Your attitude toward life reflects the way you interpret your world. Your experience is impacted not so much by what life brings you, but by the way your mind interprets what happens.
If you don’t like something that happens and you cannot change it, at least change the way you think about it!
Triggers that cause negative thinking:
- Overgeneralizing: assuming that because it happened once, it will happen again.
- Catastrophizing: predicting and expecting the worst outcome.
- Mind-reading: believing that you know what others are thinking.
- Exaggerating: giving negative events more importance than they deserve.
- Personalizing: taking things very personally without evidence to support it.
- Blaming yourself: accepting blame–“it’s all my fault.”
- Extremes: using extremist words, like “always,” “never,” “nobody,” and so on.
People take you at your own estimation of yourself, so it is important that you behave “as if” you can do something well or that life is good. Remember that “like attracts like,” so if you put out negative thoughts, you are likely to attract more negativity to yourself. Be your own best advocate!