Elephant Chain Syndrome

When an elephant is young, a common practice historically was to attach its hind leg via a chain to a strong unmovable post or tree, so that when it’s chained up, it knows it can’t get away. It takes about two months for the young elephant to stop struggling against the chain, and from then on, it’s mentally conditioned to believe it can’t get away whenever a chain is attached.

Even when that elephant is fully grown, even when nothing is holding the chain but a small peg driven into soft ground, the elephant’s conditioning holds. When the chain is attached, the elephant doesn’t try to escape. The elephant has learned helplessness. It believes it can’t break free when chained, and even when it’s a fully grown adult weighing up to five metric tons, it doesn’t even try.

Let me be honest with you right now. You’re that elephant. Maybe not literally chained to a post, but metaphorically you’re just as stuck, and the worst part is you probably don’t even realise the chain isn’t real anymore.

What’s Really Holding You Back?

People suffer from learned helplessness and this elephant chain syndrome too. We may not have chains around our ankles, but we have entrenched thinking patterns, and often the only thing holding us back are our self-imposed limitations caused by past setbacks and previous knockbacks.

Seligman’s (1975) groundbreaking research on learned helplessness demonstrated this phenomenon in humans just as clearly as in animals. He found that when people experience repeated failure or inability to control outcomes, they develop a generalised sense of helplessness that persists even when circumstances change. They stop trying not because they can’t succeed, but because they’ve learned that trying doesn’t matter.

So ask yourself this: what is really holding you back? Could it be that there’s nothing holding you back anymore, and it’s just that you’re chained to and conditioned by old ways of thinking to feel that way?

The answer for most people I see in my practice is yes. The barriers that once existed, the circumstances that once constrained you, they’re often long gone. But the belief that you’re limited remains, and that belief is just as effective at keeping you stuck as any real barrier would be.

The Invisible Chains

Many of our limitations are self-imposed. I often get people giving me blank looks when I ask them “what’s stopping them,” because they absolutely believe, or more so, they are conditioned to believe, that they can’t do what they need to do.

Dweck’s (2006) research on fixed versus growth mindsets illuminates this perfectly. People with fixed mindsets believe their capabilities are set in stone, so when they fail at something, it confirms their limitations. People with growth mindsets see failure as information, not identity. Same failure, completely different interpretation, completely different outcome.

Often there’s no real reason why we can’t move on, there’s no reason why they can’t let go of the past, and the real problem is not what happened, it’s just the conditioning you have inherited from it. The event is over, the circumstances have changed, but the programming remains.

Understanding Learned Helplessness

Maier and Seligman (1976) expanded on learned helplessness theory to explain the underlying mechanism. When you repeatedly experience situations where your actions don’t influence outcomes, you develop an expectation that your actions won’t matter. In plain English, you stop believing that what you do makes a difference, so you stop doing things.

This is the essence of elephant chain syndrome. The young elephant learns that struggling doesn’t free it, so it stops struggling. You learned that trying didn’t work, so you stopped trying. And now, even when the situation has changed and trying would work, you don’t try, because you’re still operating on old programming.

The really important part of this conditioning is that it can generalise. Research by Hiroto and Seligman (1975) showed that learned helplessness in one domain can transfer to others. Fail repeatedly in one area of life, and you might stop trying in another too.

Are you being conditioned by your past? What is it that is really holding you back?

Further reading

• Seligman, M. E. P. (1975). Helplessness: On Depression, Development, and Death.
• Maier, S. F., & Seligman, M. E. P. (1976). Learned helplessness: Theory and evidence. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 105(1), 3–46.
• Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.
• Duckworth, A. (2016). Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance.
• Seligman, M. E. P. (2006). Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life.