What is the Stockdale paradox?

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

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

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

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

What the Stockdale paradox means is that in times of prolonged and seemingly endless hardship, setbacks, suffering, and anguish, we must remain optimistic that we will survive and come out ahead, and yet at the same timebalance that with total realism and practicality about the harsh realities of today.

In Stockdale’s own words:

“You must never confuse the faith that you will win in the end, that you can never afford to lose, with the discipline to face the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they may be.”

Paraphrased to the core:

Hope for the best, but recognize and prepare for the worst

Such paradoxical thinking is one of the defining philosophies of many who have survived severe hardship and ultimately achieved their goals.

BUT, this paradox contradicts the law of attraction and much of the output of the self-help industry.

Suffering IS an integral part of the human condition. It’s as if there is a built-in design flaw that is guaranteed to make us all suffer at some point, in one way or another.

Right now, at the time of writing, we are all suffering in some way as we come to terms with the consequences of the Covid pandemic.

Dealing with the dropout factor

Many, perhaps most, of us are capable of coping with short and medium term challenges and difficulties.

But in my experience, once a challenging situation drags on past the one-year mark, we start to dial in, and after two years, with no end in sight, it becomes really difficult.

This is what I call the wear factor.

It is at this point that we need to develop the Stockdale paradox and take it to the next level.

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

(1) Find a way to deal 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 that or we can to accept that.

# The most important key to all of this is behaving and responding in ways that may be completely foreign to us, allowing and cultivating a very deep acceptance of what is happening and recognizing that we are not in control of the circumstances and contrary to the culture and intuition. like this sounds – to go with the flow.

# The more we can surrender to the flow, the more we will automatically align with a far greater dimension of our consciousness than we have ever experienced before – this really is the key

# It is this alignment with the flow that is the dynamic that will push us through this difficult situation and it is this alignment that is the source of our self-motivation through and beyond the current difficult circumstances

# Whether we realize it or not, whether we accept it or not, there is always a spiritual dynamic at work in these situations

(2) Recognize and understand that you are not your thoughts

Our thoughts can drive us crazy, especially in these difficult situations that go on and on…

We do not have total control over our instinctive emotions, they are largely involuntary and that is part of being human. What we do have, however, is control over how we choose to respond to those feelings.

The key to this is understanding that:

What matters is not the content of your thoughts but your relationship to your thoughts.

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

In “Time Alive vs. Time Dead” – I asked the question:

“When you can’t work because you don’t have a job, when you feel stuck and see no way out of this situation, when you don’t even know if there is an end to the tunnel, what do you do with your time? ?”

In difficult times like these, we can choose to back down and feel impatient, resentful, or angry.

Or we can exercise control over our use of this time by finding a way to solve a problem, reach a goal, or help someone else with these things.

Downtime can be revived and transformed and used for our long-term benefit and that of others. We can use this time to come out of this general situation a better and more resourceful person.

“I never lost faith in the end of the story. I never doubted not only that it would come out, but also that it would prevail in the end and make the experience the defining event of my life, which, in hindsight, I remember.” it would not change”. (Admiral James Stockton)

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