The Law of the Open Door

One of the goals of my coaching is helping leaders develop more flexible ways of solving problems. Flexibility, the psychologist Alfred Adler wrote, is absolutely key if we’re going to flourish.

Adler summed up this idea in what he called “The Law of the Low Doorway.” Imagine coming up to a doorway that’s only five feet high. To get through, we can either duck our heads a little—or wack our foreheads on the door frame.

Most of us, Adler believed, will duck our heads the second time. We learn and adapt.

But sometimes, we wack our foreheads again and again on the same door frame. No matter how sore we get, we still go back to the same strategy to get us through.

Maybe we can’t duck because of a bad back or an injury. Maybe the door is strangely shaped or too small, and we can’t quite figure out how to contort ourselves through.

But regardless of the reason, we’re still standing there with a sore head.

So we use our aching head as an excuse. (“Look! I tried! Guess it’s just not for me!”) We lash out at the people who made the door or put it in our way. We condemn ourselves for our deficiencies. We plan our days around avoiding the door. We say we never wanted to get through the door in the first place.

All the while, the door is standing right there. Waiting.

All of us—no matter how many doors we may have glided through in the past—are in front of a low doorway somewhere in our lives.

• What’s your low doorway?

• How might it be asking you to bend?

• What might be making bending difficult—or even scary?

• How might you practice new ways of moving?

• And how can you push aside the excuses and walk on through?

As your coach, I can help you answer all these questions. Book your free Discovery Session here.