Based on ‘Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy’ by David D. Burns, we explore the considerable influence of our thoughts on our emotions and behaviors, while simultaneously uncovering ten thought patterns that could inadvertently lead us down a path of self-sabotage.
1. All-or-Nothing Thinking
This thinking pattern is a cognitive distortion when someone evaluates themselves in an extreme way: either they are perfect or they are nothing. Even a small mistake can lead to a negative evaluation of their entire personality.
For example, it’s the belief that you must be completely successful, or you are a failure. Evaluating oneself in this way is not realistic because life rarely unfolds perfectly like that. For instance, nobody is entirely smart or entirely foolish. Similarly, no one is entirely charming or entirely ugly. When you view the world through this lens, you set yourself up for thought patterns that can make you depressed because your perspective doesn’t align with reality.
In summary, this can harm one’s self-esteem and mental well-being. Recognizing and challenging your own thoughts is an important step toward having a more positive outlook on life.
2. Absolute Thinking
Absolute thinking is when you take a past event and use it to draw conclusions about future events. This often involves making extreme predictions based on limited or no evidence.
For example, if a shy guy puts all the courage to ask a girl out but gets rejected because she already has plans, he might say to himself, “I will never get a date; no girl will want to date me. I’ll be lonely and miserable forever.” In this distorted perception, he concludes that because one girl rejected him once, she will always do so, and because all women are the same, he will be endlessly rejected by any woman in the world. With this thinking pattern, you’re hindering yourself from finding new opportunities in life. You become passive and negative, thinking that there’s no chance for you.
More importantly, for those struggling with depression, this thinking pattern can be a loop that leads you deeper into the pit you’ve created for yourself.
3. Mental filter
In this pattern, you constantly find a negative detail in every situation and focus solely on it, thereby convincing yourself that the whole situation is negative. For example, if you think you’ve had a bad day because one thing after another went wrong, your subconscious filtering process is at work, disregarding any positive or neutral aspects of the day. On another occasion, when this girl completed her first mid-term exam, she was sure she had missed around 17 out of 100 questions. She believed she was going to fail college. When she received her exam back, there was a note that said, “You answered 83 out of 100 questions correctly. This is the highest score of any student this year. A+.”
When you’re in a depressive state, you often wear special glasses with emotional filtering lenses, screening out all the positive aspects of life. Everything you feed into your consciousness becomes negative. However, the danger here is that you often don’t realize this “filtering” process is happening, and therefore, you conclude that everything is ugly and negative. This is a harmful habit that can cause a lot of unnecessary suffering, and it’s why you can’t clear the fog of fear because the emotional filtering of the nervous system doesn’t allow you to do so.
4. Disqualifying The Postive
This is akin to being a scientist determined to find evidence to support a hypothesis you always believe in, which is, “I am a terrible person.” Whenever you experience a negative event, you focus on it and conclude, “This just makes me feel worse.” Conversely, when you have a positive experience, you might tell yourself, “That’s just temporary luck. It’s not truly valuable.” However, the price you pay for this thinking pattern is self-sabotage by doubting your own worth.
This thinking pattern often plays out as “I’m terrible; nobody cares about me.” This negative thinking can cause you to miss out on the good things in life and lead you into dark, murky thoughts.
5. Jumping To Conclusion
This thinking pattern is an error in perception where one predicts or concludes something without sufficient evidence or basis. It often relies on limited or self-imposed information that lacks certainty.
There are two main variations of this thinking pattern:
Mind Reading: This is when we think we can read someone else’s thoughts, intentions, or emotions without any specific evidence. For instance, someone might think that others are talking negatively about them in their heads.
Fortune Telling: This occurs when someone predicts that a situation will turn out badly without concrete evidence. For example, we might believe that we will fail in a project we haven’t even started.
To overcome this thinking pattern, it’s important to recognize when you’re making unfounded assumptions and seek more information before drawing conclusions. You need to objectively assess situations before passing judgment. This can help reduce misunderstandings and open up your mind.
6. Magnification
These are types of cognitive distortions where we tend to exaggerate the significance, scariness, or awfulness of a situation or event, leading us to see something as more important, fearful, or terrible than it actually is. Catastrophizing and minimizing are two common forms of this thinking pattern.
Catastrophizing: This is when we imagine the worst-case scenarios and predict that everything will lead to a deadlock or a catastrophe. For example, someone might believe that a minor mistake at work will lead to job loss and complete failure.
Minimizing: On the contrary, minimizing occurs when we downplay or ignore the significance of an achievement, positive event, or our own abilities. This can erode self-esteem and the ability to recognize our true worth. For instance, someone might not acknowledge their success and attribute it to luck.
To cope with this thinking pattern, it’s crucial to be more mindful of your emotional thoughts. Try to gather specific evidence and facts to assess situations more fairly. Frequently question whether you are exaggerating or minimizing your capabilities. Awareness of these thoughts can help you maintain a more accurate perspective on life.
7. Emotion Reasoning
This is when we use our own emotions as a basis for conclusions or decisions rather than relying on logic or available information. For example, if you feel anxious about attending a job interview, you might conclude, “I feel anxious, so I will fail the interview.” Although you might feel anxious, it doesn’t mean you will fail.
8. Should Statements
It’s the tendency to impose unnecessary rules, desires, or expectations on oneself or others. This can lead to stress and pressure. When we can’t meet what we think is necessary, we often feel guilty. For instance, if you tell yourself, “I should always be perfect in everything,” you are placing unnecessary pressure on yourself and feeling like a failure every time you’re not perfect.
9. Labeling
This is when we assign positive or negative labels to describe ourselves or others based on a specific action or event. Frequently labeling incorrectly can lead to self-sabotage and misjudging others or ourselves. For example, if you label yourself as “a total failure” after encountering a minor setback, you’re overlooking the positive aspects of yourself and evaluating yourself too negatively.
10. Personalization
Personalization is when you take responsibility for things or situations that you can’t control or have no connection to you. You often feel like you have to take responsibility and stress about.
Recognizing and understanding these patterns is the first step to break free from those negative thinking With this knowledge, we have the opportunity to challenge and reframe our thinking habits, ultimately leading us toward greater self-awareness, personal growth, and a more fulfilling life. By actively working to overcome these self-sabotaging tendencies, we unlock the potential for positive change and a better future ahead.
