Warning: Crooked Thinking Can Harm Your Happiness And Sabotage Your Potential

As far as we know, we only have one life. While it is theoretically possible that we have had previous lives and/or we will have future lives, the only life we can be certain of is this one.

With only one life to live -- and a short one at that -- it behooves us to make the most of it.

Yet so many of us live as though we had all the time in the world. We live as though this life doesn't matter, and assume that the next one will be better.

There seems to be almost universal agreement that out attitude towards life determines the quality of our lives.

If attitude is so important, then the greatest obstacle to a rewarding and joyous life is our tendency to think crookedly -- to view ourselves, others, and life in general through distorted lenses.

Thinking Traps

Albert Ellis, creator of rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT), was one of the first to see that crooked thinking leads us to adopt a negative outlook on life so that we fail to live up to our potential. It causes us to be mistrustful of others, and to underestimate our own abilities. Learning to recognize some of the more common forms of crooked thinking -- sometimes called "thinking traps" -- can help you to avoid them.

Demanding:
You take your desires and preferences and turn them into demands. For example, you tell yourself that you must be successful and win everyone's approval; other people must always do what you believe is best; and that life must always be easy, fair, and comfortable.

Catastrophizing:
You exaggerate the effects of negative events. For example, after being laid off work because of a downturn in the economy, you convince yourself that it's the end of the world. You tell yourself that being unemployed is absolutely awful and unbearable.

I can't stand it--itis:
You underestimate your ability to bear unpleasant events. You tell yourself that you can't stand it when things go wrong in your life.

Labeling:
You call yourself or other people names -- e.g., loser, jerk, idiot. This thinking trap is akin to judging a book by its cover because you rely on only one tiny bit of evidence (e.g., driving badly) to make a general statement about the entire person and his or her (or your) life. Instead of acknowledging that we are all fallible and make mistakes from time to time, you believe that some people are better than others and that you don't need much evidence to see who the "good people" are, and who the "bad people" are.

Overgeneralization:
Because something happened once or twice in your life, you assume that it will continue to happen. For example, after failing an exam, you tell yourself that you should have passed it and that failing this exam means that you will fail all future exams.

These five thinking traps are the most destructive and they contribute to many of the other thinking traps that we fall into, including:

All or nothing thinking:
You see everything as either black or white, with no shades of grey. For example, you believe that you must be perfect, and anything less than perfection means that you are a total failure.

Mental filter:
You dwell on the negative aspects of life events. For example, when a romance ends, you focus on all the things that went wrong during the affair and forget about the good times. Further, you tell yourself that the relationship should have been better, and that you can't stand it when things go wrong.

Disqualifying the positive:
You downplay the importance of positive events in your life. For example, after getting a promotion at work, you tell yourself that you should be doing more with your life and that you don't really deserve the promotion.

Mind reading:
You assume that other people don't admire or respect you, or that they won't like something you say or do. For example, you avoid speaking up in social gatherings because you believe that the people around you will disagree with your point of view and will think you're an idiot. You convince yourself that you mustn't do anything that would cause others to think less of you, so you keep your mouth shut.

Fortune telling:
You expect the worst outcome to any event. You pay too much homage to Murphy's Law and assume that anything that can go wrong will go wrong at the worst possible moment. For example, you tell yourself that you couldn't stand it if your marriage fell apart, but you "know" instinctively that it -- like everything else in your life -- is doomed to end in failure.

Emotional reasoning:
You do whatever you feel like doing and avoid doing things you don't feel like. For example, you watch TV all afternoon because you don't feel like doing the household chores you've been putting off. You tell yourself that you shouldn't have to do anything unless you feel like doing it.

Personalization:
According to this thinking trap, everything is your fault. For example, you give yourself a hard time because you voted for a candidate who turned out to be an incompetent president. You think to yourself, "If only I'd voted for the other guy, we wouldn't have this mess." You forget that other people voted for him also.

According to Albert Ellis, by eliminating -- or at least minimizing the frequency of -- these thinking traps, you can lead a much more joyous and rewarding life.

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