Controlling Negative Thoughts

Without doubt, our own critical nature eats away at our confidence more than any outside judgment, mistake or failure. Over-active negative mind chatter can cause us to react defensively in neutral situations.

However, these habits of thinking are learned and can be unlearned. Forget about blaming parents, teachers, and people who didn’t like you when you were growing up. No matter what happened to you or how you ended up with negative reactions, you can learn to disconnect from harmful automatic thoughts.

Replace negative thoughts with positive ones that will make you more effective, happier, and self-confident. Ultimately YOU are responsible for the thoughts you choose. We can’t control many things in life, but we can control our thoughts.

Here are a few of the distortions that show up in negative mind chatter:

All-or-nothing thinking	Labeling	Over generalizing
Assuming	Emotional reasoning	Ruminating
Unfavorable comparing	Shoulds, oughts, must	Catastrophizing
Personalizing	Blaming

Do you struggle with any of these negative thoughts? How do you handle them?