Why “Should” Statements Make You Feel Worse

Do you ever have a hard time relaxing or focusing because you feel like you “should” be doing something else? 

Should statements are a fast track to feeling discouraged, anxious, and even depressed. 

Should statements are a type of cognitive distortion, or a faulty pattern of thinking. Cognitive distortions are often so automatic that we assume they’re true and don’t question the messages we get from them.  

Some people might find reminding themselves of things they should do to be motivating, but many others experience it differently. For lots of people, focusing on the things they should do leads to feelings of shame, stress, panic, and inadequacy. It doesn’t feel good to spend a lot of time thinking things like:

• “I should be a better mom.”

• “I ought to eat more vegetables.”

• “I shouldn’t feel this way.”

• “I should be able to handle this.”

• “I should clean my house more.”

These statements lead to worry, rumination, fear, and shame. They make us feel like we’re not good enough. When you say you “should” or “must” do something, is that statement actually true, or is it a way to make you feel like you will finally be good enough?

So, what can you do about should statements? They’re a normal part of having a brain, but sometimes they can spiral out of control and make you feel like you can’t do anything right. When you find yourself feeling overwhelmed by shoulds, here are some things to try: 

Work on self-trust and self-forgiveness

When you are trapped in a cycle of feeling like you should do something, it can be hard to trust your instincts for what you want to do. Remind yourself of things you do well or good choices you’ve made. When you trust yourself, you’ll feel more confident in your ability to respond to your inner critic. 

Learning how to forgive yourself can also be powerful in reacting differently to should statements. Forgiving yourself frees you from the endless cycle of guilt and self loathing that often accompanies should statements. It’s okay if you don’t do everything perfectly. 

Remember that you’re human

You’re human. You can’t do it all. We all make mistakes and do things we’re not proud of in life. Beating yourself up about the things you’ve done “wrong” in the past does nothing to change the future. Realizing that you’re a person, and you’re allowed to be imperfect, can be freeing. 

If you find yourself thinking in “shoulds”, remember that the first step to doing something about it is noticing what’s happening and you’re already there! When you can notice what’s happening and refrain from judging yourself about it, it’s easier to redirect your thoughts. 

Reframe your thoughts 

Underneath all the shoulds are feelings of inadequacy, or guilt, or shame, or fear. These are all painful emotions that we don’t always know how to cope with. It takes practice to react to these feelings in a new way, but it’s possible to redirect or reframe your thoughts. 

When you notice shoulds creeping into your thoughts, notice them, remember they’re not actually your only options. Instead of saying “I should eat more vegetables,” try saying “I could eat more vegetables,” which takes away the pressure and judgment. You’re not a bad person if you don’t eat more vegetables, but it’s an option if you choose to and it feels good. Motivating yourself in a way that feels good is much more effective than trying to motivate yourself with shame. 

Look for the nuance

Cognitive distortions like should statements view the world in extremes or with hard and fast rules. In real life, there are shades of gray, and there are options other than extremes. 

When your brain is trying to tell you that you can only do things a certain way, that’s a clue to take a moment and question what’s going on. Is what your brain is saying true? Is there another choice here? Explore what’s really going on before getting swept up in your initial judgment. 

Explore where your shoulds come from 

Try to notice that inner voice that comes up when you feel like you should do something. Where did this voice come from? Understanding where the shoulds you feel come from can be helpful in learning how to respond to them in a new way. Do you feel like you’re not living up to a standard? Do you feel like you’re spending your time on the wrong things?

For example, if you constantly feel like you “should” do things related to keeping things clean, think about where that feeling of pressure comes from. Did a parent or caretaker make you feel like you weren’t good enough if you weren’t tidy? Did you grow up feeling shame about an unclean home? Lots of times the judgments we make about ourselves originate from someone that made us feel not good enough at some point. 

If you’re struggling with cognitive distortions like should statements, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) can help. Our clinicians are trained in CBT and can help you reframe your unhelpful thought patterns so you can cope more effectively. 

