Do You Sometimes Think Irrationally? Maybe. Here’s How To Stop It.

hey there it’s David H Lawrence the 17th
and I just got finished reading an
article and watching a TED talk from
psychologist Joan Rosenberg and it
really struck me because what she talked
about in the article and kind of in the
TED talk was we often get into these
patterns of irrational thinking and
sometimes we do it because we’re self
effacing sometimes we do it because we
feel like we failed miserably in some
way and it’s a it’s it’s gonna we can
jump on ourselves for that but these
forms of irrational thinking don’t help
and sometimes we don’t know what to do
about them so psychologists call
irrational thinking cognitive
distortions which is just you know a
fancy way of saying you know you’re
thinking crazy thoughts and I don’t mean
crazy as an insult I’m just saying when
you look at them from a dispassionate
third party position you’re like what
are you talking about so let’s look at
some of these first of all there’s all
or nothing thinking and that is that you
know I have to be perfect oh I suck
horribly at this I’ll never get this
right you use these absolutes and with
each one of these I’m gonna give you a
way to kind of push back on those and
the way to push back on those is to
always remember that life is unfolding
in shades of gray there are very few
binary choices in life you’re either
perfect or you’re completely a failure
you’re often on the spectrum and so
think about that you know I’m horrible
at this well you know you’re trying
you’re learning you’re getting better
and maybe you’re good enough to to do
well enough to make money at it but
you’re not the best in the world yet so
the idea of all or nothing is replaced
with okay there are shades of gray and
I’m somewhere on that shade of gray
another one is overgeneralizing taking
something from a very specific place to
blaming it for everything that’s wrong
with you in the world and how you’re
going to die all alone cold and
shivering and frightened
um you know it’s not that that the
outcome of one item is going to define
the outcome of all items that’s where
the overgeneralization comes from you
know the fact that you’re again back to
I’m not good enough you’re not good
enough at one thing doesn’t mean that’s
going to affect everything else but we
sometimes tend to think that way
number three is called disqualifying the
positive you know you’re just saying
that because you like me or they just
gave me that job because I knew somebody
or even talking about somebody else
getting a job that way oh they got that
job because they knew the casting
director they knew the the producer or
whatever right and when you disqualify
the positive you are reinforcing these
negative feelings that you have like the
playing field isn’t even so you couldn’t
possibly have gotten that role or been
booked for that part because they had
some sort of an advantage or you didn’t
get the booking because you didn’t have
that advantage and the way to to push
back on that is to say thank you or
that’s great not going to the reason but
just showing gratitude and I know it’s
really hard because you’re like I didn’t
get that part why should I show
gratitude because it solves the problem
of that disqualifying the positive the
fourth thing she mentioned was
personalization and excessive
responsibility so you know something
happens and you take all the blame
yourself right even though it’s very
likely that the blame was shared or
didn’t have anything to do with you at
all
you know something goes wrong in a plan
and a lot of people are working on the
project but you wear the hair shirt you
decide you’re going to be the one that
takes the blame for it and the thing is
you want to be responsible you want to
be effective but when it adds this layer
of pressure and strain to take that on
that’s when it really starts to stop us
right so double-check you know take the
time and look around and be real about
whether or not you actually were the
entire fault of what went wrong I’m
thinking that you’re going to
most often that that wasn’t the case and
the more you do these things the more
you push back at these things the less
likely it is that you’ll have these
irrational thoughts and then finally and
this is something that my grandfather
used to say all over the all the time he
used to say oh you should have really
you should have are you shooting all
over yourself should statements I should
have done this I should have had this
project completed I should have been
able to to make this happen I should
have gotten that code right I should
have done a better audition you know
should ought to must must have must be
how about can choose to decide two might
be able to it’s likely that you know
again that kind of ties in with the
absolutism that we talked about in one
of the earlier ones but this idea of
immediately going to that point where
you’re beating yourself up and you’re
saying I should have done that better
that’s that’s that’s something that can
be pushed back against and you should
with the idea that okay I I I will do
that differently next time or I will do
that differently now I will fix this but
try not to shoot all over yourself I am
slowly turning into my grandfather
anything anything I missed here put it
in the comments below any other type of
irrational thinking that you want me to
talk about or there you want me to you
know sort of investigate I’m happy to do
so leave a comment below especially if
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I’m David H Lawrence the 17th I thank
you so much for watching and I will talk
to you tomorrow.