12 unhealthy thinking patterns you should avoid –
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Introduction 👋
Did you know that your brain is kind of like a muscle, that can be trained? 🧠🏋️
Psychologists believe that you can actually grow your brain to become smarter, and more successful. 🌱 (How to develop a growth mindset 🪴)
This means that you can train your brain to think in ways that will make you happier. ☀️
Today we’re going to teach you 12 unhealthy thinking patterns you should train your brain to avoid! 🏃♀️💨
1. Extra negative 👎
Sometimes our brains can be a bit dramatic. 🎭
Have you ever made a simple mistake and thought to yourself:
“I ruined everything!”
It’s important to keep an eye on when your brain is making you more stressed/negative than you need to be. 🥴
When you’re feeling negative, you can ask yourself questions like:
- Is my brain being too negative?
- Is it really the end of the world?
- Should I be more kind to myself instead?
2. Shrinking the positive 🤏
Sometimes our brains can lack confidence and shrink the positives. 📉
Have you ever received a compliment and thought to yourself:
“They didn’t mean that compliment.”
or have you ever worked really hard to achieve something and thought to yourself:
“It wasn’t me – I was just lucky”
It’s important to keep an eye on when your brain is shrinking positives, that you should really be happy about! 🎉
When something positive happens, you can ask yourself questions like:
- Is my brain trying to shrink this positive?
- Should I give myself more credit?
- Should I be celebrating more?
3. Jumping to conclusions 🦘
Sometimes our brains can jump to conclusions really quickly.
Have you ever felt ignored by a friend and thought to yourself:
“They didn’t say hi so they clearly hate me.”
or have you seen someone laugh and thought:
“They’re laughing at me!”
It’s important to keep an eye on when your brain is jumping to conclusions, when there are so many other possible reasons for things! 🤷♀️
When you find yourself making assumptions about things, you can ask yourself questions like:
- Is my brain trying to jump to conclusions?
- Why do I think this?
- Am I sure I’m right? Maybe I’m just making assumptions?
4. Fortune telling 🔮
Sometimes our brains try to predict the future. ✨
Have you ever seen a difficult task and thought to yourself:
“It looks really hard so I shouldn’t do it – I’m just going to fail.”
It’s important to keep an eye on when your brain is trying to predict the future, when nobody knows what will happen! 🤷♀️
When you find yourself acting like you know what will happen in the future, you can ask yourself questions like:
- Is my brain trying to predict the future?
- Why do I think this?
- Do I really know what is going to happen in the future?
5. Mind reading 🧙♀️
Sometimes our brains try to read other people’s minds. 🧠
Have you ever found yourself thinking in the middle of a conversation:
“They don’t want to talk to me, I should stop.”
It’s important to keep an eye on when your brain is trying to read people’s minds, when there are so many other possible reasons for people behaving a certain way! 🤷♀️
When you find yourself acting like you know what other people are thinking, you can ask yourself questions like:
- Is my brain trying to read their mind?
- Have I asked the other person if I’m right?
- Should I just ask the other person about it, rather than trying to assume I know what they’re thinking?
6. Self-blaming 😢
Sometimes our brains try to blame ourselves for bad things happening. 🥴
Have you ever seen someone acting irritable and straight away found yourself thinking:
“It must be my fault!”
It’s important to keep an eye on when your brain is blaming yourself constantly, when there are so many different reasons for bad things happening! 🤷♀️
When you find yourself blaming yourself for bad things happening, you can ask yourself questions like:
- Is my brain just self-blaming?
- If I did actually make a mistake, can I forgive myself and move on?
- Do I actually know what caused the bad thing?
- Should I be more kind to myself?
7. Blaming others 🙄
Sometimes our brains try to blame other people all the time for bad things happening. 🥴
Have you ever found yourself having a bad day for lots of different reasons and found yourself thinking:
“This horrible day is all their fault!”
It’s important to keep an eye on when your brain is blaming other people constantly, when there are so many different reasons for bad things happening! 🤷♀️
When you find yourself blaming others for bad things happening, you can ask yourself questions like:
- Is my brain just blaming everyone else?
- If the other person did actually make a mistake, can I forgive them and move on?
- Do I actually know what caused the bad thing?
- Should I be more kind to others?
8. Forgetting the positives 🌻
Sometimes our brains forget the positive things that have happened. 🌦️
Have you ever found yourself getting annoyed and thinking:
“Nothing good happened today!”
It’s important to keep an eye on when your brain is forgetting the positives, when there are so many different reasons to feel happy! 🌻
20 ways to practice gratitude 🙏
When you find yourself forgetting the positives, you can ask yourself questions like:
- Is my brain just forgetting the positives?
- What good things happened today?
- How can I turn this negative into a positive?
9. Too broad 📏
Sometimes our brains exaggerate thoughts to the point where they’re not true. 🤥
Have you ever found yourself thinking:
“Everyone hates me!”
It’s important to keep an eye on when your brain is exaggerating thoughts and telling you things that aren’t true! 🤷♀️
When you find yourself exaggerating things, you can ask yourself questions like:
- Is my brain just exaggerating things?
- Am I thinking too broadly?
- Is the thing I’m thinking definitely true?
10. Catastrophizing 💣
Sometimes our brains make us feel scared, like the worst is always going to happen.🧨
Have you ever found yourself thinking the worst is always going to happen, like:
“They’re going to hate me!”
or
“I’m going to do it wrong!”
It’s important to keep an eye on when your brain is “catastrophizing” thoughts and telling you that the worst is going to happen! 🤷♀️
When you find yourself thinking that the worst is going to happen, you can ask yourself questions like:
- Is my brain just catastrophizing things?
- Is there any evidence that the worst is actually going to happen?
- Should I really be worried?
11. All or nothing 💡
Sometimes our brains think in extremes.⚖️
Have you ever found yourself thinking things, like:
“I am a total failure”
or
“I do everything wrong”
or
“There is nothing that I’m good at”
It’s important to keep an eye on when your brain is doing “all or nothing” thinking and telling you things that aren’t true! 🤥
When you find yourself thinking that the worst is going to happen, you can ask yourself questions like:
- Is my brain just thinking in extremes?
- Maybe there is a middle ground to what I’m thinking?
- Is there any evidence that this is true?
12. My feelings make it true 💔
Sometimes our brains make us think that because we feel a certain way, that makes it true. ✅
Have you ever found yourself thinking things like:
“I feel left out, so they must hate me.”
or
“They annoyed me, so they must’ve done something wrong.”
Just because you feel a certain way, that doesn’t make it true! 🙅♀️
It’s important to keep an eye on when your brain is telling you things are true based on your feelings. 💞
When you find yourself deciding what’s true based on how you feel, you can ask yourself questions like:
- Is it true, just because I feel this way?
- Would I still think this was true if I was in a different mood?
- What evidence is there to say that it’s true?
Conclusion 👍
So that’s it!
You should try and avoid unhealthy thinking patterns like:
- Extra negative 👎
- Shrinking the positive 🤏
- Jumping to conclusions 🦘
- Fortune telling 🔮
- Mind reading 🧙♀️
- Self-blaming 😢
- Blaming others 🙄
- Forgetting the positives 🌻
- Too broad 📏
- Catastrophizing 💣
- All or nothing 💡
- My feelings make it true 💔
If you know any friends or family members who might benefit from learning about unhealthy thinking patterns, share this post with them!
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