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5 irrational thinking patterns that could be dragging you down - and how to start challenging them

Disqualifying the positive

When you reject positive statements or occurrences by insisting they “don’t count” for some reason or another. For example, your boss praises you in front of your colleagues. When someone mentions it to you later, you say, “She said that because I was standing in front and she couldn’t avoid me.”

Whenever you disqualify the positive, you’re wrongly reinforcing negative beliefs about yourself and your world.

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5 irrational thinking patterns that could be dragging you down - and how to start challenging them

5 irrational thinking patterns that could be dragging you down - and how to start challenging them

https://ideas.ted.com/5-irrational-thinking-patterns-that-could-be-dragging-you-down-and-how-to-start-challenging-them/

ideas.ted.com

5

Key Ideas

All-or-nothing thinking

Seing people and situations in either/or categories, without allowing for complexity(e.g.: the best/the worst). In reality, our lives unfold in shades of gray.

Finding one alternative path between the 2 extremes can help break the pattern, and conceiving of a few more develops your skill in seeing the nuances in every situation.

Overgeneralizing

When you draw general rules from specific events, and apply them across unrelated situations. Your rules are usually negative rather than positive.

For example, when you don’t get a job you want, you think, “People don’t like me, I’m going to die alone.”

Disqualifying the positive

When you reject positive statements or occurrences by insisting they “don’t count” for some reason or another. For example, your boss praises you in front of your colleagues. When someone mentions it to you later, you say, “She said that because I was standing in front and she couldn’t avoid me.”

Whenever you disqualify the positive, you’re wrongly reinforcing negative beliefs about yourself and your world.

Personalization or excessive responsibility

You see yourself as the cause of a negative event for which you probably weren’t responsible (or you weren’t the only one responsible). Self-blame for others’ misfortunes or for everyday mishaps, or relating external events to oneself when there’s no basis for it, can negatively impact your daily life and how you see yourself.

“Should” statements

“Should,” “ought to” or “must are words of constraint and constriction; they can lead to your feeling like you have few options and too-high expectations. Expanding your sense of choice starts with changing the language you use in your self-talk.

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10 Types of Negative Self-Talk (and How to Correct Them) | Nick Wignall

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A lot of mental and emotional suffering comes from the way we talk to ourselves in our own minds, what psychologists call negative self-talk. In this article we'll cover what negative self-talk really is, the most common types of negative self-talk (sometimes called Cognitive Distortions), and some strategies you can use to identify and start to change your own unhelpful negative self-talk.

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If our thoughts determine how we feel, that means how we habitually think will determine how we habitually feel.

Mind Reading

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It is a failure of imagination because we often only imagine and focus on the negative aspects.

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People became philosophers when they began to question what guides their thinking and analyze their thoughts. 💭

Today, one of the most common destructive thought patterns is all-or-nothing thinking. In other words, perfectionism. ❗️ 

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Cognitive Reframing

It's a method of looking at things in ways that create less stress and promote a greater sense of peace and control. 

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