We all fall victim to stinking thinking at times. What’s helpful is to think about your thinking. What type of distortions, deletions, or generalizations are you making? Here is a list of cognitive distortions you should be aware of.
• All-or-nothing thinking – It’s extremely rare for something to be all one thing, or none of another. The truth lies between these extremes. Don’t get caught in the trap of “all”, “always”, “every”, “never”, “none”. Become more nuanced in your thinking and your speech.
• Overgeneralization – Making a broad statement about a group of things based upon a small sampling. Look for counter examples. Hesitate on making judgement. If you are compelled to judge at least qualify it by saying “in my opinion…”.
• Magical thinking – Believing in an impossible outcome, or in a sequence of unlikely things coincidentally happening.
• Mental filter – We all have blind spots where we are unaware. What do you automatically filter out?
• Disqualifying the positive – Some people call it pessimism, others call it realism, but is focusing on the negative the best way to look at life? It’s easy to find fault with perfection. Example: Buddha is fat, Gandhi walks around half naked, and Jesus needs a haircut. Let go of the negativity it is not helping you.
• Jumping to conclusions – Making a judgement before all the facts are in. These can come in 2 forms:
◦ Mind reading – Assuming you know a person’s thoughts or feelings from their behavior. If someone turns red while talking, it would be mind reading to infer that the person was mad, as they could be embarrassed. A better suggestion would be to notice the change in color and ask them what they are feeling or thinking.
◦ Fortune telling – Being inflexible in your expectations and to not be open to other possible outcomes.
• Magnification and Minimisation – Is this really the worst thing that could ever happen to you? Don’t over dramatize the happenings in your life. Observe the world as it is and don’t over or under exaggerate the situation. This also comes in a special form:
◦ Catastrophizing – Expecting the worst possible result.
• Emotional reasoning – Identifying yourself as being one with your current feeling. Example: I am depressed, as opposed to I’m feeling sad and depressed right now.
• Shoulding – Believing that we are obligated to perform a set of tasks even if they go counter to what would make us happy.
• Labeling and mislabeling – Labeling things is part of the human experience. We all use labels to create a “shorthand” way of thinking of things and people. Labels are limiting only if we buy into them completely. Labels themselves are not bad in and of themselves, it is our attachment to and our belief in these labels that is bad. We are more than our labels. Imagine a student and a teacher crossing a low wooden bridge over a pool of still water. The teacher can point to her reflection and say “that is me, but I am not it”.
• Personalization – Taking things personally and believing that things “happened to you”. Things happened. Your thoughts about those happenings are what you do, and determine how you feel.
• Fallacy of fairness – Many of us believe that life should be fair. Life isn’t fair, life is what life is. Let go of attachment to the expectation of fairness. You can hold fairness as an ideal and strive for it in yourself but let go of this expectation in others. Be delighted when others are fair, but don’t become bitter when they are not.
• Blaming – Holding other people responsible for my feelings and my situation. Life is 10% what happened to me, and 90% of my relation to and reaction to the situation. Take your power back and don’t blame others.
• Fallacy of permanence – The only constant in life is change. Wherever you are and whatever you are feeling will pass. Like the old proverb “This too shall pass.” Let go of your attachment to the desire of things staying the same.
• Always being right – There is another old adage about this: “Is it better to be right, or to be happy?”. I agree in a general sense that truth is better than falsehood, but it is only one measure. Have a more balanced metric of the following 4 questions: 1) is it true? 2) is it kind? 3) is it necessary? 4) is it humble? If you answer no to any of these questions then keep your comments and your help to yourself. Once you practice this with your speech and your actions you will begin to see these questions need to apply to your thoughts as well.
Are you ready to let go of your attachment to your cognitive distortions? I hope so.
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