Foundations for creating your future

Patterns of unhelpful thinking

We can indulge in unhelpful thinking about ourselves and our circumstances. Being aware of these common unhelpful thinking patterns can help us become better and productive persons.

Take time to review the following list of unhelpful thought patterns and see whether any of them apply to you:

  • Predicting the future – When we feel anxious, it is common for us to spend much of our time thinking about the future and predicting what could go wrong as supposed to just letting things be. In the end, most of the predictions that we have made do not happen. We have wasted time and energy being worried or upset about them.
    • Example – You predict the future by assuming that you will perform poorly at a job interview.
    • Self-reflection exercise – Write down the last time when you have predicted the future in an unrealistic or an unhelpful way? How did you feel afterwards? What would have changed if you had not?
  • Mind reading – We sometimes assume that we know what other people are thinking (usually about us) without any real or tangible evidence to suggest that it is true. We can also make assumptions about why someone said something or behaved in a certain way and be quick to conclude or assume that it is to do with us.
    • Example – My boss thinks ‘I am stupid!
    • Self-reflection exercise – Write down the last time you assumed or jumped to a conclusion about what someone else was thinking or said without any real evidence to suggest that it was true? How did you feel afterwards? What would have changed if you had not?
  • Catastrophising – When people are anxious, they blow things completely out of proportion. They view the situation as a catastrophe even though the problem is quite small or insignificant.
    • Example – You expect to lose your job because of a simple mistake that you have made.
    • Self-reflection exercise – Write down the last time that you blew something completely out of proportion in your mind? How did you feel afterwards? What would have changed if you had not?
  • Focussing on the negatives – When we are anxious, we commonly develop tunnel vision. We focus solely on the negative aspects of situations without considering the positive aspects. Sometimes the whole picture can be distorted by a single negative detail.
    • Example – Focusing on the one person who does not like you rather than the other twenty who do.
    • Self-reflection exercise – When was the last time you focussed more on the negatives than on the positives? What would have changed if you had not?
  • Over generalising – You assume that all others will follow a similar pattern in the future based on one instance in the past or present. A sense of helplessness often accompanies such over generalisations.
    • Example – Just because one ex-partner cheated on you, you believe that ALL men (or women) are bad.
    • Self-reflection exercise – How did you feel about yourself (or the world), the last time that you over-generalised a situation or a group of people? What would have changed if you had not?
  • Imagining the worse-case scenario – We make predictions that the worse-case scenario is going to happen even though we may have been successful in this area in the past.
    • Example – You are asked to give a presentation to a group of people. But you think “I am going to get in there and completely mess this up” even though you have given many successful presentations in the past.
    • Self-reflection exercise – How did you feel the last time you imagined the worse-case scenario of either a situation or set of circumstances you were facing? What would have changed if you had not?
  • Labelling – When we ‘label’ ourselves based on our behaviour in specific situations (or labels put on us), we tend to define ourselves by one specific behaviour (usually a negative behaviour). We fail to consider other positive characteristics and actions.
    • Example – “I am always anxious” even though this is not always the case. Or “I am not good enough” because you failed at something, even though there are many other things that you are good at.
    • Self-reflection exercise – What labels do you currently define yourself by and are they complimenting your life? If not, which ones do you need to exclude?