Negative Thought Patterns that Keep You Stuck, Stressed and Anxious
Are these thinking patterns getting you nowhere and worse, devastating your life slowly?
Feeling stuck in life? But you know what? More often than not, you’re stuck not because you’re untalented or less hardworking than your counterparts who seem to have it all. You’re stuck most likely because of some innocent booby traps that are lying in your mind.
Over the course of our lives, we accumulate countless thought patterns often without realizing. Many are stories about ourselves and the world around us that we accept blindly and then go on to live out. While some of them may serve to warn or prevent us from harm, they also restrict us and leave us with little room to maneuver. They are like booby traps that bound us within our own mind, and narrow our perspective every time we use them without thinking.
Check and see whether some of these classic negative thought patterns are holding you back from your goals in life:
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Imaginary Psychic Power. Do you often try to guess what other people are thinking and end up getting upset because you took your guesses as the truths? Congratulations! That qualifies you as a self-proclaimed psychic. I remembered once when I didn’t get an anticipated call from a client and ended up feeling anxious for a few days. A couple of weeks later, it happened that the client was in the midst of shifting office and could only confirm the deal much later. When I could have just called the client up to clarify the matter, I allowed my “psychic” nature to take over and plagued myself with worst-case scenarios that got me all stressed up for nothing. Do you have similar experience when you try to mind read another person, even when he or she is a complete stranger? My advice is: Don’t bother. Unless you’ve the special talent to see through people’s mind, it’s usually more useful to go straight up and clarify things.
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Jump to Conclusions. Just because of the few times when your kid forgot to make his own bed, you started to have the impression that he can never do things right. Is that true? Have you forgotten how elated you were when he won the local spelling bee in school? And how about the last time when he surprised you with a plate of tomato spaghetti (never mind the kitchen) that left you in awe? Before you’re tempted to pass judgment on yourself, a person or a thing, try recalling facts that invalidate the statement next time.
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Label-Happy. Have you ever missed a workout or lost an important client and started calling yourself a loser? Now pause and think: Does the tag describe who you really are adequately? Does using names help to improve the situation on hand, or does it make it worse? Realize how limiting labels can be, even good ones. They seal our fate and condition us to think and act in a prescribed manner, leaving us with zero control. What are some of the tags you’ve carelessly used on your boss, your mother-in-law, your neighbors and those around you? Are those labels justified? If you’re in their shoes, how would you react to those labels?
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All or Nothing. It’s admirable to want to put in your best, but it’s a different thing altogether when you want to be perfect in everything that you do. Bear in mind that when you can’t tolerate anything less than perfect, you’re also signing up to be the perfect candidate for devastating long-term stress, depression, panic attacks and even heart disease. Obviously, nobody wants any of that. So be highly selective; be very choosy in where you want perfection, and as for the rest, do like what they say — ‘don’t sweat the small stuff’.
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Devil’s Best Friend. Are you more likely to see a half-empty glass in most situations? Do you often play the role of devil’s advocate in your workplace? An overly pessimistic perspective blinds us to the inherent opportunities and hope that are present in every experience. It sucks the joy out of life, and poisons the minds of others with its relentless acid rain. People who are fixed on the cons in life are capable of finding faults with just about anything, even success. No matter how much they’ve achieved, they will never be truly happy. You don’t have to wear a smiling face forever or be a positive thinking champion in order to be happy. Just by making an extra effort to balance your negative thoughts with positive ones will help to make a tremendous difference to you and those around you.
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The Ostrich Mode. If your first instinct in every unpleasant event is to avoid or to run away, then you’re probably stuck in the ostrich mode. A tendency to avoid addressing real issues so as to prevent confrontation doesn’t help anyone. Most problems do not resolve by themselves, and by not dealing with them, you are only compounding the issue and giving yourself more stress. Businesses could be lost and relationships may fall apart if you do not heed warning signs. Examine whether your fear in addressing problems is rational. The initial feeling you get when tackling a problem may be dreadful, but once you’ve gotten over it, the problem is probably not as big as you made it out to be.
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“It’s his/her/their fault!” Ah, it’s so easy to point the finger at others and shed all responsibilities instantly. But when you do that, you’re also simultaneously putting control over your life on a golden platter and give it to someone else freely, leaving you completely helpless. That’s fine if that’s what you want, but do you really want other people to have the final say in your health, career, happiness and your well-being ? If you answer no, then it’s never too late to pluck up the courage and start assuming responsibility for what’s not going right in your life. Only by doing that, can you begin to heal yourself, your job, your relationships or your health.
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Emotional Thinking. There’s nothing wrong with getting in touch with your feelings. In fact, I advocate facing up to your emotions instead of suppressing or running away from them. However, it’s a totally different thing when you live exclusively on the way you feel. Some of our feelings are transient and fleeting, which means they are not meant to be taken as rules of living. Not every emotion that stir inside you is a divine message from your true self, God or some higher being. There are times to use the brain, occasions to use your feelings and sometimes you need both in thinking. Never stop learning about yourself, and know when to act on your feelings and when you shouldn’t (like after a heated argument).
What are some of the thought patterns that have gotten you stuck? Share them with us in the comments. Thanks!
[...] is a tool for making that intent more solid and manageable.”WP Ho presents Mental Booby Traps that Keep You Stuck, Stressed and Anxious posted at The Conscious Life, saying, “Don’t let these thinking patterns hold you down [...]
These are really good insights into what holds us back.
When we go into these behaviors and thoughts, we are simply acting as a mirror to what is inside us. Be thankful that situations trigger what we need to work on. More trust and love for ourselves is the key.
Thanks, Eliya. You made an excellent point. Often we react passively and negatively to unpleasant life events and fail to seize them as opportunities to work on thoughts and thinking patterns that no longer serve us. Indeed, we need more trust and love, as well as compassion to release ourselves from these mind traps.