Nega No More

Anti-Negativity Thinking Tips to get your Mental House in order:

(by Mark Tyrrell, therapist and co-founder of Uncommon Knowledge)

 

save the cheerleader, save the world

1) Stop thinking in extremes

Most of life isn't black or white, completely this or that, all or nothing. Negative thinking tends to view bad stuff in the extreme.

2) Stop over-generalizing the negative

Ask yourself: "If something bad happens, do I over-generalize it? Do I view it as applying to everything and being permanent rather than containing it to one place and time?"

take time to look-smell-instagram the flowers

3) Don't minimize the positive

Negative thinking stops people from seeing the positive when it does happen. It's as if there's a screen filtering out positives and just letting in stuff that confirms the 'negative bias'. Magnifying setbacks and minimizing successes leads to de-motivation and misery.

4) Stop mind-reading

Having to assign a meaning to something before you actually have real evidence makes you more inclined to believe what you imagine without question. Holding off assigning (made up) meaning to an ambiguous situation is a key part of overcoming negative thinking. When you become more positive (or just more comfortably neutral), you'll also be able to consider all possible reasons you can think of, not just the negative ones.

5) Stop taking all the responsibility

If you (or someone else) do something good or well, just accept it. Negative thinkers also tend to do the opposite. They will internalize - that is, blame themselves - for all kinds of negatives that have little or nothing at all to do with them. Look at how much control and influence you really have over things that you tend to think negatively about.

6) Stop forcing your own rules on life

This isn't to say that we shouldn't expect anything from ourselves and others, but rather that the rules need not be unreasonably inflexible.

If you feel disappointed or let down, then you must have been expecting something else. Examine what it was and ask yourself: "Was my expectation too narrow?"

toughen up

7) Stop making stuff up and believing it

Imagination is a wonderful thing, but not if you use it to scare yourself. Sometimes we need to be able to 'suspend the functioning of the imagination' (to quote Ernest Hemingway, no less).