There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. —Hamlet.
We all have our own individual styles and patterns of thinking. Some “trains of thought” occur more frequently to us than others. Often we never actually stop to think about our thinking, and whether it is accurate, appropriate or helpful. In fact, some of the ways we think about things can be very unhelpful, whether they are accurate or not.
Sometimes what you think about something can be not based in fact at all, but based in emotion. More often than not, you’ll find that these are unhelpful thinking patterns.
For example: Say you make an error at work and your manager brings it to your attention. You might feel embarrassed and ashamed, and say to yourself, “How could I be so stupid? I’m such an idiot, and now everyone knows it!” This thought process will make you feel even worse!
But then you wake up the next morning after a good night’s sleep, and realised how over-worked, tired out and stressed you are. You might say to yourself, “You know, ordinarily I would never make such a silly mistake. I think I was just tired and not at my best at the time I made it.”
Your frame of mind changed, and as a result, so did the way you thought about the event. The event itself didn’t change — your thoughts about it did. Doesn’t this mean that your thoughts about an event are not always true?
Thoughts lead to feelings
Events and situations do not make you feel anything. Rather, it is the way you think about these events that leads to your feelings about them.
For example: Imagine two people are waiting at a bus stop, and the bus goes straight past without stopping.
Person 1 thinks to himself, “The bus must have been full, so the driver went past because there was no room for us anyway. Ah well, the next one will be along soon.”
Person 2 thinks to herself, “That idiot busdriver couldn’t have missed us! What an incompetent fool! Now I’ll be late, and it’s all that driver’s fault!”
Imagine how each person might be feeling at that point. They’d be feeling quite differently — but it would be about the exact same situation.
It’s their interpretations, judgments, thoughts and beliefs that lead to how they feel, not the event itself. There are often several interpretations for how a single event could happen. If you notice you’re feeling upset, look carefully at how you’re thinking about the situation. Is your interpretation the only possible one?
Unhelpful thinking patterns
If you’re having thoughts that are making you feel worse about a situation, this is an unhelpful thinking pattern. When you notice yourself feeling really rotten about something, it can be useful to take a step back from your thoughts, to look at them and ask yourself:
Is this really true? Is this helpful? What might be a more helpful way of thinking about this?
Because sometimes it doesn’t matter whether what you’re thinking is true or not, but whether it is helpful for you to focus on it and spend energy on it. If it’s only going to make you feel worse, why focus on it? Why not focus on something that will make you feel better, so you can move past it and get on with your life.
Listed below are some unhelpful thinking patterns that people often have. These patterns of thought serve only to make you feel a lot worse about a situation, and often they are based in feeling, not fact. It can be helpful to get to know this list, so that when you do notice yourself getting upset, you can step back and say, Aha! I just caught myself “awfulising,” or “generalising,” or “jumping to negative conclusions,” for example.
Demanding (“shoulds,” “musts,” etc)
A common mistake in thinking is the insistence that things “should” or “must” be a certain way. This demanding attitude can be about ourselves, others, or the world. It is inflexible and absolute, leaving a person prone to distress in any situation where the demand isn’t met.
For example, someone cuts you off in traffic. “They should not have done that!” is a common thought in such a situation — one that, if dwelled upon, will lead to increasing frustration. And where does that get you?
Or how about this one: “I shouldn’t eat that chocolate cake.” As if you were a child who needs to be told what and what not to do! Using “shoulds” and “should nots” as motivation techniques actually triggers the rebellious child in you, and you get the urge to do the exact opposite!
Awfulising
This is the tendency to exaggerate the negative consequences of a situation. It usually looks like “If I don’t pass my driving test it will be the end of the world!” This kind of thinking inflates a problem until it seems impossible to deal with.
“Shoulds” (as above) tend to go with this kind of “awfulising,” because people typically think that things should be a certain way because it would be awful if they weren’t.
Take a step back from this thought and put it in perspective.
All-or-nothing reasoning (It’s either black or white)
This problem in thinking is about seeing a situation as being either “all good” or “all bad.” It is a distortion of the facts because a person fails to recognize that most situations are neither disastrous nor fantastic, but rather, somewhere in between.
Generalisation
When a person over-generalises, they draw conclusions about the world, others, or themselves, on the basis of very limited evidence. You can identify this error most of the time when a person complains with exaggerations such as “always,” “never,” “everybody,” or “nobody”.
Taking it personally
When a person feels responsible for something that is not their fault, or when they incorrectly assume that another person’s responses are directed at them, this is the thinking error called ‘personalising.’ Being able to resist the temptation to take it personally, promotes better relationships and helps avoid stress.
Selective attention (and selective memory)
Negative ideas shape the way that a person perceives things. As our mental focus only has so much space, such focusing on the negative doesn’t leave much room to consider positive events that happen. Selective attention is where a person selectively ignores the positive.
Jumping to negative conclusions
This error in thinking is the tendency to leap to conclusions that are negative, rather than waiting for the evidence. It results in assuming the worst of others, the world and ourselves, making it difficult for people to stick with things over time.
Reading minds
Mind reading is a specific sort of ‘jumping to negative conclusions’ based on the idea that we know what other people are thinking. Much of the time, this sort of assumption turns out to be plain wrong. This is quite common with social anxiety and social phobia.
Labelling
Labelling things is the ultimate generalisation. This is a way of branding people (or situations) as being characterised by a very limited set of qualities, when usually this is not the case.
Condemnation (damning)
This is a type of labelling, where you brand people or situations with a tone of condemnation during times of disappointment. It is a thinking error because it usually results in bitter resentment and disempowerment. It leaves a person very exhausted.
Predicting catastrophe
This mental error has its roots in a person’s tendency to wonder “what-if?” about circumstances, focusing exclusively on the negative outcomes that may happen. What people tend not to recognise here is that situations and people usually cannot be predicted so easily in advance.
Making false comparisons
When a person compares themselves to other people to gauge their own status, worth or success, they can tend to evaluate themselves much more poorly than they deserve. These sorts of comparisons are typically not even-handed or fair, as they don’t take into account all of the circumstances, support, or plain luck that others might have had along the way.
Still need help?
Access the Anglicare SQ Family Support Service (Brisbane) or the Kinections Psychology & Wellbeing Clinic (Brisbane) if you think you would benefit from some counselling or support around this issue.
