Our minds can be such wonderful things—and also our biggest barriers to wise effort, both at the same time.

For his sweet 16, I took my son and three of his best buddies on a surf trip down the coast of California: five surf spots in two days. One of the things I learned about surfing was that you don’t always want to trust the surf report. We’d drive to a spot and unload the boards, only to find that what the surf report called good conditions was blown out. Then, driving along, we’d find a patch of surfers riding perfect waves the report said were “no good.”

The lesson? You have to see the waves with your own eyes.

Our minds are the same way. They’re creating inaccurate “surf reports” all the time—complaining, worrying, creating stories and associations out of little to no direct information. Like the surf, you can really only trust your direct experience, not the story your mind is telling you.

In A Liberated Mind, acceptance and commitment therapy founder Steven Hayes writes about three C’s of cognitive inflexibility that we need to be on the lookout for. To not get trapped by your mind, get to know these C’s so........

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