Quick Fix: How to Stop Cognitive Distortions Right Now

Have you ever thought you were a total failure just because something went wrong? This is all-or-nothing thinking. This distortion leads you to overlook past successes and focus only on extremes. Perceiving situations in extremes means reducing everything to a dichotomy of all and nothing, black and white, without allowing for nuances or intermediate possibilities.

Example: You are on a diet and you had a breakdown. “I ruined everything by eating a sandwich today. It’s impossible, I’ll never make it. I might as well give up now and go back to my old habits’.

Keywords: now, everything, nothing, never, impossible.

Questions to ask: Am I only seeing this situation in black or white terms? Are there intermediate options that I am not considering?

Does a single negative experience make you think that everything will always go wrong? Overgeneralization takes an isolated event and extends it to all future situations. This cognitive distortion takes a single negative event and turns it into an absolute example of failure.

Example: You are late for work and, while in the car, you hit a red light. You think: “Nothing ever goes right!”

Keywords: always, never, nothing, every time.

Questions to ask yourself: Have there been situations that disprove my conviction? Are all situations really the same?

Do you tend to focus exclusively on the negative aspects of a situation, neglecting the positive ones? This is filtering. For example, if you receive two compliments and one criticism, you focus solely on the criticism. Or, if everything in your day goes well except for one thing, you keep dwelling on that single event for the whole day.

Example: At the end of a presentation you give at work, despite the compliments you received, you keep going over a criticism you received and leave the meeting with the feeling that you did everything wrong.

Keywords: never, nothing, nothing goes right today, what a bad day.

Questions to ask yourself: Are there positive aspects I am ignoring? Am I giving too much weight to a single event?

Do you find yourself downplaying or underestimating your successes? This tendency is known as discounting the positive. Disqualifying the positive is similar to the mental filter of the previous point. The difference is that when you recognise a positive aspect, you devalue it by considering it worthless.

Example: You receive a sincere compliment and discard it thinking it was only done out of kindness.

Keywords: I got lucky, he says it only out of kindness.

Questions to ask: Why don’t I celebrate small successes? Why don’t I take compliments seriously?

Do you find yourself jumping to hasty conclusions without evidence? The mind-reading cognitive distortion leads you to attribute meanings to a situation even when you have no concrete evidence. In particular, you make assumptions about the thoughts of others instead of relying on concrete facts or asking the person concerned directly.

Example: A friend today is more serious than usual. Instead of asking what is going on, you immediately think that he is mad at you. In reality, your friend has had a bad day at home.

Keywords: Surely, you must be thinking.

Questions to ask: How do I know what others think? What facts support my interpretation? Are there facts that disprove it?

Catastrophizing is another form of hasty conclusion. In this case, you jump straight to the worst possible conclusion in every situation, regardless of how improbable it is. This cognitive distortion is often accompanied by questions such as ‘what if…? What if she didn’t call me because she had an accident? What if she didn’t come because she didn’t really want to spend time with me? What if I help this person and he eventually betrays me or abandons me?

Example: What if I get fired? What if I have an accident? If I fail this test my career is over.

Keywords: what if…?, disaster, tragedy, failure.

Questions to ask: What facts support my conclusions? Is the scenario I imagine the most realistic or simply the one I am most afraid of? What is the most likely scenario?

Do you think your emotions reflect reality? Emotional reasoning makes you believe that if you feel a certain way, it must be true. If you feel stupid, then it must be. Interpreting an event or situation through the lens of your emotions, rather than reason, is the cognitive distortion of emotional reasoning. This means that your judgement is not guided by objective facts, but by feelings. Emotions become the main indicator of validity for one’s choices, opportunities and circumstances.

Example: Feeling stupid and therefore believing you are stupid.

Keywords: I feel that, it seems to me, I fear that.

Questions to ask: What concrete facts support my conclusions? Are there facts that disconfirm them?

Do you often say to yourself ‘I must’ or ‘I should’? The word should imposes rigid rules that lead to guilt and frustration. This cognitive distortion is based on a type of thinking where the words ‘must’ or ‘should’ become absolute rules. Deviation from these self-imposed rules can trigger negative emotions, such as guilt. For example, expressions such as ‘I must go on a diet’ or ‘I should exercise more’ are clear examples of this distortion.

Example: ‘I must go on a diet’, ‘I should exercise more’, ‘I should have answered differently’.

Keywords: must, should, should have.

Questions to ask: What would happen if I did not do what I ‘must’? What are my options? Do I really have no choice? What do I really want?

Do you find yourself labelling yourself negatively for a single behaviour? Labelling is an extreme form of generalisation. This cognitive distortion consists of taking a single characteristic and turning it into an absolute judgement. This occurs when you judge and define yourself or others based on an isolated event, with labels that are usually negative and extreme.

Example: You tell yourself ‘how stupid’ or ‘I am an idiot’ after making a mistake.

Keywords: “I am/am always…”, “I am/am never…”.

Questions to ask: Would I use this label to describe someone else in the same situation? Are there facts that contradict this label? Why do I think I cannot change or that the situation cannot change?

Do you feel responsible for events beyond your control? Personalization makes you believe that everything is up to you. This cognitive distortion often makes you feel guilty. It makes you overlook the fact that we are not responsible for other people’s behaviour.

Example: A relationship ends and you take the blame. “I did not know how to keep it”, “I let myself go”, “I did not put enough effort into it”.

Keywords: I made a mistake, I should have, it’s my fault.

Questions to ask: What else contributed to the situation? What are the responsibilities of others? Is it right to take the blame for the choices of others?