Does Your Psychological Operating System Need a Tune-Up?

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If you’re having trouble forging ahead—excelling at work, reaching goals you set for yourself, finding yourself in a cycle of self-sabotage, or being prone to chronic burnout—it’s quite possible that your operating system needs a revamp and tune-up. I’m not talking about your computer’s operating system, I’m talking about your psychological operating system with respect to your attachment style.

You may have heard of attachment from your friends, seen a self-quiz on social media, read articles online, or discovered this concept at your therapist’s office. As a clinical neuropsychologist, I’ve learned through research and clinical experience that attachment is an aspect of human development; it affects our overall well-being—including our ability to reach goals, harness motivation, and be productive. At its most basic level, attachment refers to the emotional bond that forms between you and your primary caregivers. The primary caregiver is typically the main person or persons responsible for meeting a child’s needs regularly. Without these bonds, we cannot survive during our early years.

In many ways, our caregivers modeled what it is like to experience love and support, but attachment style is also referenced often in romantic relationships. As the thinking goes: The way you have learned to love is the way you will love, and receive love from, others.

But attachment style has an even further reaching, and commonly overlooked, effect on our lives. Your attachment style can influence what you expect in relationships, it becomes the foundation of your self-concept—the way you think about yourself and what makes up who you are: your thoughts, feelings, behaviors, attitudes, likes and dislikes, and what you value. This influences what you believe is possible for your life, whether you will achieve goals, and whether you believe you deserve good outcomes.

We come into the world as blank slates, ready to learn everything we can from our social world; experiences and the lessons learned during childhood tend to stick with us. Even as we grow older, come into our own, and gain control over our environment, our memories and experiences continue to affect us—sometimes in unhelpful ways.

Attachment experiences create templates for how you experience and interpret your social world and, by extension, how you take care of your needs and help you predict how others will likely respond to you. Secure attachment relationships typically result in more positive and balanced internal working models, meaning that you’re more likely to hold yourself in high esteem, have satisfactory and lasting relationships, and believe you deserve good things to come. Insecure attachment generally leads to lower self-esteem, a shaky sense of identity, doubts about self-worth, and whether good things should happen to you—including workplace success.

There are four attachment styles (one secure, three insecure). Read the following descriptions and see which sounds most like you.

Secure—what I call connected explorer: You have a generally positive view of yourself and others; your sense of self is not overly dependent on what others think of you, what happens on a given day, or your life accomplishments. You’re comfortable with emotional intimacy and can usually form healthy, stable relationships. You generally stay connected to people who matter to you while pursuing your individual goals.

Avoidant—what I call fiercely independent: Self-sufficiency and self-reliance are the watchwords of the fiercely independent. The fiercely independent feel more comfortable chasing achievements and praise than pursuing intimacy and relationships. You’re very goal-oriented, and it’s likely hard for you to depend on others. Your parents may have set high expectations for you to take care of yourself even as a child, and now you generally fly solo and don’t often ask for help even when you need it.

Anxious—what I call worried warrior: You tend to have high anxiety about your relationships and worry about being abandoned or rejected by others. You get a self-esteem boost when people are positive about you, and your self-esteem can get rocked if you don’t get good feedback—even if it’s about something minor. It can be tough for you to reach goals or even have the confidence that you can get what you want, and unless someone is fully cheering you on, you can give up on yourself. Your parents may have made you feel insecure about their love and care for you, so you’ve become overly concerned with earning the approval of others through people-pleasing behaviors—this also ensures their support and reduces your anxiety.

Disorganized—what I call surveillance specialist: You may see danger lurking around every corner and tend to be on high alert even when you don’t necessarily need to be. This is because your parents may have been unpredictable or even abusive. As a result, it may be challenging for you to form stable relationships and consistently manage conflict. You may exhibit push-pull, or approach-avoid, dynamics in relationships, as well as in goal pursuits. Your self-concept may vary more often than the other attachment styles.

Attachment Essential Reads

Swinging With Attachment Styles

Disorganized Attachment: The Childhood Environment

Each attachment style has its own operating system characterized by four self-statements, which sometimes arise when coping with certain challenges. These characteristics can be seen in your working models, which show up as self-statements that reflect how you think about yourself and how you go about life. Initially, they may have allowed you to cope and survive stress and turmoil, over time, they may have limited your behavior and established extreme ways of dealing with life. Becoming familiar with these self-statements is important to make a change.

For the fiercely independent, your operating system typically contains one or more of the below self-statements:

• “I’m only as good as my last achievement.”
• “I must be in control at all times.”
• “I keep others at arm’s length.”
• “When the going gets tough, I go it alone.”

For worried warriors, one or more of the below might apply to you:

• “I’m not as worthy as others.”
• “I need to rescue everyone.”
• “I fear being on my own.”
• “I have to analyze everything.”

For surveillance specialists, one or more of the below might apply:

• “I hate you, don’t leave me.”
• “I deserve to suffer.”
• “I can’t control my emotions.”
• “My life is in constant chaos.”

Conversely, if you’re a connected explorer, these self-statements may characterize what you think about yourself and how you go about life:

• “I believe in and like myself.”
• “I can handle what comes my way.”
• “I can effect positive outcomes in my life.”
• “I can be independent and rely on others, too.”

Your working models continue to evolve over your life, which is great news for those looking to heal their attachment style: The working models of secure attachment don’t only have to be aspirational. With time to develop insight and to learn exercises to heal the effect of your attachment style, you can rewrite the stories you learned; you can offer yourself the safety, consistency, and trust you need to adopt new ones—stories that can help make life’s challenges and relationship issues more manageable, day-to-day life more rewarding, and your life vision more expansive and empowered.

Developing a positive attachment style won’t transform you into someone with a million best friends and allow you to land your dream job tomorrow; however, it will help you to begin to believe in yourself and promote a healthy and stable self-concept that will pave the way toward confidently approaching all areas of your life with a deep sense of belonging and resilience. You’ll have a much better toolkit in your arsenal to cope with stressful situations and to adjust to transitions throughout your life, such as moving to a new place, taking on bigger responsibilities at work, or planning for retirement. Feeling secure gives you the confidence to face whatever challenges come your way, to believe that good things are possible for you, and to know that you have a hand in creating these positive outcomes for yourself.