#19 Manage Negative Thinking by Challenging it

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Overview

One thing I am fascinated by is thought patterns and how they impact behaviour. A famous researcher called Martin Selligman is considered the founder of positive psychology and ironically, it was through his research on our negative thoughts and behaviours that he discovered we could learn to be positive. Some of his earliest work looked at a concept called learned helplessness, where he discovered that people often feel helpless because they learn to be helpless after repeatedly failing. Seligman then proposed the opposite: people could learn to be optimistic.

The concept of learned optimism is about changing your mindset and perspective to be more positive and hopeful about the future. This is achieved by challenging and changing one's negative thoughts and beliefs (often termed as 'self-talk') with more positive and constructive ones. The premise is that by actively choosing to view events in a more positive light, individuals can increase their resilience, improve their mood, and enhance overall well-being

In this newsletter, I want to introduce you to the concept of learned optimism as researched by Dr. Martin Seligman. This is considered a cornerstone in understanding how our thought patterns and attitudes influence our performance and well-being. You can naturally have healthy thought pattens, but you can also learn unhelpful ones. The concept of learned optimism is developing skills to challenge negative thinking. This newsletter discusses its impact on work but its daily application is just as important.

Challenges

Several barriers might hinder the application of learned optimism. Here are five common challenges:

1. Fear of failure: This can often lead to avoidance of new challenges and growth opportunities.
2. Pressure and stress: High-stress environments often prompt negative thought patterns.
3. Predisposition to pessimistic thinking: Negative self-talk and assumptions often lead to self-limiting beliefs.
4. Overemphasis on perfection: This can lead to a focus on negative outcomes and setbacks rather than learning opportunities.
5. Misconception of optimism: Many people misinterpret optimism as naive or wishful thinking, rather than a powerful tool for resilience.

Although these are common place, there are ways to deal with them. In the following steps, we'll guide you through the process of developing learned optimism.

Step 1: Cultivate Self-Awareness

Begin by acknowledging your existing thought patterns. Understanding your natural response to stressors allows you to identify areas for improvement. Consider

• Reflective practices: Journalling is a popular way to reflect on moments in isolation and over time. It facilitates regular introspection and can reveal recurring negative thought patterns or triggers
• Mindfulness techniques: Mindfulness helps you slow down and identify triggers as they happen. If you're on autopilot, they may pass you by. Being present helps you recognise and intercept pessimistic thoughts as they occur.

Step 2: Challenge Negative Thoughts

Once you've identified these patterns, work on challenging them. By questioning the validity of pessimistic thoughts can help you start transforming your mindset. One popular approach is through evidence-based reasoning. Firstly, you challenge pessimistic thoughts by considering alternative explanations.

For example, someone cuts across you in the car and you get angry. An example of a common thought process might be: "that is so dangerous and that person shouldn't have done that. They put me in danger". In this example, you may think that is 100% correct to think that, and it could be. It's not about being right or wrong. If this anger then continues on into other areas or aspects of your life, then it's a negative one.

How you challenge situations like this is you break them into categories to challenge each one in isolation. This is a brief breakdown into three parts using the example above.

1. Trigger: Car cuts across you
2. Belief: They shouldn't have done that because it's dangerous
3. Consequence: Anger

To challenge this thinking process, you are encouraged to come up with 5 alternative explanations as to what may be the reason or an alternative belief. Here are two:

1. They may have thought it was safe or not seen you in their mirror and be sorry
2. They may be rushing to the hospital

And so on. You can see how an alternative challenge can help you change your emotion (going from anger to an alternative emotion). If they were rushing to the hospital you wouldn't feel angry at them in a lot of circumstances. This is a classic reframe or how you viewed a situation with a specific belief and

Counter pessimistic thoughts by deliberately considering evidence that contradicts them.

Step 3: Encourage Positive Affirmations

Finally, actively practice replacing negative thoughts with positive ones. By doing so, you cultivate a proactive optimistic mindset. Consider:

• Positive self-talk: Encourage yourself with affirmations and positive predictions for the future. That person cut across me in traffic but I'm happy they'll get there quicker now
• Gratitude practices: Regularly acknowledging what you're grateful for can help you maintain a positive perspective.

Conclusion

Embracing Dr. Seligman's learned optimism is a transformative strategy that can significantly impact performance and well-being. Your thinking transcends every aspect of your life because it's with you every step of the way. By recognising and overcoming the common challenges such as pessimistic predisposition, stress, fear of failure, perfectionism, and misconceptions about optimism, we can harness the power of positive thinking. Here's the summary steps:

Step 1: Cultivate Self-Awareness. Use introspection and mindfulness to identify negative thought patterns.

Step 2: Challenge Negative Thoughts. Utilise cognitive restructuring and evidence-based reasoning to challenge and transform pessimistic thoughts.

Step 3: Encourage Positive Affirmations. Employ practices like positive self-talk and gratitude to maintain an optimistic outlook.

One (small) ask

If you'd like to share some of your thoughts on how I could improve this newsletter, you can do it anonymously?here .

Until next week,

Patrick