Finding Meaning When Life Is Scary or Confusing

 Finding Meaning When Life Is Scary or Confusing

It’s no secret that life for the past 18 months have been a lot different than any of us could have imagined. When life is scary or confusing (or both!) it can seem like it will go on like this forever. We’ve now spent the better part of 2 years putting our lives on hold because of the pandemic, which is still raging on. Tensions seem to be at an all time high. We’re all sick of the way things are, and we’re all trying to deal with it in our own way. Gone are the days when we all baked bread and stayed home - we all have had to find ways to move forward in this new reality, and that can be exhausting. If you’re feeling tired or numb right now, you’re not alone. 

When life is overwhelming, it can sometimes seem like there’s no point to anything. There is a sense of overwhelming hopelessness that can get out of control quickly. While there are plenty of things to be confused or concerned about right now, it is possible to still feel a sense of purpose.

Finding meaning can look different for everyone. Some people find meaning through creativity. Others use religion to make meaning of the world around them. Many people find meaning in their communities or in nature.When life is scary, restoring your sense of purpose can be a deep comfort. 

If you’re looking for ways to find meaning in life right now, here are 5 ideas: 

Join a community

Humans are social creatures. We are wired for connection! When things get tough, community can be a valuable resource for support. It might not be as easy to join an in-person community right now, but there are many options out there for virtual communities. Try local Facebook groups or Meetup groups. If there are any causes out there that are important to you, look into joining a community focused around that. Working together with other people who care about something as much as you do can go a long way to restoring your faith in humanity. 

Explore your values

When was the last time you explored what’s important to you? Values are what we consider to be important in life. Everyone’s values are different. Some people value privacy, and others prefer to share. Some people value promptness, and others are chronically late. There are a million different values that we can have, but it can be a helpful exercise to make a list of values that are especially resonant for you. Your values may shift over time, and that’s okay! Change is natural. That’s why it’s helpful to explore your values every so often, so you know what is important to you. Understanding your values can help you make decisions, come up with goals, and manage uncertainty. 

Try acceptance

Acceptance doesn’t mean approval. For example, you might feel frustrated that you’re caught in a rainstorm. But spending time being frustrated that you’re soaked doesn’t do anything to change the fact that it’s raining. Accepting that it’s raining doesn’t mean you approve of the rain - it just means that it’s happening. When you stop struggling against something, sometimes it has less power. Instead of spending your time focused on what is bringing you distress, what would shift if you accepted it? 

It’s also important to note that acceptance doesn’t mean that nothing will ever change or improve. Acceptance just means you’re not struggling against reality. To follow the rainstorm example, acceptance doesn’t mean that it will rain forever. 

Check cognitive distortions 

Sometimes what your brain tells you is not the truth. We all deal with faulty thinking sometimes, but it can be distressing when we don’t realize it’s happening. When you notice yourself thinking in extremes or having distressing thoughts, take a moment to check your thoughts for cognitive distortions. 

Cognitive distortions are patterns of thinking that aren't true, but that we believe. They can sneak up in a number of ways - “should” statements, all or nothing thinking, personalizing minimizing, jumping to conclusions, and discounting the positive are just some of the ways that cognitive distortions can show up. Remember, thoughts aren’t facts! 

Get to know yourself

Have you gotten to know the new you? We’ve all changed over the last year and a half, and many of us are still getting to know these new versions of ourselves. Crisis and chaos can lead to shifts in the way that we interact with the world and with ourselves, so take some time to explore what’s changed for you over this time. Are your values the same, or have they shifted? Do you have the same friends? What’s been meaningful to you over the past 18 months? 

Some ways to get to know yourself better are to journal, go to therapy, get an assessment, practice mindfulness, and try new things. 

As mentioned above, people find meaning in all sorts of ways. Spiritual practices or religion may help you find the meaning you’re looking for. Other people find meaning out in nature or spending time outdoors. What makes you feel inspired and curious? Follow that thread to find meaning. 

