Stop Negative Thinking – Identifying Negative Thoughts

There are many different ways that you might be thinking negatively – and it all comes down to negative self-talk. This is the language you use for your thoughts each and every day. If you want to stop negative thinking then you should try to recognise the ways in which you are talking negatively to yourself and try to avoid them.

Filtering

This is a kind of negative thinking which means that, in any given situation, you will quickly filter out all of the positive aspects and focus only on its negative points. This could mean that you could do everything right and make one small mistake in one day, and all you will focus on when you think about that day is the small mistake you made. As you can see, this kind of thinking can be detrimental to your happiness.

Polarizing

This means that you look at things as black or white. This means that everything either seems good or it seems bad and there is nothing in the middle. This can make things hard as you expect things to work out perfectly. If they don’t you consider yourself a failure.

Personalizing

This is the kind of negative thinking that causes you to blame yourself when something bad happens. Sometimes logic will dictate that this isn’t true, but you just won’t be able to realise. This can happen in any number of situations and really cause you to feel bad for no reason.

Catastrophizing

This means that you will expect the worst. In any event, you will imagine the worst-case scenario. This can have a debilitating effect on your life, causing you to avoid situations just so that you can avoid the worst from ever happening!

Conclusion

As you can see, these kinds of negative thinking usually do no good. This is why you should try several techniques to stop negative thinking, which will all be provided in this blog. Doing so can really turn your life around – just start implementing these easy techniques or reading a positive thinking motivational book and you will be on your way!