I think all of us can agree that sometimes you mind can be your best friend or your biggest enemy. When we start a goal we are motivated to change. We are thinking positively and hopeful about the future. Over time, that will power is not enough and we go back to our negative thought patterns that took us out the first time. Therefore, the first step to any change is conquering your mind. Humans by nature are pessimists. All of us think negative from time to time, some more than others. In order to move forward we have to fight that with more positive alternative thoughts. Can't I just tell myself "stop thinking that stop thinking that." The answer is no! If I tell you to not think about a pink elephant now all you can do is think about it. Your brain processed the "pink elephant" and not the "not."
First we have to recognize when we are having these negative thoughts. Sometimes they are so common and natural for us we don't even realize when they are happening. Your have to know you have a problem so you can change the problem. Here are the 10 most common negative thought patterns bought to you in collaboration with Dr. Hovi Shroff.
1. All-or-nothing thinking – You see things in
black-or-white. Everything is either all good or all bad. If a situation falls short of perfect, you see it as
a total failure. When a young woman on a diet ate a spoonful of ice cream, she said to herself, “I’ve blown my diet completely.” This thought upset her so much
that she gobbled down an entire quart of ice cream.
2. Overgeneralization – You see a single negative event,
such as a romantic rejection or a career reversal, as a never-ending pattern of
defeat by using words such as “always” or “never” when you think about it. A
depressed salesman became terribly upset when he noticed bird dung on the
window of his car. He told himself, “Just my luck! Birds are always crapping on
my car!”
3. Mental Filter – You pick out a single negative detail and
dwell on it exclusively, so that your vision of reality becomes darkened, like
the drop of ink that discolors a beaker of water. Example: You receive many
positive comments about your presentation to a group of associates at work, but
one of them says something mildly critical. You obsess about his reaction for
days and ignore all the positive feedback.
4. Discounting the positive – You reject positive
experiences by insisting that they “don’t count.” If you do a good job, you may
tell yourself that it wasn’t good enough or that anyone could have done as
well. Discounting the positives takes the joy out of life and makes you feel
inadequate and unrewarded.
5. Jumping to conclusions – You interpret things negatively
when there are no facts to support your conclusion. Mind Reading : Without
checking it out, you arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively
to you. Fortune-telling: You predict that things will turn out badly. Before a
test you may tell yourself, “I’m really going to blow it. What if I flunk?” If
you’re depressed you may tell yourself, “I’ll never get better.”
6. Magnification – You exaggerate the importance of your
problems and shortcomings, or you minimize the importance of your desirable
qualities. This is also called the “binocular trick.”
7. Emotional Reasoning – You assume that your negative
emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: “I feel terrified about
going on airplanes. It must be very dangerous to fly.” Or, “I feel guilty. I
must be a rotten person.” Or, “I feel angry. This proves that I’m being treated
unfairly.” Or, “I feel so inferior. This means I’m a second rate person.” Or,
“I feel hopeless. I must really be hopeless.”
8. “Should” statements – You tell yourself that things
should be the way you hoped or expected them to be. After playing a difficult
piece on the piano, a gifted pianist told herself, “I shouldn’t have made so
many mistakes.” This made her feel so disgusted that she quit practicing for several
days. “Musts,” “oughts” and “have tos” are similar offenders.
“Should statements” that are directed against yourself lead
to guilt and frustration. Should statements that are directed against other
people or the world in general, lead to anger and frustration: “He shouldn’t be
so stubborn and argumentative!”
Many people try to motivate themselves with shoulds and
shouldn’ts, as if they were delinquents who had to be punished before they
could be expected to do anything. “I shouldn’t eat that doughnut.” This usually
doesn’t work because all these shoulds and musts make you feel rebellious and
you get the urge to do just the opposite. I tell my client's all the time "should" is shaming yourself. Dr. Albert Ellis has called this ”
must erbation.” I call it the “shouldy” approach to life.
9. Labeling – Labeling is an extreme form of all-or-nothing
thinking. Instead of saying “I made a mistake,” you attach a negative label to
yourself: “I’m a loser.” You might also label yourself “a fool” or “a failure”
or “a jerk.” Labeling is quite irrational because you are not the same as what
you do. Human beings exist, but “fools,” “losers” and “jerks” do not. These
labels are just useless abstractions that lead to anger, anxiety, frustration
and low self-esteem.
10. Personalization and Blame - Personalization comes when
you hold yourself personally responsible for an event that isn’t entirely under
your control. When a woman received a note that her child was having difficulty
in school, she told herself, “This shows what a bad mother I am,” instead of
trying to pinpoint the cause of the problem so that she could be helpful to her
child. When another woman’s husband beat her, she told herself, “If only I was
better in bed, he wouldn’t beat me.” Personalization leads to guilt, shame and
feelings of inadequacy.
Knowledge is power and now that you know your negative thoughts we can work on them. Create a journal and start recording your negative thought patterns and dispute them with a rational positive alternative that you can buy into. Soon you will alter your thoughts and your life to being more positive.
Spreading Positivity,
Fit Therapist
Spreading Positivity,
Fit Therapist
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