What is an example of a cognitive distortion? Our mind can play tricks on us and influence our thoughts, emotions and actions. These faulty beliefs are known as cognitive distortions. This means we base our decisions not on what someone says or does, but on what we believe they are thinking. We believe we can read minds or anticipate reactions. We don't ask what the other person what they think or feel. We make assumptions and these are usually negative assumptions, which means we end up jumping to conclusions. A List of the Most Common Cognitive Distortions are: Polarised thinking – being or becoming an all-or-nothing person with no in-between – one extreme to anotherOvergeneralising - we make excessively vague or general statements about something or someoneMental Filter – having a faulty thought pattern creating higher levels of anxiety and depression focusing on negative and filtering out positiveDisqualifying the Positive
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If you were to give yourself a score out of 10 for how satisfied you are with your life overall, what would it be? If you were to give yourself a score out of 10 for how much fun you are having in life, what would it be? If you were to give yourself a score out of `10 for how happy you are with your life, what would it be? If you were to give yourself a score out of 10 for how satisfied you are with your job, work, career, business, what would it be? Now, if I was to ask you why you aren’t where you want to be, OR if I was to ask you why you aren’t scoring higher than you did, what would you say? What’s holding you back? Who’s holding you back? Why is this holding you back? What can you do to
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Note to Self: It is in my control to choose to focus my attention on the present. Are you? Feeling uneasy or lost?Having difficulty finishing things?Suffering from a lack of passion or pleasure for things you used to enjoy?Questioning things more than usual?Less connected to the people you are close to or love?Needing to fix yourself or things in your life? If so, these may be signs you aren’t very grounded. We can ground ourselves by trying to be calmer and have an uncluttered mind. Think of your mind as a timeline; are your thoughts more of the past, the present or the future? Sometimes thinking of the past can make us feel down or guilty. Same as ruminating over the future may cause us to feel stressed and anxious. We don’t have control over what has happened or what is going to happen – this is where grounding come
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What changes do you make to your daily habits? Did you know that small changes make a big difference? We tend to overlook the importance of how managing daily habits for the better positively affect our wellbeing and our lives. However we need to start making these changes in the first place. And it’s often the small changes to our daily routine that make all the difference, and which can make big changes in our lives, careers, jobs and personal life. Brian Tracey “Successful people are simply those with successful habits” But what are successful habits? We know that gaining bad habits is easy We know that losing bad habits is hard We know that gaining good habits is hard We know that losing good habits is easy Strange that isn’t it? However, if we at least try then we can say we tried rather than just saying we’ve always
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Brian Tracy says “Your goals must be in balance and cover the three most important areas of your life. They must be in harmony with each other”. We know our goals need to be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timebound), however, if setting goals whether they are SMART or not were easy then everyone would be setting them and achieving them. However, we know this isn’t the case. We know that for the most part many of us set goals that are UNSMART, unrealistic, unachievable and certainly not measurable i.e. I want to get fit to run one day! If we don’t set goals that provide us with a personal and emotional benefit then we are unlikely to achieve that goal. We need to want to achieve and not feel that we must achieve it. We need to clarify who we are setting or aiming to achieve this goal
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We all have emotions, good and bad, positive and negative, helpful and unhelpful, don’t we? The good emotions we love are: ExcitementJoyLove However, the bad, tough or tricky ones are hard for us to accept, and these are: StressWorrySadnessGuiltAnxiety We do need to accept that ALL our emotions are reasonable and legitimate and there for a reason and a normal part of us being human. But how can we accept the good and the bad equally? We could imagine and see our emotions as visitors! We could acknowledge them coming for a visit, welcoming them in, allowing them to be there, hearing what they have to say, and them seeing them off when they leave. Treating them like visitors might help you come to terms with their visits more easily and dealing with them as you would the good ones, although in a different way. All visitors come with something
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A backpack is a metaphor for life. The lighter you travel, the happier you are, with less baggage to carry. It is understood to be seen as reducing the material objects that oppress us, weigh us down and make us sad or depressed. They represent our worries, issues, irritations and problems. We all carry a backpack, and it’s full of all our issues, priorities, baggage and lots more. Whilst we know we need to understand what is in our backpack, do we really understand what it looks like? As it’s behind us, often it can appear out of sight out of mind. We may or may know or realise that we can add to our backpack at any time, but do we, and do we add the right things at the right time? Are we happy with what is in our backpack, and have we identified what we are happy
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The only constant is change and never more so than now. Our emotions are up and down, our plans aren’t fitting, our goals aren’t working, and as for our actions – perhaps not getting done either. Before we can tackle all the things we know we should, we need to see to ourselves first. Bring back balance into our life as best we can. Consider what ONE thing you can do right now to give yourself, make yourself feel better, a reward or treat, time out to see someone or do something you haven’t for ages. Never mind thinking, I haven’t got time and I’ve other priorities. Consider this being an investment in YOU. Putting the oxygen mask on you so you can help others and do what you know you need to do the best way you can. How can we do this when our self-esteem is low, our
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The best things in life are free – aren’t they? Often the things that have the most value or quality cost nothing; the price of something does not always properly indicate its value. For example, experiencing the love of a baby is really life-changing. Seeing a loved one happy because of something nice you’ve done or given, gives us a huge adrenaline rush. It’s been said that money can't buy the most important things in life. We often take things for granted, don’t we? Our health, our freedom, our situation. However, when something happens, and this is taken away from us for whatever reason we feel the loss so bad and wish we had made the most of what we had when we had it. We often may appear ungrateful for what we have, perhaps wishing we had what others have, instead of feeling grateful for what we do have
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I’m sure like me you see quotes or mantras that totally resonate with how you’re feeling, or the way things are for you at the time. We can all take away great tips to make us feel better and to encourage us to have positive thoughts and keep motivated. In such changing, difficult and stressful times, we need to ensure we take care of ourselves, feeding us with as much positivity as we can despite all the things going on in the world. In business we have a responsibility to ensure our team is supported the best way we can. We want to support our family and friends too, however, we do need to start with us, don’t we? We can worry about things that don’t get us anywhere which doesn’t help. I recently came across this quote which fitted perfectly. “Worry is like a rocking chair. It gives you
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