) Russian French German Italian Spanish Vietnamese



LATEST ARTICLES

  1. Like A Prayer - Life Is A Mystery

    It Isn't The Process Of Prayer That’s The Problem, It’s The Way It’s Framed. Regardless of what we feel about Madonna or her song the topic of prayer often arouses strong reactions. Usually, it is som…

    Read More

  2. How Things Really Are - The Inbuilt Design Flaws

    Chaos, Disorder And Decay Is The Natural Order Of Things. Nobody has the perfect life. We all struggle and strive to attain health, wealth and personal happiness. Yet these three big areas: our health…

    Read More

  3. Intuition Or Anxiety - Are There Angels Or Devils Crawling Here?

    How To Tell The Difference Between Intuition and Anxiety. How do you know whether the voice of your intuition is real or just the product of your inner anxiety? Several months ago I was having a drink…

    Read More

  4. What Is Truth - How To Tell A Partial Truth From The Whole Truth?

    How the truth and nothing but the truth is often not the whole truth. My great aunty Flo broke her arm and died. It is true that she broke her arm in 1923. It is also true that she died in 1949. But t…

    Read More

  5. Duality And Life Beyond Your Thinking Mind

    Duality and life beyond your thinking mind focuses on the limitations of time, foreground and background, duality and "stuckness". The first aspect of duality and life beyond your thinking mind focuse…

    Read More

  6. The Conscious Mind Is Limited - Be Aware And Be Prepared

    Being aware is the first stage of being prepared. The conscious mind is limited in so many ways. There are some who would argue that there is no such thing as conscious thought and that it is represen…

    Read More

  7. Your Inner Map Of Reality - Here's Why You Think The Way You Do

    The big picture of how your inner map of reality creates your feelings, thoughts, and behaviours. Your inner map of reality is based on the filters of your own ethnic, national, social, family and rel…

    Read More

  8. The Failure Of Cancel Culture - Suppression Not Engagement

    Why we need to wear our beliefs lightly and develop negative capability. Throughout history people have campaigned to fight beliefs, ideologies, and injustices that they perceived to be oppressive, di…

    Read More

  9. 4 Big Reasons Why We Get Stuck In Our Attempts At Personal Change

    Most People Spend Their Entire Life Imprisoned Within The Confines Of Their Own Thoughts. This first of the 4 big reasons why we get stuck is, in my view, the most important. The "self-help industry…

    Read More

  10. How Do I Change And Why Is It So Hard?

    We Would Rather Die Than Change, And We Usually Do In my experience, the vast majority of people who say they want to change don’t change. Most people reading this won’t change because they don’t real…

    Read More

  11. The Illusion Of A Separate Self - Windows 11 With Self Awareness!

    Beyond the content of your mind you are so much more than you think you are. When we talk of "myself" this is the conventional way of referring to our self image which is in fact the ego's constructio…

    Read More

  12. Finite And Infinite Games - Dazed, Confused & Ultimately Transcendent

    This is not an instruction manual, it is a wake up call! Over this past week I have read Professor James Carse's highly regarded "Finite And Infinite Games - A Vision Of Life As Play And Possibility"

    Read More

  13. The Gap And The Gain - How Your Brain Sabotages Your Happiness

    How Your Lizard Brain Sabotages Your Happiness We are hardwired to measure our progress in any and all areas of life where we have goals and aspirations. We can't not do it. But what we measure and ho…

    Read More

  14. How To Wake Up - 4 Simple Practices To Help You Wake Up Now

    So What Exactly Does It Mean to Wake Up - What Is "Enlightenment"? There is nothing magical, mystical or mysterious about waking up we’re actually having glimpses of enlightenment all the time. Enligh…

    Read More

  15. Situational Communication - Different Strokes For Different Folks

    Situational communication is about taking account of 3 often ignored factors about the other person. You are a situational communicator when you recognise that effective communication is not an event…

    Read More

  16. How To Influence Without Authority - 6 Key Tips

    The secret to how to influence without authority is that you get what you really want by giving other people what they really want. We live in an interconnected world and knowing how to influence with…

    Read More

  17. Change Questions To Change Your Outcomes

    Asking The Right Questions Is Critical For A Successful Change. Every time we initiate a significant change - whether in our personal life or in an organisation - we will most likely over-estimate our…

    Read More

  18. Group Culture - The Invisible Software That Rules Your Life

    Group culture is: "How we do things round here". We like to see ourselves as free agents making our own choices and living authentically but the reality is that The Matrix has many layers and we are u…

    Read More

  19. Why Getting From A to B Is Not Aways A Straight Line

    In circumstances of significant change, the progress from A to B will not be in a straight line. We run our lives largely on auto-pilot. In most circumstances your experience of getting from A to B is…

    Read More

  20. The Art Of Persuasion Planning For Success - Here's How To Do It!

    To be successful in the art of persuasion you must ensure that certain things happen. To be successful in the art of persuasion you must establish a framework of what has to happen to get you to that…

    Read More

  21. The Art Of Persuasion Advanced Communication Skills - Gaining Buyin

    Create The Environment Where They Want To Buyin to Your Proposal In order to build the win-win you have to uncover what it is that the other person really wants or needs, and to do that you have to as…

    Read More

  22. The Art Of Persuasion The One Fundamental Principle - Create A Win-Win

    The art of persuasion is based on the simple idea that you get what you want by enabling the other party to get what they want. Being a nice friendly person with good inter-personal skills may be a go…

    Read More

  23. Communication Persuasion And Change - Key Skills To Survive & Succeed

    It's not the strongest that survive, nor the most intelligent, but those who are most responsive to change, the most persuasive, and the best communicators. We are living in an age of unprecedented ch…

    Read More

  24. The Eisenhower Box - What Is Important Is Seldom Urgent

    What Is Important Is Seldom Urgent And What Is Urgent Is Seldom Important. The Eisenhower Box is a time management and decision-making model devised by President Dwight Eisenhower to help him prioriti…

    Read More

  25. Zen Enlightenment [Satori] - The Stink Of Zen

    Lost In Our Delusions About Enlightenment. There is something in human nature - a desire to glamorise, sanctify, objectify and idolise – that elevates people who have offered deep insights to the huma…

    Read More

  26. 5 Zen Mindsets For Mastery - In Any Area Of Your Life

    The Wisdom Of A Person Who Masters In Any Art Is Reflected In Their Every Attitude. The state and quality of your mind has a very large bearing on the quality of your performance in any area of life t…

    Read More

  27. Dealing With The Toxicity Of Online Dating - 6 Key Tips From A Clinical Psychologist

    Toxicity Is The Price Tag Of Accessibility. In the early days of online dating, users were vetted and had to go through a registration process and agree to comply with a code of conduct designed to en…

    Read More

  28. Why Understanding Ergodicity Is Critical To Your Long Term Survival

    How Not To Be Fooled By Randomness. Ergodicity is an ugly word from the world of mathematics. It is an umbrella term for two sets of conditions of probability and outcome. These two conditions form th…

    Read More

  29. Dealing With Imposter Syndrome - Ego Is The Enemy

    How You Frame A Situation Has A Profound Impact On How You Respond To It Emotionally. Imposter syndrome is a psycho-emotional experience of a fear of being found out as incompetent despite ongoing evi…

    Read More

  30. The Challenges Of The Road Less Traveled

    Issues You'll Face When Playing The Long Game. The challenges of the road less traveled is loosely based around the phrase popularised by M.Scott Peck with his book "The Road Less Traveled". This arti…

    Read More



Get new posts by email:









Zen-Tools.Net





Support This Site