If you’re still struggling to find meaning when life is scary or confusing, therapy can be a great option. A trained therapist can help you find insights and solutions that work for your specific situation so you can get back to feeling like your old self again. Get in touch today to book a session. 

Exploring Perfectionism and Being Ok With ‘Good Enough’

Do you feel a lot of pressure to be perfect? In a world that is increasingly scary and confusing, it’s tempting to try to control as much as we can. However, the pressure to be perfect can be overwhelming and lead to a lot of distress. After all, perfect isn’t an achievable goal for most things. We’re humans. We’re messy, we make mistakes, and sometimes we do the best we can and it’s still not “perfect”. You may associate perfectionism with being hyper-focused on details and always getting things done, but a lot of people who struggle with perfectionism actually have a hard time even getting a project started, let alone finished.

Perfectionism doesn’t always manifest itself in real life the way it’s depicted in the media. One powerful way to fight against the idea of perfectionism is the idea that we can be good enough. We don’t have to be perfect, and perfection isn’t an achievable goal. We can learn to be okay with being good enough.

What is perfectionism

Perfectionism can be traced back to cognitive distortions, like all-or-nothing thinking. As a refresher, cognitive distortions are faulty ways of thinking that we learn to believe are true. All or nothing thinking is a cognitive distortion that means you tend to think in extremes. You’re either successful or a failure. You’re smart or stupid. Instead of leaving room for all the nuance of being a human, all or nothing thinking paints things in black and white. 

It makes sense that we would believe our thoughts, because in general we like to think that we can trust ourselves. However, sometimes our thoughts aren’t true. Sometimes we get so used to thinking one way that we forget there are other ways to think. Striving for perfection doesn’t make you a bad person. In fact, lots of people encourage others to strive for a sort of “healthy” perfection as a way to motivate themselves to do their best. 

The trouble with this is that it’s easy to slip from trying your best because you want to to trying to be perfect because you want to be seen by others as perfect. 

Brene Brown has written about this phenomenon in her work on imperfection, vulnerability, and shame: 

“Perfectionism is a self destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame.”

Shame, judgment, and blame are painful feelings. It makes sense that we want to avoid those feelings! In our search to avoid those painful feelings, though, we often end up feeling that way anyway. When you try your best because you want to, you might feel a sense of pride. However, most of the time we’re trying to be perfect to please someone else. Feeling like you have to prove yourself to be worthy of respect and kindness is a recipe for burnout and shame. 

Some folks who struggle with perfectionism deal with things like procrastination. It might sound counterintuitive that someone who is a perfectionist would struggle with getting started, but some folks struggle with the idea that if they can’t do it perfectly, they don’t want to do it at all.  

What does “good enough” mean? 

Good enough means that we don’t have to do everything perfectly at all times. Good enough means that sometimes the job that gets done isn’t pretty, but it’s effective. For example, you don’t need to have the perfect storage containers and pantry layout before you organize your kitchen. You just need to be able to see what you have in your cupboards so you can put a meal together. You don’t have to always have the perfect materials or perfect plan to get things done. Instead of striving for perfect, we can learn to be happy with the freedom that “good enough” gives us. When you don’t have to spend all of your time worrying about how you’ll do everything exactly right, you have more time to spend on things that make you happy and revitalize you.  

Good enough doesn’t have to mean the same thing from situation to situation. 

There might be things you want to do a really really good job on. There might be things that you realize don’t need quite as much of your attention. Letting go of perfectionism and embracing the idea of good enough means that you can assess each situation as it comes up and decide what is good enough for that particular thing. You might still put lots of effort into work projects or connecting with your friends, but spend less time planning your grocery list or organizing your things. 

Being good enough doesn’t mean that you’re lazy either. It means that you know how to prioritize your energy and protect your boundaries so you can actually enjoy your life. 

