10 Harmful Thoughts

Wednesday, June 18th 2008 by Shanel Yang         Email this article to a friend

We all talk to ourselves. Not necessarily out loud, but in our heads, and all the time. These short, lightning-quick messages flash through our minds like little mental knee-jerks to all the stimuli that surrounds us all day long. Most of us have about 2-3 such mental flashes per minute, or 2,000-3,000 per day!

Even more amazing: Most of what we tell ourselves all day long is either neutral or negative—not positive—unless we actively work to develop the habit of positive thought! If we don’t, our thoughts criticize or undermine us and other people, literally thousands of times a day.

Although we might defend ourselves and others if someone else said these things in front of us, we hardly ever do that when our own minds broadcast these things in our brains 24/7! We nag and criticize ourselves constantly: “Don’t forget to do X. You always forget these things!” We judge ourselves: “Oh, I can’t be believe I did that! I’m so stupid!” And, we are just as quick to judge others—and often much more harshly: “That guy is such an idiot, and that woman is unbelievably selfish!”

Our most harmful self thoughts are the ones that are NOT based in reality, meaning they are mostly FALSE. Dr. David D. Burns, famous psychotherapist and developer of Cognitive Therapy, identified 10 such “cognitive distortions” and teaches that erasing the faulty mental tape-recordings that get played in our minds, over and over, like a broken record, improves our mood and helps fight depression and anxiety. First, let’s go over the list of Dr. Burn’s 10 Cognitive Distortions. Then, we’ll get to his simple 3-step method for replacing them with positive thoughts.

10 HARMFUL THOUGHT PATTERNS

1. All-or-Nothing Thinking: You look at things in absolutes. Everything is black or white. There are no grey areas. People are right or wrong. Smart or stupid. Good or bad. Nice or mean. Generous or stingy. And, so on. These people tend to be perfectionists and very demanding of themselves and of others. If these tendencies are indulged for too long, they can become control freaks or critics.

2. Over-generalizations: You focus on isolated events and make sweeping generalizations about yourself, other people, and the world around them—usually coming to negative conclusions. These people tend to be suspicious, skeptical, and overly interested in the minute details of other people’s lives. If these negative tendencies are left unchecked, they can become gossips or backstabbers.

3. Mental Filters: Your mind filters out all the positive parts of even good events and focuses on whatever negative points you can find in them. For example, if you get an “A” on a test, you dwell on the one or two questions you got wrong and chide yourself for those! These people tend to become wet blankets.

4. Disqualifying the Positive: You undermine even the positive parts of an event. You get an “A” on a test, but you say to yourself, “It’s nothing to be proud of because I had to study twice as hard as everyone else to get it. I’m not really smart. Everyone thinks I’m so smart, but really I’m just a fraud.” (By the way, if you do think like this, please see “Change Your Mindset to Change Your Life.”)

5. Jumping to Conclusions: You assume the worst without sufficient evidence to support it. These people are also wet blankets. Two major areas include:

a. Mind Reading: You assume you know what the other person is thinking, usually something negative about you.

b. Fortune Telling: You predict future events, usually the worst case scenario.

6. Magnification and Minimization: You exaggerate your weak or “bad” points and minimize your strong or “good” points, while, at the same time, applying the reverse characterizations to others. Think of this one as classic whining. “Everybody has it so good, and I have nothing!” One important type is:

a. Catastrophizing: You constantly focus on disastrous results. Remember Murphy’s Law? Or, you think something is too much to endure, when really it’s just uncomfortable. When you do this, you are being your own worst wet blanket.

7. Emotional Reasoning: You make your decisions and arguments based solely on how you feel at the moment, instead of on objective reality. For example, you might tell yourself, “I feel like a bad person, so I must be a bad person.”

8. “Should Statements”: You would rather complain about how everyone and everything “should” be instead of dealing with the situations as they actually are.

9. Labeling: Instead of saying, “I made a mistake,” you tell yourself, “I’m such a loser!” Admitting to yourself that you made a mistake is motivation to get it right the next time. You want to keep trying because you want to eventually succeed at the task. Your success can be almost guaranteed, depending on how you interpret the situation. If you call yourself a loser, you are telling yourself you can never succeed. That’s terribly self-limiting—not to mention a self-fulfilling prophecy.

10. Personalization and Blaming: If you blame yourself for something you didn’t cause, that’s personalization. If you blame others for something they didn’t cause, that’s blaming. Martyrs tend to personalize and backstabbers tend to blame.

HOW TO RECORD OVER HARMFUL THOUGHTS WITH POSITIVE ONES

You can get rid of the negative messages in your head by using a method called cognitive restructuring. I may sound complex, but the 3-step process is simple:

1. Become aware of your negative thoughts. We are not used to actively listening to the mental recording that continuously plays in our heads. But, with practice, you can hear these messages clearly. You’ll be amazed at how much negative energy you feed yourself all day long! Some of this stuff might be really old, originating from your parents or elementary school teachers.

For example, my dad told me I was never going to be any good at math just because I didn’t catch on quickly enough for him in my first or second grade. So, of course, I believed him and accepted that as gospel. Unfortunately, I never seriously challenged that belief until very recently. (See “Change Your Mindset to Change Your Life.”) But, better late than never! It may sound like no big deal to most people, but whenever I challenge myself with a math problem and get it right, I feel this amazing surge of pride and accomplishment. Simply priceless!

2. Challenge the truth of them by testing them against reality. I tested my negative thought that “I’m just not good at math” by entertaining the possibility that I could learn to be better at anything if I practiced long enough. This is the premise of the article, “Change Your Mindset to Change Your Life.” (I can’t link to this enough! If you take just one look, then I’m happy to do it a hundred times!)

3. Replace all false, negative thoughts with truer, positive thoughts. When I realized that my math skills were gradually improving, I had to reject all my negative self thoughts that I suck at math and always will! Every time that thought popped up (as all habits do die pretty hard), I replaced it with a more positive, truer thought, such as, “I am getting better and better at math every single day.”

CONCLUSION

One last tip that might be helpful. After you’ve identified all your negative thoughts that are not based in realty, wear a comfortable rubber-band around one of your wrists. Every time you have one of these negative thoughts, pull on it and let it snap back against your wrist to remind you to stop that negative thought. Then, really focus on your replacement positive thought for as long as you can, given your circumstances. This will help turn your new thoughts into habits faster.

This snapping of the rubber-band against your wrist is NOT meant to punish you for your negative thoughts. It’s a reminder to stop them as abruptly as possible and also serves to cement your new positive thoughts into your mind. In fact, you might want to establish a token reward system. For example, you could move pennies from your wallet into a clear glass mug you keep on your desk, one at a time, every time you have a positive thought without first having a negative one). When the mug finally fills up to the top, give yourself a little treat. You earned it!

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