There are certain distortions that can effect the way you perceiving your world.  These distortions are like lens filters on a camera.  When you put a night vision lens on a camera everything you see through the view finder will be darkened and distorted.  Same goes for your thought patterns.  With a little practice these distortions are quite easy to recognize and control.  You just have to know what they are!  Here are some basic thought distortions that you will want to master.  Print them out, write them down, and develop a knowledge of them.  You will find yourself listening to what you are thinking and you will start to see how illogical you are being about certain things.  The fact that someone hung the toilet paper the wrong way at work is not reason to quite your job!

1.  All or Nothing:  You see things as all or nothing.   Either you have to be perfect or you feel you are worth nothing-that you are a complete failure.  With this distortion there is no gray area.  Cut yourself some slack!  No one is perfect.  Even Superman messed up a few times-you don’t see him downing shots of kryptonite.

2.  Overgeneralization:  You experience one negative event and you find yourself thinking that it will always thus-that there will be a never ending pattern of defeat.  You overgeneralize the outcome.  If you don’t succeed, try, try again.  No need to let one event keep you from moving forward.  Instead learn from it and move on.

3.  Mental Filter:  This is when you pick a single negative detail and dwell on it until everything in your life becomes darkened and distorted.  Kind of like the lens filter.  Let it go, it’s generally not a big deal.  Forget the toilet paper is on backwards.  It doesn’t really matter in the great scheme of things.

4.    Rejecting the Positive:  You reject the positive experiences in your life, by insisting that for some reason they don’t matter.  You find yourself playing the victim, constantly saying that things aren’t that good, they could be better.  When you stop and think about the distortions see how you can be cheating yourself out of small self celebrations for the good and positive things in my life.

5.  Jumping to Conclusions:  You jump to a negative conclusion even though there are not facts to support the outcome you’ve imagined.  Stop yourself, sit and think, or better yet sit and write the facts as they really are and then draw a realistic conclusion.  This filter seems to be more prevalent in people dealing with relationships.  There two subcategories in this distortion.

a.  Mind Reading:  You assume that someone is acting negatively towards you, and you don’t bother to check it out and ask them.

b.  The Fortune Teller Error:  You prediction and assume that things will turn out badly, even to the point of believing it to be true.  You can’t predict the future.

6.  Exaggeration:  You exaggerate the importance of things such as failure, someone else’s achievement, or mistakes.  This works in two ways.  You can also minimalize achievements or good qualities about yourself, even someone else’s limitations.

7.  Emotional Reasoning:  You assume that just because you feel a certain way than it is true.  “I think bad thoughts therefore, those bad thoughts are true.”

8.  Should Statements:  Should Statements are so misleading and unhealthy.  You may think that you are helping yourself by saying “I should work out.”  Thus motivating yourself to go work out.  Why do you feel crappy about it then?  This is you giving yourself a guilt trip.  Finish the sentence, “I should work out,  but I’m not.”  Should, Musts, Ought to’s, are words that are disabling and make you feel frustrated.  Instead replace the word “should” with the words “I am.”  Not “I am going to”, just “I am”.  “I am working out.”  You may feel a little silly doing it at first, especially if you aren’t working out at  that moment, but after a while of saying it you may find yourself being motivated to go for a walk.   “I am” very happy that I discovered this little trick because “I am” a much happier person.

9.  Labeling, and Mislabeling:  This is a severe version of overgeneralization.  Instead of describing a mistake or error you described yourself, “I suck.” or  “I am a looser”  A student is not a  looser because they got an D on their trig test.  That one negative moment of their life does not make him/her a loser.  It’s ridiculous.  Also, this distortion can surface when someone else’s behavior gets on your nerves.  I not without guilt when it comes to throwing insults at every driver who cuts me off in morning traffic.  However it is unfair to “That idiot!” when I call him names, when for all I know he could be a rocket scientist.  How does calling someone else a label make things worse for me?  Labeling is emotionally charged and unhealthy because it leads to Metal Filters, (see above).

10.  Personalization:  You see yourself as the cause of some problem.  I find that if you are constantly apologizing for things that are not your fault you need to stop and rethink your thinking.

After going over this list for the first time you may make many realizations about yourself.  You may see that you have been very illogical about certain things in your life.  You may say, “Wow, I do that all the time.”  Now is the time to start monitoring your thoughts.  Keep a list of these distortions handy, if you are feeling overwhelmed pull them out and go over them.  You may find that you are able to realize what set your negative mood off.  The next step is learning to Replacing Bad Thoughts with the Good and True.