Learning to be ok with good enough takes a lot of practice. After all, we live in a culture that prizes folks for being exceptional. It’s natural to want to feel successful and like you matter. However, trying to do everything perfectly just leaves you feeling drained and less than.

If you’re looking for more support overcoming perfectionism, our therapists are trained in modalities like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to help you move from feeling hopeless to feeling empowered.  

Managing Cognitive Distortions

We’ve been talking a lot about cognitive distortions on our blog recently.

In case you missed it though, a cognitive distortion is a pattern of thinking we have that leads us to believe untrue, negative thoughts. And we’ve covered a lot of them including: 

• All or nothing thinking

• Catastrophizing

• Personalization

• Jumping to conclusions

• Emotional reasoning

• Discounting the positive

• Filtering

• Overgeneralization

• Magnification + minimization

• Should statements

• Magical thinking

• Fortune telling

• Control fallacies

• Fallacy of fairness

• Blaming

• Fallacy of change

• Always being right

• Labeling 

Looking at them all together can make them seem overwhelming! How are there so many different types of negative thinking patterns and how could we possibly manage to avoid them? The truth is we can’t always avoid negative thinking, and learning to reroute your thinking patterns takes a lot of work. But we can care for ourselves by becoming aware of these patterns, and developing strategies to deal with them when we notice them popping up.

Some things you can do to manage cognitive distortions include: 

Sit with the distortion when you notice it: 

If you’ve noticed one of the cognitive distortions present in your thinking, don’t just dismiss it as “bad.” While it is important to recognize it as a negative thinking pattern, that doesn’t mean your thoughts should be tossed aside like they don’t matter! Instead, take it as an opportunity to explore the thought. 

For example, if you’re falling into the pattern of fortune telling–predicting how people will behave without giving them an opportunity to show you themselves–don’t just tell yourself “you don’t actually know what you’re talking about, you can’t predict how people will behave,” explore why you’re doing that in the first place. Are you protecting yourself from harm? Where did that habit come from? Was it necessary in other relationships to try to anticipate someone else’s behavior for your own safety? How did that habit serve you then? How is it no longer serving you? What is it getting in the way of in your life, or your growth? 

Give yourself a chance to understand why these patterns come up for you in the first place. 

Hold “trial” for the distortion:

Pretend you are an impartial judge and look at the case your distortion is presenting. Is it convincing? For example: if you’re falling into the pattern of catastrophizing and your boss emails you to let you know they want to schedule a time to meet with you, your mind jumps to the conclusion that “oh my God, I’m going to get fired.” Let yourself have that thought, but don’t take it as fact without examining the evidence. What evidence is there that you would be fired? If it is just the email, that’s not actually enough to make the case for it! 

Remind yourself of the shades of gray: 

The problem with most cognitive distortions is that they work in extremes. When we forget about the messy middle, it’s easy to jump to the worst case scenario. In reality, it’s unlikely that either the best possible or the worst possible scenario will occur. Usually, we’re somewhere in the middle. When you start to think things like “if this goes wrong, everything will go wrong,” or “everything is riding on this” or “if I can’t do this, I’m a failure” challenge yourself to find one true thing that contradicts the idea that it’s the worst possible scenario to be in. 

To learn more about cognitive behavioral therapy and how it can help you challenge your negative thought patterns, get in touch with us today. Our clinicians are trained in CBT and can help you reframe your unhelpful thought patterns so you can cope more effectively. 

10 More Cognitive Distortions to Be Aware Of

Our goal at Hope + Wellness is to help all of our clients live happier, healthier lives where they can cope with anything that comes their way. One way we do this is by teaching coping skills and using evidence based modalities to treat mental health disorders. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, is one modality we use that helps people challenge their negative thought patterns and eventually change their way of thinking.

