We have written before about the power of your thoughts and how this affects your feelings and general performance. It is always good to remind yourself of the power of positive thinking though and ask yourself whether the way you are thinking is actually beneficial to your life.
We all have “voices” in our heads, our reoccurring thought processes and beliefs but the more aware you are of them, the more likely you’ll be able to switch the negatives into the positives. In answering the question above did you find that your current thinking isn’t actually helping you at all?
The types of thoughts that make us feel bad can be categorised in the following ways:
1. Awfulising or Catastrophising – When you make an event or situation much more dramatic than it needs to be – For example, “If I don’t pass my driving test my world will fall to pieces” or “if I don’t get the promotion I went for then my career will be over”.
2. Putting yourself down – Do you find yourself often being self-deprecating? Telling yourself you’re no good at something – For example, “I’m not good at sports” or “I can’t flirt with the opposite sex”.
3. Labelling others – Do you often criticise others? Does this come naturally to you? – For example rather than specifically commenting on a behaviour you criticise someone’s entire character – She’s so lazy, she comes in late all the time or he’s an idiot – he’s useless. They may be late sometimes but that doesn’t mean they are lazy and people are rarely completely useless, they may just be not so great at certain things.
Which of the following do you recognise in your own thinking?
- Jumping to conclusions
- Seeing things from only your point of view
- Thinking in black or white terms, it’s all or nothing, a or b
- Condemning yourself because of 1 mistake
- Blaming yourself for something that isn’t really entirely your fault
- Labelling yourself or others
- “I’m so stupid” or “they’re so useless”
- Creating a disaster story in your head
- Assuming there are no other options to a situation or event.
If you recognise a lot of these thoughts in yourself then everything will always be worse than what it actually is in your life.
How often is something really so bad, or really your fault? How often are there really no alternatives? The true answer is probably going to be not that often. So try to become more aware of your thinking and try and see things form a different, more positive perspective. You’ll be amazed by the effects.
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