We can all occasionally experience negative thoughts that keep us awake at night and make us worry – sometimes excessively.
But if your head is full of negative thoughts, it can be normal to feel quite down. While it’s not easy to challenge the barrage of negativity, there are steps that you can take to help turn things around. You can learn how to recognise and challenge your negative thought patterns one step at a time.
This Can Help if:
· you’re experiencing depression or anxiety
· you can’t seem to shift out of a negative way of thinking
· you want to feel more positive and confident.
Challenging Your Inner Voice
Self-talk is your inner voice – and the hard part about self-talk is that it always feels true, even when it’s biased or incorrect. Self-talk is often skewed towards the negative, and sometimes it's just plain wrong. If you’re experiencing depression, it’s likely that you interpret things negatively.
Learning to challenge negative thoughts might take time and practice, but it’s worth the effort. Once you start looking at it, you'll probably be surprised by how much of your thinking is inaccurate, exaggerated, or inclined towards a negative view of things.
Practice: Whenever you become aware that you’re feeling depressed, angry, anxious or upset, use this as your signal to stop and reflect on your thoughts. Are things really as negative as what your inner voice is saying?
Challenging Questions
A good way to test the accuracy or reasonableness of your thoughts might be to ask yourself some challenging questions.
There are four main types of challenging questions:
1. Questions that act as a reality check
· What is the evidence for and against my thinking?
· Am I jumping to negative conclusions?
· How can I find out if what I’m thinking is actually true?
2. Questions that seek alternative explanations
· Are there any other ways that I could look at this situation?
· What else could this mean?
· If I were being positive, how would I perceive this situation?
3. Questions that put things in perspective
· What’s the best thing that could happen?
· Is there anything good about this situation?
· Will this matter in five years’ time?
4. Questions that are goal-directed
· Is this way of thinking helping me to achieve my goals?
· What can I do that will help me solve the problem?
· Is there something I can learn from this situation, to help me do it better next time?
Want to know more managing negative thinking? Contact Michelle on 0412047590 or via email michelle@bakjacconsulting.com
Michelle Bakjac is an experienced Psychologist, Organisational Consultant, Coach, Speaker and Facilitator. As Director of Bakjac Consulting, she is a credentialed Coach with the International Coach Federation (ICF) and a member of Mental Toughness Partners and an MTQ48 accredited Mental Toughness practitioner. Michelle assists individuals and organisations to develop their Mental Toughness to improve performance, leadership, behaviour and wellbeing.