You might wonder why you’d want to change the way you think - after all, isn’t that what makes you, you? However, sometimes our thoughts can lead to major distress. If you’ve experienced a mental health disorder, you may be familiar with having to challenge your thoughts. It’s important to remember that our thoughts and feelings aren’t facts, and just because we think something doesn’t make it true. We use CBT to treat a number of different issues, like depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, perinatal mood + anxiety disorders, sleep challenges, and relationship problems.

One aspect of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is identifying the patterns in your thinking. We have a name for these patterns in CBT -  they’re called cognitive distortions. A cognitive distortion is a faulty way of thinking that we learn to believe is true. CBT teaches you to identify your cognitive distortions so you can challenge the negative thought patterns and not let them control your life. We’ve talked about cognitive distortions before on the blog - we described 8 different distortions that pop up commonly for people. However, there are far more than just 8 so we’re back with more examples. The first step to changing your negative thought patterns is to spot them, so keep an eye out for any of these cognitive distortions in your thoughts. 

Here are 10 more cognitive distortions to watch out for in your thinking: 

1. Magnification + Minimization

Magnification is when you exaggerate the importance of events. Minimization is the opposite - it’s when you downplay the importance of events. For example, you oversleep and miss an important interview, you may magnify the importance of your alarm going off at the right time and minimize your role in it not going off at the right time (i.e. you forgot to charge your phone). This cognitive distortion keeps you from accepting your role in what happened.

2. Should statements

Should statements are beliefs that things should always be a certain way. When you’re constantly reminding yourself that you ‘should’ be doing something, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Should statements give you unreasonable expectations for what you’re able to accomplish and make you feel less than for doing your best. If you use these a lot, you may never feel like what you do is good enough.

3. Magical thinking

Magical thinking is the belief that your thoughts or actions will influence a specific outcome. You may think that because you’re a good person, bad things can never happen to you. Magical thinking can also be when you assume that your problems will be magically solved. For example, you might feel like your “real life” will start when you lose weight or find a romantic partner. This type of thinking can make us feel like we’re in control when that’s not really the case. 

4. Fortune telling

Fortune telling is a distortion that’s related to jumping to conclusions, a distortion we covered in our last post. Jumping to conclusions means you’ve decided something without evidence. One aspect of this is predicting what people will do or say based on your interpretation of events. You might feel like you know how things will go, so there’s no hope doing anything differently. However, people have their own free will and you have no control over what they’ll do, nor can you predict it. It might make you feel in control at the time, but overall it will leave you feeling lonely. 

5. Control fallacies

Control fallacies are the false idea that we are controlled by either external or internal factors. If you feel that you are externally controlled, you might feel like you have no control over your life. You may feel like fate is deciding things for you and you’re just along for the ride. If you feel that you’re internally controlled, you have the false belief that you are able to control everything around you at all times. It can be hard to let go of the idea that not everything is about you, but it’s important to start giving up that belief. 

6. Fallacy of fairness

This is the false belief that everything in life must be fair and that you are the only one capable of judging what is fair. This fallacy can leave you feeling resentful because you feel that you know better than everyone else but they won’t believe you. However, it’s important to remember that life isn’t fair, even if you strongly believe it should be. Insisting that everything always be fair is a recipe for hopelessness and resentment. 

7. Blaming

This type of cognitive distortion is when someone places blame for something solely on one person - either someone else or themselves. People who blame others always find a way to avoid taking responsibility for their actions, and people who blame themselves always find a way to take on something that isn’t theirs to carry. The fact is that sometimes things happen, and it is our fault. Sometimes something happens to us, and we have nothing to do with it. 

8. Fallacy of change

This fallacy tells us that if we pressure or cajole someone enough, they will change the way we want them to. People are allowed to make their own decisions, even if you don’t agree. It is not on others to change their behavior to make you happy - you need to make yourself happy. It’s not fair to put your happiness on other people. 

9. Always being right 

When someone struggles with always being right, they find it almost impossible to admit that they are wrong. This distortion can involve constantly trying to prove that you’re right by whatever means necessary, even though that can be very alienating to others. Being right is not more important than people’s feelings. 

