We’re always thinking. We think about family, friends, work, projects, plans, health, hobbies, news events, the weather, sports, and countless other things. We spend so much time thinking—and it’s so engrained in our lives—that for the most part we don’t even think about thinking.
There’s a potential downside to how we use our brains, however, what some in the psychology field call “cognitive distortions” or “unhelpful thinking styles”. We all experience this from time to time, and I’ll bet you recognize many of these thinking styles.
They’re not healthy ways of thinking, as you can probably guess from the labels. The trick is to catch ourselves when we fall into these patterns and try to get past them.
Unhelping thinking styles “are ways that our thoughts can become biased,” according to Psychology Tools, an organization that provides resources and guidance to mental health professionals. “As conscious beings we are always interpreting the world around us, trying to make sense of what is happening. Sometimes our brains take ‘short cuts’ and generate results that are not completely accurate.”
And these short cuts can be bad for us and for others we come in contact with. They can occur suddenly and without warning. “Cognitive distortions happen automatically—we don’t mean to think inaccurately—but unless we learn to notice them they can have powerful yet invisible effects upon our moods and our lives,” says Psychology Tools.
Here are few examples of unhelpful thinking styles, according to Psychology Tools.
All or nothing thinking. When we perceive things in terms of all or nothing or black and white, it doesn’t leave any wiggle room. We look at things, including our personal qualities and capabilities, in extremes.
So, for example, if I complete a work assignment for a client and it doesn’t turn out perfect, I’ve failed. It’s easy to see why this approach to thinking is not healthy! Evaluating ourselves or others based on extremes is not realistic because life doesn’t work that way.
This kind of thinking can keep us from trying things because of a fear we won’t do them perfectly. If we give ourselves some leeway and replace the blacks and whites with grays, we can take away the fear.
Over-generalization. This is when we draw broad conclusions about our abilities, performance, or even worth based on a single incident. And it’s so easy to do.
For example, there have been times when work was slow and an assignment I thought I had fell through. I’d think to myself, “that’s it, my freelance writing career is probably over.” I see a pattern based on a single occurrence. But then as soon as something else comes in for me to work on, my thinking reverses.
This kind of overgeneralization distorts our thinking because we reach conclusions that are too broad given the circumstances. I find it helps to bring context and perspective to particular events, to keep from generalizing too much.
Mental filter. Imagine you’ve achieved something—running an event, preparing a big meal or teaching a class, for example. You get great feedback from a lot of people who rave about your skills and what you’ve accomplished. Then there’s that one person who says something negative about the event, or the meal or the class.
Rather than soak in the positive feedback and adulation, you focus on—even obsess about—the one criticism. This is thinking with a mental filter, and it can really do a number on us.
I remember years ago heading up a special issue of a magazine I worked for. It was an enormous amount of work and I was pleased with the results. Lots of other people were as well, and were very complementary. Then one editor pointed out that there was a minor error on a page—out of more than 250 pages of content.
Needless to say, this was irritating and I found myself focused on it—but fortunately for only a brief period of time. Some people feel a need to point out flaws in others’ work, and in many cases we just have to ignore it and focus on the positive.
Labeling. This is when we place unjustified labels on ourselves and others. We might do this because we’re frustrated, angry, depressed, discouraged or for some other reason.
One example of this happened to me a short time ago. A guy parked his car in the street, partially blocking my driveway, as he chatted with the neighbor who lives next door. As time went by and he wasn’t moving his car, I thought, “this guy must be an idiot.” That’s the label I placed on him.
But then I reminded myself that I didn’t know anything about this person other than that he was parked in front of my house and knows my neighbor. Maybe he devotes much of his free time to volunteering at a soup kitchen, or maybe he’s going through emotional issues.
Regardless, it was a relatively minor annoyance and using a negative label was neither fair nor productive. We can also do this to ourselves sometimes when we mess up, which is also unfair and unproductive.
Jumping to conclusions. This is similar to labeling in that we’re making a determination about something without having all of the facts. You can see why we would do this because in a lot of cases we’re making conclusions based on previous experiences or obvious facts.
For instance, if your favorite baseball team is behind by 10 runs in the bottom of the ninth inning, you can reasonably conclude that it’s not likely to win. But if someone you know doesn’t smile at you when you meet and you decide they must be angry with you, that’s an unwarranted, negative conclusion.
Variations of this are mind reading, when we think we know the intentions or thoughts of another person; and fortune telling, when we have inflexible expectations of how things will turn out before they even happen. The trick is to not always make assumptions based on appearances.
I’m no expert at any of this, and I would urge people struggling with any kind of extreme, unhelpful thinking to seek professional help. I do think it’s good to be aware of certain negative ways of thinking, so I wanted to share these unhelpful thinking styles in the hopes that it might be, well, helpful.
What do you think?
“I’ve always believed that you can think positive just as well as you can think negative.”—James Baldwin
If you haven’t subscribed, you’re missing out on post updates! To sign up, type your email in the box below then click on the green subscribe button. When you receive a confirmation message from WordPress, click on the “confirm now” button to complete the process.
Leave a Reply