In these difficult times, when we can feel unmotivated and with a constant feeling of uncertainty, it is important to change the discourse we offer, choosing to give up the most negative thoughts and seeing the other side of the coin. Have you stopped to contemplate whether your thoughts are objective and realistic or, on the contrary, do you tend to crush yourself? If you are too demanding of yourself, do not miss the video you can see at the top, where I give you the keys, so you can direct your mind to positive ideas.
I can be a perfectionist, meaning I like to do what I do well, but assuming I can make mistakes and fail. And when that happens, instead of hitting me and whipping me non-stop, the best thing is to examine where I went wrong and try again.
It’s important be tolerant, we assume that we all make mistakes at some point and that nothing happens.
Intrusive thoughts VS Rational thoughts
Intrusive thoughts are negative thoughts, “cricket nuggets” of our brain which bothers us constantly and negatively.
These are thoughts that start little by little, without us realizing it sometimes and that affect our morale. The problem is that these thoughts, little by little, gain strength and grow. And you realize you have them when they’re already done with you. In addition, they are related to self-esteem issues: “I’m not good at this,” “I’m stupid”, “I’m useless”, “I don’t fit in”, “everyone teases me”, “I’m ugly”, “I don’t deserve anything good to happen to me”, “I have no value”…
Do you identify with that? What kind of intrusive thoughts tend to occur more frequently in your day?
When intrusive thinking takes power rational thinking “take a vacation”, no longer present.
But when I tell myself the rational thinking that “we will work against this, because it sinks us and leads us to depression or brutal anxiety attacks” our rational thinking also begins to take power. The more we work on this, The stronger it is, the easier it will be to win the battle against our intrusive thinking.
Here is a specific exercise to work on the above:
–Specific situation: Changing the job, to one who has more responsibilities and who I like more.
–Emotions I felt in that situation:anxiety, nervousness and fear.
–Associated thinking:“I’m not good at this, I can’t do it well.”
It is important that stop, think about it and write it down.
When you have done this, the next step is to develop a rational, objective, realistic thinking … which suits the specific situation.
In general, intrusive thoughts are not real. They feed back because what they want is to have a leading role, but they are not real.
–Intrusive thinking: “I’m not good at this, I’m not able to do it well.”
–Objective thinking:
– It takes a while to adapt, but if you focus, continue with him, join the partner who offered you help, do a little research on this topic … you will end up just like the rest of your colleagues.
– You asked the rest of your classmates how much did it cost them to adapt to work?
– If I was hired for this position, it’s because I have abilities.
Finally, we need to evaluate the degree of credibility that this new thought, the objective thought, has for us: from 0 to 10, how much did we think this thought?
It is natural that at first it is hard for us to believe, because we have given so much power to intrusive thinking that it is already believed to be the master and master of our lives. But, little by little, as we take that intrusive and automatic thought … and say “no, my rational thought says the other”, intrusive thinking will lose power and rational thinking will gain power.
In this regard, it is important to take them into account two concepts:
1- Don’t extrapolate: Don’t apply a specific situation or something that happened to me once to all similar situations that arise in life.
In other words, if one day an exam doesn’t go well, it doesn’t say “nothing ever goes well.” Not true! Here we should give voice to our rational thinking to dismantle this false thinking. A rational thought in this situation could be “this test did not go well for me, but the one I did before”.
2- Positive reinforcement: Consolidate yourself positively every day.
For example, if I am a person who finds it difficult to go to the gym because I am lazy and this week I went for a day, I have to verbally reward myself when I leave the gym; “Very good for me that I have already achieved one of my first goals”.
Just as you fight when you are not leaving, prepare when you are able to go.
Do you strengthen yourself verbally?