10. Labeling

Labeling is when you minimize something down to a single (usually negative) descriptor. For example, you might have yourself labeled as “lazy” even though there isn’t much evidence for it. You might label other people as “jerks” or “failures”. This is a dangerous type of overgeneralization that can leave you doubting your self worth and alienating others - after all, no one wants to be labeled. 

To learn more about CBT and how it can help you challenge your negative thought patterns, get in touch with us today. Our clinicians have training in CBT and they can help you find effective ways to cope while you challenge your negative thought patterns. 

What is All or Nothing Thinking?

Last time we started talking about common cognitive distortions. 

As a quick review, cognitive distortions are patterns of thinking we may have that leads to (untrue) negative thoughts that we take as fact. 

These patterns don’t have to control your thoughts forever, though. With cognitive behavioral therapy, you can start to identify these thought patterns, and then challenge them! We went over eight common cognitive distortions, which include: 

• All or nothing thinking 

• Catastrophizing

• Personalization

• Jumping to conclusions

• Emotional reasoning 

• Discounting the positive 

• Filtering 

• Overgeneralization 

Today we’re going to focus on just one: all or nothing thinking. So, what is all or nothing thinking?

It really is just what it sounds like: your thoughts work in extremes. You might have heard it called “black and white” thinking. The lack of “gray area” leaves little room for nuance, paints things are purely good or purely bad. You can be a success or you can be a failure. You can be perfect or you can be worthless. You can be smart or you can be stupid. With all or nothing thinking there is no middle ground. What does this kind of thinking do to us?

All or nothing thinking puts too much pressure on us:

This lack of middle ground automatically raises the stakes for everything we attempt. If the options are to try and succeed or to try and be a failure, naturally there would be a huge amount of pressure on every activity. That’s too much pressure for one person to deal with! All or nothing thinking tells you that you can either do something well or you can fail at something. Which means that with this thinking you can either be a successful, valuable person, or worthless. 

It prevents us from seeing the reality around us clearly: 

Life is not black and white. In fact, most of life is smack dab right in the middle of that messy gray area that all or nothing thinking patterns tend to ignore. The people you meet, the interactions you have, the places you visit, the things you do or see: none of these things are purely good or bad, smart or stupid, etc. When we narrow our thinking to opposing options, we miss a lot of other things that we can’t quite make work with our black and white thinking. 

It gets in the way of us learning + growing: 

Let’s say you’re an actor and you have an audition for a play. When you get there, your nerves get the better of you, and you don’t give the quality performance that you had rehearsed. In all or nothing thinking that would lead you to believe: I’m a bad actor, I’m a failure, I’ll never be cast in a play. While it may feel that way in the moment, it likely is not the whole truth. But when we can’t see the gray areas, when we can only see success vs. failure, we don’t leave any room for ourselves to learn, try again, or improve. 

So what can you do?

To challenge all or nothing thinking, you need to start to get rid of absolute terms. When you start to designate something as all good or bad take an intentional pause. Ask yourself, what are you missing? What is the gray area being ignored? 

Let’s go back to the audition example. When we acknowledge the gray areas, we can see reality clearly, and see what we did well and what we need to improve on. You could think: I can work on stress coping mechanisms next time, so that my nerves don’t get the better of me. Maybe I could rehearse in front of some friends and family to get used to others watching me. I could ask for feedback on my audition so I could know what to work on. I can also acknowledge that even putting myself out there and trying was a lot of hard work and I should be proud of that no matter the outcome. 

See how recognizing the mix of positive and negative allows you to see the opportunities for growth?

To learn more about cognitive behavioral therapy and how it can help you challenge your negative thought patterns like all or nothing thinking, get in touch with us today. Our clinicians are trained in cbt and can help you reframe your unhelpful thought patterns so you can cope more effectively! 

