Cognitive Flexibility – The Hidden Link You Need to Know

Cognitive Flexibility – The Hidden Link You Need to Know. Hello everyone, I hope you are well. In today’s post, I will be sharing a guest post from Kevin Whitelaw, an accredited Solution-Focused Hypnotherapist (SFH) in the UK who works with clients across the globe on issues rooted in anxiety & depression. Anxiety sits at the root of so many – seemingly unrelated – issues: nail-biting, hair pulling and panic attacks, etc, are all very different at face value. However, it is common for them to be rooted in elevated anxiety levels.

Developing a deep understanding of how anxiety works is one of the most important things I do with my clients. This understanding is one of the key threads to being able to sustain well-being for the long term. From a place of wellbeing, personal growth becomes a great deal more realistic – these things all interact with each other all the time: as indeed we perpetually have a two-way interaction with the world around us.

Cognitive Flexibility – The Hidden Link You Need to Know

Have you ever felt stuck in a cycle of negative thoughts or behaviours that no longer serve you? What if the key to freedom wasn’t about trying harder, but trying different? The most influential hypnotherapist of all time, Milton Erickson was asked what he believed was the most common basis for people’s problems. Erickson answered with a single word: rigidity. That answer is brilliant in its simplicity and serves as a reminder of the value of cognitive flexibility.

What is Rigid Thinking?

‘’Rigid thinking is the inability to adapt thoughts, emotions, or behaviours to changing circumstances. This can lead to stress, anxiety, and poor decision-making.”

The ability to adapt is one of the keys to mental health. When circumstances change but someone persists in a pattern that may have worked before but can’t any longer, the result is all too predictably negative.

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one most adaptable to change.

-Charles Darwin

Yet, as human beings, we often struggle with change—not because we lack strength or intelligence, but because our thinking becomes rigid. Rigidity can feel safe, familiar, and predictable, but over time, it can limit our growth, well-being, and ability to thrive.

Types of Rigid Thinking (Are You Stuck in One of These?)

Cognitive Rigidity – The Inflexible Mind

Holding tightly to beliefs, even in the face of clear evidence to the contrary. This is where cognitive distortions—such as black-and-white thinking, catastrophising, or confirmation bias—keep us stuck in unhelpful patterns.

• You ignore new industry / social / technology trends, believing “this is how I’ve always done it” despite declining results.
• You’re thinking “I’m just not a people person” despite evidence of your past social success.
• You believe you’re terrible at a new activity even when you improve with practice.

Behavioural Rigidity – Stuck in Ineffective Habits

Repeating behaviours that no longer serve you, even when they clearly don’t produce the desired outcomes.

• Continuing to follow a strict diet plan that no longer supports your health needs.
• Using the same behaviours despite no progress.
• Persisting in a daily routine that leaves you with burnout but refusing to make adjustments.

Emotional Rigidity – Feelings as the Sole Decision-Maker

Basing your decisions only on emotions, without considering rational thought or long-term consequences.

• Avoiding a social event because you just don’t feel like it even though connection is important for mental well-being.
• Ending a project prematurely because your self-doubt creates discomfort.
• Reacting defensively in relationships without pausing to consider alternative perspectives.

Perceptual Rigidity – Seeing the World Through a Fixed Lens

Automatically interpreting situations through a pre-existing narrative rather than assessing each moment objectively.

• Believing that constructive feedback is always criticism.
• Interpreting a friend’s late reply as rejection rather than considering alternative explanations.
• Seeing change as a threat rather than an opportunity.

Identity Rigidity – The Fixed Self-Definition

Holding onto an unchangeable self-image that prevents growth.

• “I’m not creative” – ignoring your previous innovations.
• “I’m a shy person” – adopting this identity to avoid social opportunities.
• “I’m too old to learn this” – rejecting the possibility of developing new skills.

Relational Rigidity – Fixed Interpersonal Patterns

Sticking to a particular way of relating to others, even when it damages your relationships.

• Always being the “fixer” in relationships and struggling to set your own boundaries.
• Assuming authority figures are always untrustworthy due to past experiences.
• Refusing to communicate your needs in a relationship because “they should just know.”

Contextual Rigidity – The Inflexible Response to Situations

Automatically reacting to certain types of situations in the same way you always do, regardless of context.

• Always saying “yes” to requests for help, even when you’re overburdened.
• Responding to conflict with avoidance, even when resolution would be beneficial.
• Speaking up in meetings only when directly asked, even when you have valuable contributions to make.

Improving Cognitive Flexibility

Consider these four questions:

• When you think about it, do you have the ability to be aware of how you are feeling – your emotions at any time, and maybe even why you are feeling as you are?
• Are you able to create imagery and concepts inside your head that you have never created before?
• Do you have your own concept of what is right and wrong?
• Are you able to exercise a degree of control over the choices you make?

