Most of us have experienced some moments where our thoughts have taken over our minds. Something happens and our mind goes to the worst possible scenario where we get stuck.  There are many different variations on how negative thinking patterns start. David Burns in his book Feeling Good: the New Mood Therapy identified ten different ways that people distort their thoughts.

All or nothing thinking-if I can’t do it perfectly I can’t do it at all

Over generalizing- I failed that time I took the drivers test so I will fail every time I try and take the test

Mental Filter– your mind filters out your success and only focuses on your failures

Disqualifying the Positives-your mind discounts any positive things that have happened

Jumping to conclusions– you predict the future or what others are thinking

Magnification/Minimization- you blow something up to be very big or shrink it to be meaningless

Emotional thinking-since I feel it-it must be true.

Should thinking-I have failed because I “should” have….

Labeling-you label other people and yourself in negative terms such as I am an idiot

Personalizing-I was told something I did was wrong so the person telling me must not like me

Now that you can identity your negative thought patterns the next blog article will give you some techniques to stop them.