8 Common Cognitive Distortions to Watch Out For

At Hope + Wellness, we used evidence-based practices to help people live happier, healthier lives where people can cope with what life throws their way. One of the treatment modalities we use is called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and we find it to be extremely helpful for challenging negative thought patterns and changing your way of thinking. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, is an active, goal-oriented psychotherapy treatment. CBT has been shown through research to be highly effective in treating children, adolescents, and adults with a wide range of emotional and behavioral concerns including depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, perinatal mood + anxiety disorders, sleep challenges, and relationship problems.

One of the pillars of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is identifying patterns in your thinking to get to the bottom of your negative thoughts. These patterns are called cognitive distortions. A cognitive distortion is a faulty way of thinking that we learn to believe is true. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy helps to identify cognitive distortions so you can challenge your negative thought patterns and not let them control your life.

The first step to challenging your cognitive distortions is to be able to spot them. Here are 8 common cognitive distortions to watch out for:

All or nothing thinking

This is sometimes called polarized thinking or black and white thinking, but the gist of it is that you tend to think in extremes. You don’t find a lot of middle ground - things are either good or bad. This kind of thinking can put a lot of pressure on you, which can be draining. 

The thing to remember, though, is that humans are complex. We all exist in the middle ground sometimes. We’re not all good or all bad, we’re something in between. When we get used to thinking in extremes, we lose the ability to let things be what they are.

Catastrophizing

If you catastrophize, you see the worst in every situation. Often this can come from a very real place - folks who grew up in traumatic environments often catastrophize. It’s important to remind yourself that just because you jump to the worst possible assumption doesn’t mean that it’s actually going to happen. It can be hard to break the habit of automatically assuming the worst. 

Personalization

One thing we tend to do as humans is assume everything is about us. It’s natural, right - we’re the main character in our story, after all. We feel like we’re responsible for events that are outside of our control, or that everything somehow relates back to us. However, it’s important to remember that not very many things are actually about you! The way someone acts probably has a lot more to do with them than with you. 

Jumping to Conclusions

When we decide something without evidence, we’ve jumped to conclusions. We might feel like we know what other people are thinking and feeling and what they’re going to do, but that’s not actually the truth. We aren’t mind readers. We only know what’s going on in our own minds. Jumping to conclusions can also overlap with Mind Reading, another cognitive distortion where we assume we can read the minds of the people around us, no communication needed. However, we need to let people do their own communicating. Thinking we know how everything is going to go can just lead to misunderstandings and frustration. 

Emotional Reasoning

Emotional reasoning leads us to believe that our feelings are the truth. Instead of letting our logical brains figure out what’s true, we let our emotions do the talking. You might feel like whatever you’re feeling is the truth, but take some time to investigate a little deeper. Are your feelings facts? What do the facts tell you about the situation? 

Discounting the Positive

This is a negative bias in thinking that makes us feel like anything good that happens to us is a fluke or good luck. We don’t believe that anything good could happen to us on purpose. When you start thinking that way though, it can lead you to feel like you have no control over anything good happening to you, so it can make you less likely to try things. Remember, good things can happen to you for all sorts of reasons - skill, good decision making, timing, your connections, etc. It doesn’t have to be about luck.

Filtering

Similar to discounting the positive, filtering happens when we filter out all the positive aspects of a situation and focus only on the negative. Viewing everything through a negative filter can be exhausting and depressing. Remember that there are positives and negatives to everything, and that just because you’re tempted to focus on the negative doesn’t mean there isn’t something positive you could also focus on. 

Overgeneralization 

Overgeneralization is when we make assumptions about something based on a very small amount of evidence. Something can happen to you once and you expect it to keep happening that way forever. You might see things as part of a negative pattern or expect your negative conclusion to apply to every situation. Remember to look for more evidence before making generalizations. 

To learn more about cognitive behavioral therapy and how it can help you challenge your negative thought patterns, get in touch with us today. Our clinicians are trained in CBT and can help you reframe your unhelpful thought patterns so you can cope more effectively.