Here’s Five Irrational Thoughts That Hinder Your Self-Growth
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We often experience irrational thoughts everyday; however, people with mental health issues experience them more often and intensely. Irrational thoughts are not based in logic and are not supported by facts. Not only are they not true but they keep you wallowing in your own depression, shame and anxiety. These thoughts cause you to magnify the negative and convince yourself that your future is doomed. As a psychotherapist, I spend a lot of time with my clients helping them challenge these faulty thoughts and helping them understand that this type of thinking reinforces the symptoms that we are trying to alleviate. There are many but here are five top irrational thoughts that hold us back.
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Filtering Out The Positives
Throughout my years of practicing I’ve seen that people who have depression and anxiety have a difficult time acknowledging the positive aspects of whatever they are going through. When someone filters out the positives, they focus on all the negative factors of a situation even when there are positive things that deserve recognition. It’s important to know that the positive aspects have meaning because when someone focuses on the negatives, they diminish the the positive. For example, the student with the 2.7 GPA may be highly critical of themselves for not having a 3.0 or 4.0 GPA but isn’t focusing on the fact that they aren’t on academic probation or that their GPA was lower at one point and that they were able to raise it. Or that a 2.7 GPA isn’t bad. The positive deserves more attention because I find that most of the time those thoughts are supported with facts!
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Forecasting
My clients, especially those with anxiety, like to predict the future. They feel anxious so they assume that something bad is going to happen without having any evidence to support these thoughts. When a person predicts something is going to happen in the future they are having an irrational thought called forecasting. For example, someone who assumes that their supervisor is going to fire them after they ask to have a meeting with them. Or that friend who wants to have a birthday party but thinks no one will come. To address these thoughts, you have to focus on the facts. Does your supervisor have a reason to terminate you? How will you know if people will come to an event you haven’t had? It’s important to assess your thoughts and identify what’s real and what thoughts are just feeding your anxiety.
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Heaven’s Fallacy
I’ve had clients that feel if they continue to put other’s first and meet everyone else’s needs except their own that they will go to heaven. Or if they hold their anger or dissatisfaction in that a higher power will reward them for suffering in silence. Being a good person and living righteously doesn’t align with neglecting your own needs. The reality is you don’t know what will happen once you leave this earth and you deserve to be rewarded now. There’s nothing wrong with sacrifice and compromise, but operating on the false belief that you will definitely go to heaven if you continously deny yourself of things you deserve is irrational.
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Overgeneralizing
People who overgeneralize come to a conclusion about themselves based on one situation. They believe that the outcome of one event determines what their future. Like the student who gets a low score on the SAT and now thinks they shouldn’t go to college. The mother who was reported to her city’s children’s protective services who now thinks she is a bad mother and will always get reported in the future. Making assumptions about things you don’t know or based on one event provokes anxiety. You feel defeated before anything even happens. When you have these thoughts, you must ask yourself if these thoughts will benefit you in the long-term. Will these thoughts sabotage you? Are these thoughts going to engatively affect your relationships? Are they supported by facts? Challenging your thoughts help you to assess how unhealthy these thoughts are and how they affect your life.
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Personalizing
Sorry to tell you, but everything others say or do is not about you. When someone personalizes, they think other’s actions are directly related to them or are a reaction to something they did. There’s a heightened focus put on how they feel they influenced everything going on around them even though they didn’t. If you and a friend happened to buy the same sneakers, it doesn’t mean they are trying to be like you. People who personalize can also believe that are the cause of negative things that have happened. Personalizing can lead to people beating themselves up over feelings that aren’t based in reality. How will these thoughts help you grow as a person? Exactly. They don’t. What purpose do these thoughts have in your life? How do you feel when you are experiencing these thoughts. These are important questions that help you rid your mind of these irrational thoughts.
