how to overcome thinking errors essay

8 powerful ways to overcome thinking errors and cognitive biases

Aditya Shukla  |  May 15, 2023 March 23, 2018  |  Disclaimer: Links to some products earn us a commission

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There are cognitive biases and thinking errors. Our brains have evolved to have tendencies that, sometimes, and unfortunately, lead to errors. Our perception is compromised, our decisions are based on wrong or partial information, our reactions are based on a tiny slice of information. But, there are things you can do to counter biased thinking.

These could be errors in how the brain absorbs information – interpreting conversations, reading articles, understanding behavior, understanding others’ motivation, rights & wrongs. Cognitive biases are errors in thinking and perception that make us think in a particular way even when it is inappropriate or wrong. They systematically warp our perception of reality. Cognitive biases emerge from the heuristics our brains acquired through evolution.

The brain has evolved quick tendencies for a reason, but many of them are out of context today. For example, jumping to conclusions such as – ‘the food is toxic based on its color’ may have been useful back in the day, you know, a million years ago, when we were all babies. These decision-making short-cuts [1] called “heuristics” are often useful, but not always accurate. One reason we have many of them is that heuristics require lesser mental effort [2] , so it’s economical for the brain.

These ‘heuristics’ lead to highlighting day-to-day information in unproductive ways. Especially when there are inherent tendencies about oneself or others. If there is a tendency to be self-critical, you might interpret social cues in unfavorable ways. You might interpret a lack of party invitations as not being cool enough to hang out with the group. It isn’t easy to counter such thinking, and quick fixes are not likely to work [3] .

A cognitive bias occurs due to a limited attention span for information in the environment, poor memory of events and details, heuristics for simplifying information, and a lack of variety of experiences. One study proposes [4] that biased attention can lead to biased interpretation, and that can lead to a biased memory, at least in subclinically depressed people. If we are intolerant of uncertainty [5] and ambiguity, we may be more prone to a negative interpretation bias. Anxiety comes with a bias [6] to interpret ambiguous events negatively, overestimate the likelihood of negative events, and focus on threatening information in the environment.

The advantage of having such tendencies to jump to conclusions is SPEED & EASE of decision-making. However, speed compromises accuracy here. Biology is a product of evolution and not design. There are optimizations. We didn’t get both speed and accuracy like a computer by default.

A short recap of cognitive biases

8 strategies to think clearly and objectively: how to overcome thinking mistakes that we make, countering the framing effect, the benefits of overcoming cognitive biases and thinking errors.

Some conclusions are more likely to be wrong than right. They confirm beliefs that we already have by selecting bits of information and giving those bits undue importance. This is the confirmation bias . We notice and remember information that confirms our belief and ignore or dismiss information that goes against our belief. It is the queen of the biases [7] .

There are other biases [8] such as the gambler’s fallacy – we somehow believe that the world likes to balance itself out. If you toss a coin 5 times in a row and get the result heads every time, what do you think the next toss would yield? Heads? Tails? Most people believe that it would be tails. This is wrong. Previous coin tosses have no causal relationship with the next toss. They are independent events.  People make this error of thinking that when something happens a lot, the opposite will be true in subsequent events . These errors lead to heavy monetary losses in gambling.

Another pervasive bias [9] is the anchoring effect . Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman and his colleague Amos Tversky conducted an experiment (Kahneman, Thinking fast and slow 2011) in which they asked people the following question – What percentage of African countries are a part of the United Nations? Two equal groups were created. One group was asked – Is it greater or lesser than 10%? The other group was asked – Is it greater or lesser than 65%? The first group answered an average of 25% and the second, 45%. The 2 questions included an anchor – 10% and 65% . These numbers gave a starting point for people to think around, follow up with assumptions, and then give an answer.

One powerful source of persuasion is deliberately biasing someone’s perception using the “ framing effect “. When an idea is converted to words with some context and details like color, culture, font, accents, timing, etc., a “frame” is created for the idea. The most common framing is portraying something as a loss or gain. But there are other frames too – cultural frames, emotion frames, identity frames, etc. “This sanitizer kills 99% germs is a gain frame” which highlights the positives compared to the less persuasive “this sanitizer only fails to kill 1% germs” which highlights the negatives. Rewording something with urban lingo to appeal to a gen Z crowd would be an identity frame. Using faces to show happiness or sadness would be an emotion frame. Frames change how we interpret the core idea.

There are over 100 cognitive biases. I highly recommend reading this book [10] and this book [11] to learn more about them; you won’t be disappointed.

I’ve listed a few strategies that will counter some of the “parent” cognitive biases like the confirmation bias, the interpretation bias, survivorship bias, anchoring bias, and the framing effect.

