Ten Common Unhelpful Patterns of Thought

Posted on February 01, 2020 by Chris Wagnor, One of Thousands of Health and Fitness Coaches on Noomii.

Our mind is a good thing. Generally. It has been pre-wired to alert us about potential dangers, to attract us to potential mates and also to find appropriate solutions for the problems we encounter each day.

There are some occasions, however, when we might want to question what our head is telling us. It’s not that our mind has a habit of telling lies, it’s just that it may have developed some unhelpful connections between the day we were born and now.

It can be surprisingly easy to create faulty connections in our thinking. Our brains are naturally predisposed to connect thoughts, ideas, actions, and consequences with each other, whether they are genuinely related or otherwise.

The tendency we have to make connections where there are none is the basis of a common problem when it comes to interpreting our day to day experiences. We sometimes assume that because two variables are correlated, one causes or leads to the other. The phrase “correlation does not equal causation!” is a familiar one to any student of psychology or today’s social sciences.

It can be easy to view a coincidence (or a complicated relationship) and make false assumptions about it’s meaning. In the same way, it is also easy to connect two thoughts or two events that occur around the same time when there is no real tie between them.

In social science research, there are many terms for this kind of mistake, including academic jargon and overly complicated phrasing. When referring to our thoughts and beliefs, these errors are known as ‘cognitive distortions.’

There are ten commonly recognized unhelpful thinking styles that people typically indulge in. All styles are equal.

However, some will, naturally, be more problematic for you than others depending on how you use them and depending on what you are trying to accomplish in a conversation.

As you go through each of these unhelpful thinking styles, you might recognize some similarities between them. Some of them are very similar in nature, but they will tend to manifest in your life in a slightly different way.

The purpose is therefore to identify the patterns, and how these patterns of thinking tend to shape and hinder your current perception of reality.

Let’s now briefly take a look at each one of these ten unhelpful thinking styles:

Mental Filter

Here you tend to filter things in and out of your conscious awareness. This is a form of “tunnel vision” where you only tend to focus on a part of something, and you ignore the rest. You might for instance only filter out all the negatives of a particular situation. You therefore only see the negatives and fail to recognize and acknowledge the positives. Your vision of reality is therefore based on your flawed perspective of the negativity you see in each particular situation.

Q 1) In what ways can you be ‘tunnel visioned’ at times?

Jumping to Conclusions

Here you tend to jump to unjustified conclusions. You make quick assumptions about how things are and what they’re going to be like in the future (predictive thinking), or you will assume that you know what someone else is thinking (mind reading). These conclusions and assumptions are not based on fact or evidence but rather based on your feelings and personal opinions. As such, they can often lead you astray down the wrong path.

Q 2) How frequently do you jump to conclusions rather than establishing facts?

Personalisation

Here you tend to blame yourself for your problems and for everything that goes wrong in your life. You might for instance continuously blame yourself for your misfortunes and bad luck. This will be true whether or not you are responsible or partly responsible for the problem or misfortune. Taking responsibility for things is admirable, however, it can end up being a very burdensome habit-of-mind that leads to very strong feelings of guilt and regret.

Q 3) How frequently might you make situations ‘all about you’, when in actuality, these situations are about something else entirely?

Black and White Thinking

Here you tend to only see the extremes of a situation. You either see one extreme or another, and this is why it’s called black and white thinking. You will for instance either see the good or bad, the right or wrong, the sad or happy, the left or right, etc. And because of your extreme way of viewing things, there is never a middle-ground. As such you are unlikely to view things in an unbiased and neutral way.

Q 4) How might black and white thinking impact your day-to-day results?

Catastrophising

Here you tend to completely blow things out of proportion and make them out to be a lot worse than they should be. The reality of the situation might be quite insignificant and small. However, because you’re in the habit of catastrophising, you always tend to make your problems larger than life — thereby making your problems even more difficult to overcome.

Q 5) How frequently might you blow situations or events completely out of proportion?

Over-generalization

Here you tend to reference your past to make assumptions about the present. You might, for example, take one instance from the past and use that as a “predictor” or barometer for a current or future situation. Whenever you use the words “He always… She always… Everyone… You never… People never… I never…” you are at that moment over-generalizing.

Q 6) Who was the last person that you made an over-generalization about (in the last 7-14 days)?

Shoulding and Musting

Here you tend to put unreasonable demands and pressure on yourself and on other people to do certain things. You tend to say, “I must… I should… You must… You should…”. These statements provide insight into the standards you tend to uphold and the things you expect of yourself and others. These standards can of course at times be helpful, however at other times “shoulding” and “musting” can create unrealistic expectations that you or others will struggle to live up to.

Q 7) How many rules do you live by don’t serve you or others in a life enhancing way?

Labeling

Here you tend to label yourself or other people in certain ways based on behaviour in very specific situations. These labels you make form your belief systems. Therefore the more times you use these labels, the stronger your beliefs become. This can be a good thing. However, it’s unhelpful when you tend to label things a certain way despite the facts and evidence that are inconsistent with the labels you are making.

Q 8) How frequently do you place labels on things (or people) due to you not understanding them?

Magnification and Minimization

Here you tend to magnify the positives attributes of another person, while at the same time minimizing your positive attributes. You are essentially devaluing yourself — bringing yourself down — while raising the stature of other people. In this scenario, you tend to explain away everything you have going for yourself including your positive traits, characteristics and achievements as though they don’t matter.

Q 9) In what ways do you put magnification and minimization to work in your life?

Emotional Reasoning

Here you tend to base your view of a particular situation in agreement with how you’re feeling. Therefore your feelings dictate how you perceive a situation despite evidence to the contrary. As such you might choose to feel bad about something that is going to happen just because you are feeling miserable in the moment. You are therefore using your current emotional state as a barometer that directs how you will view your life and circumstances.

Q 10) In what ways do you justify decisions that you make with emotional reasoning?

Need assistance with this in your life? Lets have a consult and work through it together