From Stress to Success: How ACT and Performance Feedback Drive Workplace Change
While stress is inevitable, it’s impact doesn’t have to be. Combine performance feedback with ACT to create a compelling formula for
reducing burnout and psychological stress,
increasing engagement and productivity, and
driving sustainable behaviour change
Organizations that invest in these strategies don’t just improve employee performance, they help build resilient, value-driven teams ready to thrive.
How can organizations supports their employees in managing stress in fast-paced work environments, while improving performance?
Research supports Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT) and structured performance feedback as a powerful combination.
High stress increases errors, reduces efficiency, and contributes to burnout. All of which lead to reduced productivity.
As stress levels increase, employee technical performance suffers and increased supervision can often feel like heightened pressure to perform, leading employees to engage in avoidance behaviours and disengage from work culture.
Enter ACT.
ACT is not about getting rid of internal discomfort, which leads to avoidance, but about building psychological flexibility. The ability to take actions towards values even when stress, and unhelpful thoughts or feelings show up.
ACT encourages employees to move forward with meaningful goals instead of getting stuck in avoidance patterns.
Verbal and written performance feedback, along with reinforcement, and removal of barriers to performance, has been shown to reduce stress levels in employees, however…including ACT produced even greater and more consistent performance improvements, higher employee engagement and stronger technical skills. Additionally, employees found ACT strategies enjoyable and practical (Pingo et al., 2020).
Why it works.
ACT aims to address the root causes of stress; typically avoidance. By clarifying workplace and personal values, breaking tasks into smaller, more manageable steps, and reinforcing actions aligned with values, employees increase their ability to adapt and thrive, even under pressure.
Bottom line.
While stress is inevitable, it’s impact doesn’t have to be. Combine performance feedback with ACT to create a compelling formula for
reducing burnout and psychological stress,
increasing engagement and productivity, and
driving sustainable behaviour change
Organizations that invest in these strategies don’t just improve employee performance, they help build resilient, value-driven teams ready to thrive.
How ACT Builds Resilience, Emotional Regulation, and Value-Aligned Living
By accepting the discomfort, defusing from unhelpful thoughts, practicing mindfulness and taking committed action toward what matters most, we move towards better mental health, stronger resilience and a life aligned with your values.
We all experience uncomfortable thoughts and feelings, which we often try to control or suppress, through a coping strategy called Experiential Avoidance (EA).
EA is linked to a variety of psychological and behavioural difficulties, despite offering short term relief, leading to potentially harmful long term consequences.
Typically individuals will engage in EA to escape or control negative internal states or experiences (thoughts, emotions, memories), leading to the development of common coping patterns such as substance use, social withdrawal, and risky behaviours. Frequent engagement in EA is associated with PTSD, increased hospital visits, depression, increased school dropouts and an overall decrease in quality of life.
Combined with environmental stressors such as grief, pain, racism or violence, EA can exacerbate psychological or behavioural difficulties.
Psychological Flexibility
Psychological flexibility is the capacity to engage with difficult internal experiences while still acting in alignment with your values.
Lack of psychological flexibility means we become fused with our thoughts, such as “This is my fault”, “I’m not good enough,” and we regularly engage in EA coping strategies that help us avoid or escape these unpleasant thoughts and associated feelings.
These patterns of - trigger -> unpleasant thought -> escape/avoidance behaviour - is shaped by our own individual histories of reinforcement, operant conditioning and modelling, which teach us how to interpret and respond to emotions.
While these patterns of responding may feel protective, they often lead to more distress and disconnection from what matters most.
The ACT Approach
Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT) provides an alternative path. Instead of fighting discomfort, we learn to accept thoughts and feelings as they come. The goal is to notice them without judgement, and make the choice to take action aligned with our values.
Key processes include:
Acceptance. A willingness to experience psychological discomfort, when choosing a value-aligned action.
Defusion. Creating distance from thoughts; observing them rather than identifying with them.
This simple shift helps to reduce judgement and see thoughts as just thoughts, not facts.
Mindfulness (Present Moment Awareness). Instead of arguing with thoughts and telling ourselves stories about the past or future, mindfulness brings attention back to the here and now. By practicing noticing exercises and engaging in the present, we help reduce EA and reinforce more adaptive coping.
Values. Clarify what truly matters to you and develop meaningful, objective, measurable and realistic goals.
Committed Action. Taking objective steps towards your values, even when it’s uncomfortable.
Why it Matters
ACT not only helps reduce EA, it helps to increase emotional regulation, resulting in decreased defensiveness, and improved communication in relationships (Nallepalli & Murugesan, 2025).
Using ACT also helps you to recognize the emotional distress of making the hard choices to live according to your values.
The practice of acceptance, defusion and mindfulness helps to decrease negative thoughts, improve resilience and foster a life that is aligned with what matters most.
Bottom Line
EA keeps us stuck and ACT helps us move forward. By accepting the discomfort, defusing from unhelpful thoughts, practicing mindfulness and taking committed action toward what matters most, we move towards better mental health, stronger resilience and a life aligned with your values.