The Power of Paradox and the “Care Through Curiosity” Model

Lately, I have been giving workshops on topics such as creativity, self-care, and the power of performance in settings related to what I call the “3 H’s”: healthcare, human services, and the helping professions. Individuals who work in the 3 H’s are particularly prone to experiencing anxiety, burnout, and compassion fatigue, which is a significant hazard. 

You may be wondering what I—a dancer and writer—might possibly have to offer individuals who work in these critical, technical, and highly stressful jobs. I wondered that too when I first started but the relevance has been profound, and I’m so proud of the overwhelmingly positive feedback that I have received. 

I find it helpful to introduce those attending my workshops, whose jobs are critically important to all of us, to the notion of paradoxical performance effects. “Paradoxical performance effects” is a term emerging from psychology that refers to the strange phenomenon that it is when it seems to matter most that we choke under pressure. The very idea of paradoxical performance effects calls into question the idea that you succeed if you “try really hard.” Rather—and this is what is so paradoxical about these effects—trying really hard actually produces the opposite of what you’re hoping it will. At least that’s what several studies are now showing. 

The very idea of paradoxical performance effects calls into question the idea that you succeed if you “try really hard.” Rather—and this is what is so paradoxical about these effects—trying really hard actually produces the opposite of what you’re hoping it will.

Paradox

A fact is said to be paradoxical if it contradicts established, “common sense” wisdom or if it seems inherently self-contradictory. As a creativity consultant, I LOVE paradoxes! They spur the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that my clients are looking for and contemplating reality in extraordinarily unique ways helps us make useful connections that would never come to us if we were engaged in conventional (a.k.a. boring!) thinking and doing. So, I love to play with contradictions, opposites, and paradoxes. It’s not out of the ordinary for me to give advice for a client or student of mine to do the exact opposite of what they think is best. And the results tend to be profoundly transformative! 

The power of paradoxical performance effects was rendered so powerfully to me at my dance studio’s last recital. As we approached recital week, I knew that several dancers, especially those who were performing solos for the first time, were getting increasingly nervous. At stage rehearsal, a few dancers went blank while rehearsing dances that they had practiced hundreds of times. I knew what was going on. It wasn’t a matter of “forgetting” their dance. They knew the choreography. It was a matter of their nerves getting the best of them. They knew that it was starting to matter and that the stakes were higher, and they were trying harder. And, paradoxically, they were getting the opposite of the results they wanted. 

So I made it a point to take full advantage of my understanding of paradoxical performance effects. I said “No, you don’t need to rehearse your dance endlessly to make sure you’ve ‘got’ it. You don’t need to freak out. I want you to go onstage and not worry about a thing.” I really emphasized that point to all the dancers the entire weekend of our performances: “Just do your thing! Go out on stage and have fun! Have a blast! Don’t even try, for crying out loud!”

And it worked. 

When we relax, when we let go, and when we release ourselves from commitment to a particular outcome, we find it easier to access our best selves, our unconscious wisdom, and even talents we never knew we had. Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, the Hungarian positive psychologist famous for his work on “the flow state,” noted that one of the flow state’s most fundamental characteristics is the lack of self-consciousness. 

I look at it this way: if a lack of self-consciousness is a defining feature of flow, then let’s help ourselves achieve the flow state by forgetting about ourselves, our goals, wishes, ambitions, and the pressures that we are facing. Let’s “zone out,” perform for the sheer joy of it, and see what happens.

And what happens is that we are able to access our best performative selves and the audience finds that we seem to have magical qualities on display. This was true for my students at this recital, and the same wisdom applies to those working in the 3 H’s. 

As an example, let me turn to my most recent workshop when I was working with the employees of an agency that provides education and other resources to new moms. When these human service workers experience pressure to produce a certain outcome—let’s say they need to “get” a young, inexperienced mother to follow through with a certain task for the benefit of herself and her baby—the workers can experience frustration, disappointment, and even self-blame if that mom doesn’t follow through or outright disappears. The employees who work with such clients find it hard to forgive themselves. They ask critical and judgmental questions of themselves: “What did I do wrong? What more could I have done? Why didn’t I make a difference this time?” While this reaction is understandable and is, for sure, a testament to their level of commitment and caring, it’s nonetheless a negatively-valenced emotional reaction that is going to drain them of energy, motivation, and confidence. If it happens enough times, they find themselves in a downward spiral of negativity that can inevitably lead to burnout. 

“Care Through Curiosity”

How do we remove that pressure? I teach my clients in my workshops to be driven more by a sense of curiosity rather than by a sense of commitment to an outcome—especially one that, many times, they simply can’t control (and none of us can control the actions of another, so why put that burden on our shoulders?). 

Curiosity is a positive emotion. In fact, it’s one of the ten positive emotions identified by Barbara Fredrickson, a positive psychologist at the University of North Carolina. According to Fredrickson, the ten positive emotions can lead us to “broaden and build” (that’s the name of her theory) our awareness and ability to act in the world. 

Curiosity leads us in a positive spiral as the motivation to answer a question and thus satisfy our curiosity often inspires (inspiration is yet another of those ten positive emotions) more questions for which we are curious to find the answers. Curiosity begets curiosity in positive, open-ended, and limitless ways. 

Here I would like to contrast the more traditional “commitment to outcome” approaches with the “care through curiosity” model that I encourage:

Conventional “Commitment to Outcome”	Jesse’s “Care Through Curiosity” Model
I need this client to achieve this task.	I wonder how I can inspire this client to want to move in this direction.
If this client doesn’t achieve this task, I will have failed.	If this client doesn’t achieve this task, I’ll know that there are reasons and if I can find out what they are, I can try again, or at the very least, I will have a new approach for the future. Either way, I’ve learned something and have become better at my job, which is a win.
I’m desperate to succeed here.	I don’t know if I will succeed, but I would like to find out.
I’m under so much pressure that I want to escape.	I can’t wait to come to work because I want to find out what happens. I have the space and creativity to try new helpful approaches.

Not only does curiosity help remove some of the pressure that actually works against us (remember the paradoxical performance effects!), but reflecting with curiosity helps us find acceptance and the potential for growth. We win every time, regardless of the actual outcome. We find ourselves effortlessly on a positive spiral toward inevitable gains instead of a downward spiral toward inevitable burnout.