Common Thinking Errors

• You see things in black and white terms
• You generalise beyond the specific facts of a situation
• You greatly exaggerate bad events
• You focus on the negative side of things, ignoring the positive
• You “find” things that were hardly there
• You ignore actual evidence, while asserting your own 'facts'
• You believe that life should be smooth and easy
• You hold romanticized pictures of reality
• You insist that things be they way you want them to be

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You see things in black and white terms

If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure. Or you may see yourself as “fabulous” when you do a good thing, thereby setting yourself up for disappointment later.

Examples of this thinking are: All-or-nothing thinking - if your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure, or worthless. "If I don't do it perfectly - there's no point in doing it at all".

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You generalise beyond the specific facts of a situation

You use words such as “always, never, everybody, nobody, anything, and nothing”. Or you label yourself or someone else in a very broadly negative way that goes way beyond the poor behaviour you started off thinking about (like “bad, stupid, ugly, lazy, incompetent, inadequate, worthless”). Examples of this thinking are: Over generalisation; You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat, e.g. you use "always" or "never" words. "I never get anything right".

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You greatly exaggerate bad events

You greatly exaggerate bad events until, in your thinking, they are full-blown catastrophes. You use words like “awful, horrible, terrible, tragic, the end of the world”. You ignore your coping resources.

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You focus on the negative side of things and ignore the positive features in your life

You notice only half-empty glasses and make unrealistically gloomy predictions about the future as well, using words like “empty, doomed, and hopeless”.

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You 'find' things that were hardly there

A hint or a clue becomes important evidence for you. You wear 'feelers' for detecting what you expected to find. And if you can’t really find it, then you 'manufacture' it from whatever is at hand. When you do this you are applying a mental filter. You tend to pick out single negative details and dwell on them exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolours the entire beaker of water. "I didn’t have a moment’s pleasure today".

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You ignore actual evidence, while asserting your own 'facts'

You use your feelings as 'proof' of something, read the future, guess about someone’s motives (without checking it out), and act on the basis of superstition and hearsay. You misjudge what is likely to happen. You are in fact disqualifying the positive. You reject positive experiences by insisting they "don't count" for some reason or other (e.g. Anyone can do that, that was easy). In this way you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experience. Another example of this is jumping to conclusions. You make a negative interpretation even though there is no evidence that convincingly supports your conclusion. "I'm depressed again; everyone is fed up with me".

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You believe that life should be smooth and easy

You convince yourself that problems don’t exist, or that certain things are not important to you (when they are). You may also deny having feelings of a strong or negative sort, putting a 'brave face' on things.

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You hold romanticized pictures of reality

You have beautiful but unrealistic expectations for yourself, for parents, for marriage, children, love, a profession, and your workplace. Naturally, nothing in the real world measures up to this kind of thinking.

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You insist that things be they way you want them to be

Your own qualities and behaviour, others’ behaviour, the way your life goes. You use words like “should, must, ought to, has to be”. You cause yourself tremendous distress by keeping such rigid rules.

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