Becoming more self-aware of your sabotaging thought patterns is essential not just to your emotional growth but also your professional and physical growth.
Understanding and recognising when you are falling into the trap of any of these ways of faulty thinking can just change not just your Lifestyle 100 journey but also maybe the trajectory of your life.
We are talking about negative thinking or to put it scientifically 'cognitive distortions' In short, they’re habitual errors in thinking. When experiencing a cognitive distortion, the way you interpret events is usually negatively biased. How we think influences how we act - how we act gives us our current reality, good and bad.
Here are some examples of cognitive distortions see if you've ever thought or said any of these:
I'll never lose the weight
I'm no good at ...
I am a total failure
I feel this way so it must be true
It's all ruined now so i might as well just ...
He doesn't want to talk to me
This is all my fault
Sound familiar?...
These are the 10 most common thought distortions - see if you can catch yourself thinking or saying any of these this week and recognise what you are doing and that you are slipping into distorted thinking.
1. Catastrophising - What if x happens
2. All-or-Nothing Thinking - I am a total failure
3. Emotional Reasoning - I feel sad so it must be true
4. Magnification of the Negative - I totally ruined everything
5. Minimisation of the Positive - They didn't really mean that
6. Jumping to Conclusions - She didn't say hi so she hates me
7. Fortune-telling - I'll fail my exam
8. Mind Reading - She doesn't want to see me
9. Self-Blaming - It's all my fault
10. Should Statements - I shouldn't /should have done that..
Watch your thoughts and make a note of which one you seem to be falling into most often.