For each of these questions there will be widely varying degrees of capability and approaches. However, to a greater or lesser extent – with very few exceptions – each of us has each of these capabilities. It is one of the key things that makes us human:

• Self-awareness: being able to think about how we are thinking.
• Imagination: being able to create in our minds situations that don’t and haven’t existed beyond our own thoughts: but which may exist in the future.
• Conscience: our own moral code of what is right and wrong and the extent to which our behaviour corresponds with this.
• Agency: the ability to act based on our self-awareness and conscience. Having – and feeling – a degree of control over our lives.

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

This Means:

We are largely responsible for our own lives. Not for the events that happen around us, but for our responses to them, via our behaviours. The appropriateness of our behaviour in any given situation and environment will influence – and possibly determine – the outcome of that situation. Over time, the sum of all those individual outcomes will have a strong influence of the quality of our life today – and this process will continue in to our futures. Futures that are malleable and negotiable.

So What?

This, naturally leads to considering what can we do when our self-awareness identifies a rigid thinking pattern is not serving us. Well, the next step is to identify the thought patterns sitting behind the rigidity. From there, we can begin to explore that thinking through the lens of identifying more helpful patterns: leading to better behaviours and better results.

Try these four ways to explore your thinking: evidence, alternatives, implications & usefulness.

Evidence

The most effective way to dispute a belief is to show that is it factually incorrect. Much of the time you have facts on your side, since pessimistic reactions to adversity are so very often overreactions. Adopt the role of a detective and ask – what is the evidence for these thoughts. It is important to see the difference between this approach and the so-called power of positive thinking. Pop-Psychology ‘positive thinking’ often involves trying to believe upbeat statements – ‘’every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better’ – in the absence of evidence, or even in the face of contrary evidence.

Beware of toxic positivity. Justified optimism in contrast, is about accuracy. One of the most effective disputation techniques is to search for evidence pointing to the distortions in your thinking: what would you think if this applied to a good friend? Most of the time you will have reality on your side. How to overcome limiting beliefs and unlock your potential gives you another set of tools to drill down even further into beliefs which are no longer serving you.

Alternatives

Almost nothing that happens to you has just one cause. Most events have many causes. Pessimists have a way of latching onto the worst of all these causes – the most personal, permanent, and pervasive ones. Here again, deliberation usually has reality on its side. Where there are multiple causes, why latch on to the most insidious one? Ask yourself if there are any less destructive ways to look at this.

To dispute your own thinking, scan for other possible contributing causes – beware of ruminating! Focus on those that are changeable, specific, and non-personal. You may have to push hard at generating alternative beliefs, latching onto possibilities that you are not fully convinced are true. Remember that much of unhelpful thinking consists of just the reverse, latching on to the most dire possible belief – not because of evidence, but precisely because it is so dire. It is your job to undo this destructive habit by becoming effective at generating credible alternatives.

Implications

With the way things go in the world, the facts won’t always be on your side. Reality may be against you, and the negative belief you hold may actually be true. In this situation there is great benefit in de-catastrophising. Even if the belief is true – what really are the implications? How likely is the worst-case scenario? What can I do to build my resilience? At this point go back to the evidence and reconsider.

Usefulness

Sometimes the consequences of holding a belief matter more than its truth. Is the belief destructive? Some people get very upset when the world shows itself not to be fair – or as they thought it must be. While many can sympathise with that sentiment, the belief itself – that the world should be a fair place, or must be a certain way – may cause more grief than it is worth. What good will it do to dwell on the belief that the world should be fair etc. Another approach is to get that imagination busy and consider all the ways you can change the situation in the future. Even if the belief is true now, is the situation changeable: the future is malleable & negotiable. How can you go about changing it?

That Being Said

Breaking free from rigid thinking is possible—and it starts with awareness. The next time you catch yourself feeling stuck, pause and ask: ‘What else could be true?’ That simple question can open the door to a more flexible, resilient mindset.

Want to break free from negative thinking?

I help adults across the globe overcome anxiety, stress, and self-doubt using Solution Focused Hypnotherapy. Book a free consultation today.

Perma hypnotherapy Edinburgh. Ready to be your best self?

I hope you enjoyed that.

Talk soon.

About The Author

Kevin became an accredited Solution Focused Hypnotherapist in 2021 after training with the prestigious Clifton Practice. Since then, he has been helping adults across the globe manage issues rooted in anxiety – issues as diverse as hair pulling, stress induced eczema outbursts and binge eating/drinking. Not only for the things we don’t want in our lives, Kevin is ideally placed to support your strategic personal development with his customisable Hypnotherapy for Wellbeing / Personal Development programs. Kevin can be found here: Perma hypnotherapy Edinburgh. Ready to be your best self? and welcomes your enquiries.

Website: https://permahypnotherapy.co.uk/