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Part 2: Identifying Damaging Thoughts and How to Combat Them

Everyone has negative thoughts now and then, but when these dominate our minds, they can be harmful and have lasting effects. Thoughts such as “I’m a failure,” “I’ll never be good enough,” or “I’m not worthy of love” are examples of cognitive distortions or patterns of thought that reinforce negative beliefs about yourself.

Common Damaging Thoughts:

• All-or-Nothing Thinking: Viewing situations in black-and-white terms, such as thinking you are either perfect or a total failure.
• Overgeneralization: Making broad conclusions based on one event, like thinking one mistake means you’ll always fail.
• Catastrophizing: Imagining the worst-case scenario for every situation, even if it’s unlikely to happen.

How to Reframe:

1. Challenge Your Thoughts: Ask yourself, “Is this thought true? Is there evidence to support it?” Often, our damaging thoughts are based on assumptions, not facts.
2. Focus on What You Can Control: Shift your focus to things you have power over. You can’t control every situation, but you can control how you respond to it.
3. Reframe Negative Self-Talk: Replace the harsh inner critic with a more balanced perspective. Instead of saying, “I failed at this task, and I’m awful,” try, “I didn’t do as well as I wanted, but I can learn and improve next time.”

With practice, you can stop your mind from defaulting to these negative loops and start viewing yourself through a more realistic and forgiving lens. Seeing things as black and white, or all or nothing is how I think and live my life. I give it all or nothing in everything I do. If I find meaning or purpose in it, I give one hundred and ten percent. If I feel that I am not good enough for the task or issue, I simply do not put my best effort into it. However, it is not the best way to view things. In reality, it keeps me from lending myself a little wiggle room. It keeps me from finding the middle ground and cutting me some slack. In the end that is exactly what I need, a little room to say that it is good enough, not perfect, but good enough.