5 Thinking Errors That Cause You To Self-Sabotage
The human brain is fascinating. It’s an incredibly powerful machine capable of memory storage and retrieval, regulating sleep cycles, sending people to the moon, or producing music that elicits strong emotions in others.
When the brain is in high gear, human beings are capable of amazing feats not unlike a high performance computer.
But even the best computers malfunction, glitch, or don’t perform at their best all the time. Similarly, our brains have their own ways of formulating incorrect thoughts or producing emotions that don’t always serve us well.
One of the most popular methods of therapy is the Cognitive Behavioral approach (also known as CBT), which often focuses on helping people understand how their thoughts keep them in cycles of depression and anxiety.
In highlighting the problems that might plague our thinking, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy outlines several common thinking errors contributing to poor mental health.
Do any of these sound familiar?
Thinking Error #1: “Change Will Happen When I Feel Inspired or Motivated”
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if this were true? If it were the case, I’m sure we’d all be living our best lives 24/7. But making healthy changes doesn’t always require that we feel motivated or even inspired. In fact, change can happen in spite of how we feel at any given moment. Some of our most memorable life experiences and biggest breakthroughs happen when we avoid the temptation of waiting for inspiration or motivation and instead build confidence even when we least feel like doing so.
Working through feelings of fear and apprehension in therapy can be helpful in understanding our hesitancy toward change, but making the effort toward a healthier lifestyle even when we experience discomfort is a key to personal growth.
Thinking Error #2: “It’s Everything or Nothing At All”
Believe it or not, there’s room for gray in many of our daily experiences. Our partner may (frequently) forget to pick up dry cleaning, but that doesn’t mean they don’t care about us at all. We might not have earned the promotion we wanted, but that doesn’t mean that we’re unworthy or useless on the job.
This thought pattern, often known as “black and white thinking” can often prevent us from seeing the positives in difficult experiences, cause us to overlook potential solutions to our problems, or even prompt us to think negatively of ourselves when we fall short of our own standards and values. It’s common for our brains to make sweeping judgements and categorize experiences as “good vs bad”, but in many situations there’s plenty of nuance to be found.
Rather than automatically sorting experiences into positive and negative categories, reflecting on the immediate assumptions and avoiding unhelpful generalizations. Going to therapy can help you identify moments where we’ve generalized, and can help us find the nuance necessary to have a balanced perspective on our circumstances.
Thinking Error #3: “This Is Going To Be The Worst”
Maybe it will be awful. But… maybe it won’t? Therapists call this “catastrophizing”, a thought pattern that tells us an upcoming experience will most definitely be unpleasant. This practice is often a leftover reaction to past negative experiences. Human beings often engage in this type of thinking as it may help us prepare for disaster, but how often have we had experiences that we predicted would be intolerable only to discover that everything turned out okay? Most experiences in life are actually not 100% amazing or totally awful. This might sound anticlimactic but most of our experiences are actually quite uneventful. And, even negative experiences often end up forgotten.
Unless you have a crystal ball capable of accurately predicting the future, it may not be in your best interest to assume the outcome of a situation until it occurs. It may be best to assess a situation with better clarity and spare ourselves from the agonizing feelings that accompany catastrophic thinking.
Thinking Error #4: “I Already Know What They’re Thinking”
Also known as “mindreading”, this common glitch occurs when we decide that we already know the inner thoughts of others. This error is similar to catastrophizing mental patterns described earlier. While we may have some insight on the personalities and traits of close friends and family, it’s impossible for us to accurately know what others may be thinking at any given time. Assuming that others think less of us or that their behaviors are motivated by ill intent prevents us from accurately understanding the reality of daily situations and might cause us to react in ways that harm our connections with others. In turn, taking a moment to confirm if our preconceived notions are correct can lead to healthier relationships. And healthy relationships contribute greatly to emotional healing.
Thinking Error #5: “Accept The Negative, Ignore The Positive”
For several reasons our brains seem programmed to focus on negative experiences and may often overlook positive circumstances or outcomes. We may focus on the fact that we didn’t land a job we’d hoped for while completely ignoring the large gains we’ve made in our interviewing skills. We might overlook the value in our creative process and instead focus on negatively comparing our output to that of our peers. When not kept in check, this error generates several symptoms of depression including low self esteem and low self worth, and prevents us from identifying the helpful or positive happenings in our lives. Seeing a therapist can help us catch this common mistake and help develop a practice of noticing positive qualities and outcomes more frequently.
Throughout the bustle of daily life we may not recognize the cycles of thinking that don’t serve us well and result in repeated unsatisfying experiences. But seeing a therapist can help us break out of those cycles and pivot toward healthier thinking.
One of the benefits of therapy is having a dedicated space to examine thought patterns, and decide if our chain of thoughts helps us move forward, or whether we’re better off leaving this series of thoughts behind. Although this takes continual effort, the benefits of understanding the impact of our thoughts is well worth it.
Our therapists at LaunchPad Counseling provide therapy for anxiety, depression, and stress caused by difficult relationships or traumatic experiences. We offer In-Person therapy in Richmond VA, and Online Counseling across Virginia.
