Our thoughts can become habits and often they’re not good habits and when we have negative thought habits, we start feeling miserable and down and look at life in a very negative way – heading into the ‘why me?’ situation. However, the good news is that you can change your thoughts – it’s not easy but it can be done, just like any bad habit it’s all about your own willingness to change. The problem with the negative thoughts is that we often don’t even realize that we are thinking them, because they come so naturally to us – like biting your nails, you don’t realize that they’ve been bitten until they are gone. So, here are some tips to help you unravel the bad thought habits that you have and how to turn them into a positive.
1. Black and White thinking – for instance if you set yourself a goal and you don’t achieve it, you beat yourself up and see yourself as a total failure and then continually berate yourself mentally about this perceived failure. CHANGE IT – nothing is black and white our world is filled with lots of different shades of grey. When you have that negative thought about being a failure ask yourself if it is really true that you’re a complete failure because of one single mistake. Recognize that calling yourself a total failure just isn’t true – remember that failure is a verb it’s something you do not something that you are.
2. Overgeneralising – When you find yourself using worlds like ‘always’ and ‘never’ when you are talking about a single situation, you’re overgeneralizing and creating a huge negative event over a single thing. For instance, say you get a parking ticket you will think ‘just my luck, this always happens to me’. When in fact it doesn’t always happen to you. CHANGE IT – Think about all the times you have parked and never received a parking ticket, bring it into perspective.
3. Positive filter – when you’re brain doesn’t see the positive but focuses on the negative – say you get some feedback for something that you have done, whether an assignment, presentation or it could be a work review, the feedback is 95% positive but all you do is focus on that 5% that is negative and then tell yourself that you’re useless, hopeless and that you’ve failed. Your brain has completely filtered out all the positives that were in that feedback. CHANGE IT – take a breath and go over what was actually said, not what you only heard and then focus on one of the positives of that feedback.
4. Being negative to positives – we seem to have been conditioned in society how to respond to compliments, we don’t seem to accept praise and admiration on face value that someone means it instead you think ‘they’re just being nice’ or that they’re only saying it because they may want something from you, you have just completely dismissed a beautiful positive thing. CHANGE IT – Think about that positive comment and if you have no proof that there is an ulterior motive then be happy that someone said something nice to you.
5. Magnifying – we tend to magnify our fears and imperfections so that a simple ordinary event turns into a major disaster. CHANGE IT – before you start beating yourself up over a mistake, ask yourself how you would talk to someone else who had done the same mistake? We are often our harshest critics.
Change the negative thoughts with a positive one and you will realize that you have been far too hard on yourself – be kind to yourself and you will feel better for it.