10 Ways to Think Cleaner
We’ve all heard of eating clean…
And living clean…
And even maintaining a clean home…
But all of these are not going to bring sustained joy and success to your life if you neglect one ‘clean’ adjectival phrase that is, ironically, rarely mentioned:
'Thinking Clean.'
And by thinking clean, I mean thinking accurately—with minimal ‘Cognitive Distortions.’
Cognitive Distortions
“If you want something done right, you must do it yourself.”
“She didn’t smile at me today; she must be upset with me.”
“I’m completely underwater.”
“He made me so mad!”
These are common cognitive distortions. That is, they are not accurate.
They are negatively biased. This is because our brains aren't there to make us happy; they are there to keep us alive. From an evolutionary standpoint, our survival depended on a negativity bias; being constantly alert to threats and worst case scenarios is what helped our ancestors endure. This worked beautifully when sabre-toothed tigers and woolly mammoths roamed the earth, but causes a myriad of problems in today's modern world.
Below is a list of ten of the most common cognitive distortions.
If we want to think cleanly, and accurately, we need to be aware of how our mind can trick us—how our thinking can become automatically distorted if we do not pay attention to, and audit, our habitual thoughts.
- Black and white thinking—something is either perfect, or it's a complete failure (creating a false dichotomy).
- Catastrophizing / Magnification—jumping to the worst possible conclusion, or blowing a small problem out of proportion.
- Over-generalising / Blanket Statement—'seeing' a pattern based upon a single or limited event, e.g., "Trust nobody!" (because one person broke your trust).
- Deletions—deleting the positives about a person or situation, and only focusing on the negative.
- Assumptions / Jumping to Conclusions—mind reading or assuming the thoughts of others.
- Self-victimisation / Learned Helplessness—feeling sorry for oneself and believing you cannot change.
- Personalisation—comparing one aspect of yourself to others (and thinking they are 'better' than you in general).
- Blaming others / Irresponsibility—it's someone else's fault I feel this way.
- Labelling—defining ourselves by our current emotion (e.g., "I'm depressed.")
- Rigid Rules about how Things / People / you must be—e.g., "everyone must approve of me or I'm not good enough."
Thoughts occur so frequently, that it is easy not to notice them at all. What we do notice though, is our emotion. Next time you feel an emotion like stress, or frustration, or anxiety etc, backtrack to the thought that produced it.
How clean was your thinking?
Did your thought contain any of the cognitive distortions shown above?
If it did, challenge it. Ask yourself:
‘What is a better, more accurate and intelligent thought, that will best serve me?’
You do that, and, depending on the current quality of your habitual thoughts, it's no exaggeration that you could completely change the quality of your current habitual outcomes.
Peace :)
PS At Progressive Coaching, we have a multitude of tools, resources and workshops/coaching which focus on the topic of 'Clean Thinking.' Methods to deal effectively with Cognitive Distortions are just one such tool in the toolbox.
