A few weeks ago, I provided some thoughts on how redefining progress can help you achieve some. Even more recently, I talked about the value of celebrating and acknowledging small wins along the way. Today aims to put a name to the thing that stops you from taking action.

Let’s say you’re at work. Let’s say there’s this report you inherited that is incredibly laborious and sucks hours of out of your every day. Let’s say the work is piling up behind you, but the client nonetheless expects that this report is completed daily. Let’s say you’re waiting on a new hire to join your team, but the interviews are going slow. Let’s say you just slog through each day, not really telling anyone or doing anything about it, while also acknowledging that it’s contributing to an ineffective and joyless work life. Let’s say you’ve strung along months of this routine and all you can think is ‘it is what it is.’

How’s that sounding? Everything up until those last two sentences is circumstances, but those last two are examples of learned helplessness.

The idea of learned helplessness is not unique to work, but I’m going to talk about it only in that setting for now. Its chief characteristic is the feeling of having no control. An unpleasant coworker, a bully client, a task that is endlessly infuriating but just ‘is what it is.’ I am super guilty of falling prey to this in my own career, contributing to or generating it for my team to feast on.

There are loads of downsides to this mentality. The obvious one is that it lets us off the hook of being accountable for our progress and contentment at work. If we say it can’t be done, can’t be changed, can’t be improved, we take away our power and limit creative problem-solving opportunities.

Progress is the antidote to learned helplessness. The Harvard Business Review published a summary of a study on the quality of people’s inner work life, saying, “Of all the things that can boost emotions, motivation, and perceptions during a workday, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work.”

Why is this one important to me? Coaches are in the biz of getting people out of a learned helplessness mindset and into one that is intentional, confident, and mindful. To the extent we can be, we’re all generally capable of generating good work days for ourselves, and the data in that study says that progress is the thing most linked to a healthy inner work life.

Overcoming learned helplessness, and avoiding it in the first place, is the stuff leaders and hi-po employees are made of. When you can continue to find ways to make incremental progress, when you can acknowledge and celebrate progress made (even to the smallest degree), you can find creative solutions, fresh resources, and a healthier attitude when you log off each day.

This week I encourage you to reflect on your thoughts and actions: in what ways is learned helplessness showing up in my work life? what tools do I have to break that mindset?

Go get ‘em this week.