Happy weekend beautiful people! Time flies and we are already a third into 2022. Have you been keeping to your new year’s resolution? During this weekend, we want to appreciate and celebrate how far we have come in taking small steps of change, bringing us closer to success. Moreover, as we review the third that has just passed, let us be more aware of the way we treat ourselves.
Most of us have our own definition of success - some yearn for money, others wish to meet their soulmate. Many times, we do not realise that we have been caught up in the rat race to ‘success’. In our society, we are often led to believe that achieving a certain level of financial stability would ease our worries. While we are fixated on chasing things that we do not have, it is so easy for us to overlook what we already have. With so much on our plate and so much more we want to pile on, we tend to start looking for problems within ourselves.
In our fast-paced society, we are constantly putting pressure on ourselves to perform well in comparison to others and not make mistakes. When things go wrong, we tend to ruminate and blame ourselves for it. This tends to form a dark cycle of unhealthy thinking styles that we conveniently turn to whenever something goes wrong, or when we suspect something will go wrong. Unfortunately, such unhelpful thinking styles often go unnoticed since we do not often vocalise our thoughts or share that inner voice that can be quite nasty at times.
Research suggests that unhelpful thinking styles could give rise to feelings of depression, anxiety, anger, guilt and shame in the long run. More importantly, these unhelpful thinking styles negatively affect our outlook on life and views of ourselves. So what do unhealthy thinking styles look like?
Personalisation. Blaming ourselves or taking responsibility for something that was not completely our fault. Usually, there are multiple contributing factors to a single event that went wrong. With personalisation, however, we tend to see things that went wrong as entirely our fault without consideration of other contributing factors.
Example: blaming yourself for your child’s bad grades.
Minimisation of the positives. Only noticing the negatives that have happened and downplaying the positives by attributing them to external and uncontrollable factors.
Example: attributing your success to luck rather than the countless hours you spent perfecting your business proposal.
Shoulds and musts. Using words such as ‘should’ and ‘must’, we set rigid standards for ourselves and perceive ourselves or others negatively when these standards are not met. Sometimes, we think that we ‘should have’ done things differently to yield a better outcome.
Example: I should have worked harder instead of using my phone.
Mental filter. Focusing on a very small event and filtering out everything else.
Example: Focusing only on the criticisms that you get in a job review and disregard all the positives that were mentioned.
All or nothing. Only looking to extremes without a middle ground.
Example: Jordan, whose parents have divorced, believes that individuals from broken families like himself will never have happy relationships like others from complete families would.
Catastrophizing. Assumes that the worst consequences would occur.
Example: Alice believes that if she fails her prelims, she would also fail her A levels and thereafter not be able to get into university or find a job.
Emotional reasoning. Believing and assuming that we are a certain way because of how we feel.
Example: thinking that you are incompetent because you feel anxious at work.
Labelling. Making a judgement of a person by taking one characteristic of a person and generalising it to the whole person.
Example: Feeling like a failure after failing a test.
Overgeneralization. Drawing broad conclusions over a general pattern that we have observed.
Example: I broke my favourite cup, I must be a very clumsy person.
Jumping into conclusions. Predicting the future or imagining that we know what others are thinking.
Example: he must hate me for knocking over his coffee this morning.
Did any of those unhealthy thinking patterns sound familiar to you? Which ones have you identified yourself using? Before you panic, it is not the end of the world. It is common to have several of these unhelpful thinking styles. Although it may have been internalised as a habit, we can still take small steps to get ourselves out of this dark cycle of negative thinking. Some steps to get out of the negative thinking traps include:
Increase awareness. When things do not go your way, take some time to identify the unhealthy thinking style that you engage in. Take your time, be patient with yourself, and use the points above to guide you in gaining awareness!
Challenge your unhelpful thinking. After identifying what our pitfall may be, here are some ways that we can reduce its impact on us:
Look for evidence that support and does not support the thought. Ask yourself whether there have been any instances where your assumptions were wrong.
How would someone else perceive the same situation? Would they react the same way as you did? What would you tell them in the same situation?
Acknowledge the past and focus on the present. Perhaps we have experienced the worst-case scenario in the past, but that does not mean that history will always repeat itself. Remember the exceptions!
Appreciate how far we have come, and the people that stuck through. Through our life journey, there must have been difficult moments that made us feel like giving up. But we pulled through with resilience and emerged stronger. Let us not forget those who gave us hope, preventing us from giving up - like fireflies guiding our way through a dark tunnel.
Celebrate the successes we have along the way. The many seemingly insignificant little successes we had along the way are what make us, us.
While it may seem like another tough journey ahead to battle our automatic unhelpful thinking styles, we can work out baby steps to reframe our thoughts and habits just as our 4-part series of change have explained. Always remember, it is perfectly alright to make mistakes, as long as we focus on improving ourselves one step at a time, someday, we will find ourselves close to where we desire to be.
If you struggle with unhealthy thinking patterns or intrusive thoughts, do not feel afraid to reach out for help. There is only so much content a balloon can hold before it explodes. Reach out today, our team is here for you!
Co-author: Belinda Sng Qi Rong