9 Thinking Errors You Need To Give Up To Become Joyful

Good day, Everyone.

Welcome to my fifth post, and thank you for being such faithful readers.

Now, at this moment, I would like to talk about thinking errors. No matter what kind of circumstances or extreme conditions we are in, the only way to preserve a correct attitude in handling problem is by managing our wave of thought. By organizing our pattern of thoughts, it becomes easier to build an indestructible mental strength, so we can keep harmony with our emotions.

It is not easy to keep our thoughts in peace (I believe anyone of us experiences such) because the first thing we do right after catasthrope happens is that we start viewing everything with negative lenses. Do you ever catch yourself being harshly critical, judgemental, or full of fear and worry toward surroundings or even to yourself? Or how the "inner-you" whispers you:

You are just not good enough..

You are going to have a really bad day..

Nothing goes right at your way..

No matter how much effort you put it in, nothing good will actually happen..

Why don’t you just give up already?

Yikes, anyone can relate with that.

As we continue our daily routines, our internal monologue continually narrate every experience or encounter we have every day. Those self-talks really do influence the way we interact with others. How you feel about yourself, how you think how other people think about you, everything is being monitored and controlled in that self-talks mechanism of brain.

But you have to really understand that, these thoughts are not REALISTIC. Sometimes they are even irrational. Inaccurate. Pointless. Groundless. Unfounded. Or any error alerts you can find when your desktop underwent errors. Every communication issues, peers relationships problems, wrong decisions, almost every relationships' failures arise as a consequence of blindlessly believing those irrational thoughts.

David Burns, the author of Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, divide thinking errors into these ten categories. If you are striving to improve yourself in personal or career goal, recognizing or simply being aware of these thinking errors might help you reaching the fullest potential.

1. All-or-Nothing Thinking

Something we see life events as ‘completely disastrous’ or ‘absolutely wonderful’. There is no in between. Everything is either black, or white. Perhaps you have friends who are good and bad ones. Maybe you look at each relationship as either a success or a failure. In order to modify this troublesome mindset, we need to train ourselves to focus softly on the in between shades.

Let’s take a look at the example from panicdisorder.about.com.

Roger recently decided to face his anxiety and ask a woman out on a date. He left a her a message on her voicemail. A few days went by and Roger didn’t hear back from her. He begins to think, “I am a total loser with nothing to offer,” “No one wants to go out with me,” and “I will never find the right person, so why bother.” Roger starts to feel nervous and upset as he considers a future alone.

2. Overgeneralizing

It's easy to take one particular event and generalize it to the rest of our life. If you failed to close one deal, you may decide, "I'm bad at closing deals." Or if you are treated poorly by one family member, you might think, "Everyone in my family is rude." Take notice of times when an incident may apply to only one specific situation, instead of all other areas of life.

3. Filtering Out the Positive

If nine good things happen, and another one bad occur, we tend to filter out the nine good things and emphasize the one bad thing. Or maybe we look back at our performance and declare it was terrible because we made a single, unsubtle mistake. Filtering out the positive can prevent you from establishing a realistic outlook on a situation. We need to develop a balanced outlook by noticing both the positive and the negative.

4. Mind-Reading

We can never be sure what someone else is thinking. Yet, to some people, they occasionally assume that they know what's going on in someone else's mind. Thinking things like, " He must have thought I was stupid at the meeting," makes inferences that aren't necessarily based on reality. Remind yourself that you may not be making accurate guesses about other people's perceptions, and clearly you are just making blind assumptions.

5. Catastrophizing

Sometimes we think things are much worse than they actually are. If you fall short on meeting your financial goals one month you may think, "I'm going to end up bankrupt," or "I'll never have enough money to retire," even if there's no evidence that the situation is nearly that dire. It can be easy to get swept up into catastrophizing a situation once your thoughts become negative. When you begin predicting doom and gloom, remind yourself that there are many other potential positive outcomes.

6. Emotional Reasoning

Our emotions aren't always based on reality but we often assume those feelings are real and rational. If you're worried about making a career change, you might assume, "If I'm this scared about it, I just shouldn't change jobs." Or, you may be tempted to assume, "If I feel like a loser, I must be a loser." It is essential to recognize that emotions, because just like our thoughts, they aren't always based on the facts.

7. Fortune-telling

We absolutely have no idea what's gonna happen to us tomorrow and tomorrow's mess has not become our concern today.The funny thing is that we sometimes like to try our hand at fortune-telling. We think things like:

"I'm going to embarrass myself tomorrow,"

"If I go on a diet, I'll probably just gain weight."

These types of thoughts can become self-fulfilling prophecies if you're not careful.

8. Personalization

We tend to harbor an illusion that the world revolves around us. Therefore, it becomes easy to personalize everything. Say your friend doesn't call you back though he promised so, you frantically assume that " He must be mad", or if you find your co-worker grumpy, you thought " He doesn't like me."

Take time to put a deeper thought whenever you start personalizing situations. Be aware that the people you personalize do their own circumstances.

9. Unreal Ideal

Now this one is destructive; making an unfair comparison with people whom-you-think have life figured out better than yours. Looking at someone who achieved a sky-rocketing success and thinking " I should have been able to do that" may diminish your motivation to great extent. What if the guy you adore happened to have lucky breaks? Or competitive advantages along the way? Or is it that guy work so hard in secret that you only notice his success on the next day? Rather than comparing your life to theirs, focusing on your own path to success is much better.

Fixing Thinking Errors?

The first step of fixing these intoxicating thought is that you need to be AWARE.

Now that i have informed you the examples of thinking errors, now you need to closely identify whether or not you are having one or two or three of them. Look for evidence, ensure yourself that the thoughts you are having aren't 100% true. Thus, you can begin replacing them with more rational thoughts.

It takes time, effort initially just to change the way you think and make peace with your past. But with consistence practice, sooner or later, you will notice big changes both to your life, and other people surrounding you.

Stay sharp, everyone!