The Schneider family has been like a second family to me.
I met Mark and Stephanie at church where we developed our friendship. I was present for the birth of both of their children, Linus and Muriel. I have babysat for the kids and I even have a key to their house. For some reason they have taken a liking to me and have embraced me as a member of their family.
On the wall of their kitchen they have, as most families do, photos, drawings, report cards, and school notes that Linus and Muriel have brought home during the school year.
One of the things Linus brought home recently caught my attention.
It was a document on Unhelpful Thinking Styles from Psychology Tools.
As I read this, I realized how lucky Linus is for being exposed to this at such a young age. With Linus’ permission, I will share the ten unhelpful thinking styles and some examples of how we use them:
• All or Nothing Thinking: sometimes referred to as “thinking in black and white”
o Either I do it right or I don’t do it at all
o If I’m not perfect, I have failed
• Mental Filter: only paying attention to certain types of evidence
o Noticing failures but not successes
• Jumping to Conclusions
o Imagining we know what other people are thinking or “mind reading”
o Predicting the future or “fortune telling”
• Emotional Reasoning: assuming that because we feel a certain way, that we it must be true
o I feel embarrassed, so I must be an idiot
• Labelling: assigning labels to ourselves or other people
o “I’m a loser” or “they’re such an idiot”
• Over Generalizing: seeing a pattern based on a single event or being overly broad in the conclusions we draw
o Nothing good ever happens
• Disqualifying the positive: Discounting the good things that have happened
o Sentences and phrases like “that doesn’t count” or “yes, but…”
• Maximizing and Minimizing: blowing things out of proportion or shrinking something to make it appear less important
o An example of maximizing would be “I hate my life”
o An example of minimizing would be “it’s not that important, really”
• Critical Word Usage: using critical words like “should” or “must” can make people feel guilty
o Implying that you did or are doing something the wrong way
• Personalization: blaming yourself or taking responsibility for something that wasn’t completely your fault, or conversely, blaming others for something that was your fault
o When someone reacts negatively to an innocent comment we tend to get defensive and think we were the reason
These unhelpful thinking styles are part of our mental programming that we have developed and that we have acquired from the role models in our lives.
Rarely are these ways of thinking appropriate or healthy today. For healthier relationships and healthier living, I am working on change my thinking. Here are three of the ways I do that, perhaps these will help you as well.
Create New Beliefs
The brain looks for evidence to support an individual’s belief system, so if I continue to disqualify the positive, I will continue to see negative things happen in my life.
Changing my belief to something more supportive like, “I will embrace success as well as I embrace failure” allows my brain to look for evidence of accepting success.
As a result, I will embrace success more often and will see results that continue to support my new belief.
Journal
60,000 thoughts go through our brains each day and 80% of them are negative thoughts.
Amazing, huh?
Journaling allows me to replace those random, negative thoughts with structured, positive thoughts. Over time my belief system changes.
Phone It In
If journaling is not your thing, maybe this might work.
Create a positive version of a self-limiting belief and add into your phone as a daily, recurring appointment or alert. That way when you are reminded of the appointment, you read the new belief you wrote about yourself.
Big props to my boy Linus for allowing me to share this with you.
Now go do your thing.
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