We have a powerful multi-purpose instrument called the brain which can be trained with just little practice. To overcome thinking errors, you need to let go of many assumptions, and learn to accept a new assumption: you may have already missed meaningful information in your perception, and you have to put in the effort to fill in the missing pieces. The causes could be your bias, pure logic, or consequences of how things work in the world.

1. Focus on the data: In any situation that demands decision-making , focus on the evidence or information. Even the bad kind. Data might be hard to spot, but can be figured out. Just takes a little bit of effort. Once this becomes a habit, it’s nearly effortless. However, the anchoring bias occurs because the information itself biases you [12] . For that, consider the opposite information and see how it makes sense.

2. Seek out contrary data and conclusions: Keep an eye on bad reviews and see if they matter to you. One hundred good reviews are great, but a hundred good reviews and  a few bad reviews are better. This is your best weapon against confirmation bias. This is perhaps the most important technique in this list as well, if there is data that supports a notion, find data that doesn’t; or at least try to think in that direction. If you google “Is XYZ good?”, also ask “Is XYZ bad?”. You’ll have a much clearer picture of everything. And I really mean EVERYTHING. In fact, this is at the core of scientific investigation. This is how accurate knowledge builds.

3. Understand the noise: Focus on important aspects of a problem, not every single aspect. It is hard to filter out the noise but let me show how noise is useful when avoided correctly [13] . Noise is background information that is of no use to you. Suppose you have to read a huge textbook for an exam. How do you know what to focus on? A lot of the book’s information might be useless for the exam, but you might feel it is important because it is in the textbook. Once you know what your exam is all about, you can learn to predict what seems important and what IS important. But, the additional information in the book could be a gateway to explore and figure out what is important. So noise is needed to understand the signal and then separating the two can help. An expert may tell you what to leave out and ignore, but you might not become an expert until you learn to identify the noise.

4. Test and Re-test: Consider the following example. You are talking with a friend, and he is not friendly. You wonder why and think that perhaps your friendship is changing or he had a bad day, or you said something unpleasant. Instead of drawing such conclusions, test and retest. Try having a similar conversation again or perhaps ask how his day was. Perhaps you are concluding that your boss is cranky on Wednesdays. Don’t just test this hypothesis for Wednesdays, test this observation for all days. Maybe your boss is always cranky, or it was random crankiness – work stress? This is tricky; because, if done wrong, you walk right into the confirmation bias. 

5. Make educated guesses:  Look for anchors. People ask leading questions that contain information that primes others to think in a certain way. For example, ‘he isn’t that bad a guy’. Someone is more likely to respond saying ‘Yeah he isn’t that bad’, but the answer could very well be ‘He is an awesome guy’ if the question were ‘He is a pretty good guy’. When trying to make a real educated guess, rethink assumptions, spot anchors, use data, and try to work out an answer.

6. Avoid misattributions: Sometimes, we get attracted to advertisements based on things unrelated to the advertised products. There are images that evoke emotional responses. Try to isolate that emotion. Its purpose might be to compensate for the lack of useful content or amplify a desirable feature. We often misattribute emotions [14] to a false cause despite the presence of a true cause. Let us look at mobile applications. Sometimes great restaurants make terrible apps and reviewers rate the app for what it is – an app. When you see a low rating, can you analyze if the poor rating is for the food or the app? Even though an app sucks, the food can be good, but the app warrants a low rating. We misattribute this and assume the food is bad. Is the food bad because the app sucks? No. The food could be brilliant AND the app can suck, the app shouldn’t change the perceived quality of the food.

Similarly, your decisions about clothing and appliances will be different when hungry or fully satiated. Only because the decision is influenced by hunger even when hunger is unrelated. In general , your bodily states like feeling warm/cold, hungry/thirsty, sexually aroused/sleepy, etc., will influence decisions but your brain will misattribute that influence to a product you want to purchase.

Another misattribution is called the “self-serving bias” – we take credit for victories and blame others or circumstances for failures. This bias enhances our own effort and importance and avoids taking responsibility for anything that doesn’t make us look good. You may be doing this when you don’t perform well or get negative feedback. It is easier to blame others than accept that you might need to work on your skills or communication. That is the bias.

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7. Pretend to be someone else: Every person is biased in some way, through their experience, their body, their identity, their circumstances, their learnings, etc., So to counter your bias, you can adopt someone else’s bias. Traditionally, this is called empathetic perspective taking – you evaluate something based on how someone else you know will evaluate it. Our brain creates a model of people we meet. When you pretend to be someone else, you adopt that model. And with that model, new perspectives emerge for you to bias yourself in new ways. This is a tip to take on new perspectives when doing so becomes hard because of your bias.

8. Assume you don’t know what you don’t know: In many situations, it is impossible to understand the clockwork that leads to a phenomenon. Let go of assumptions. Accept that there are factors at play that could be beyond your comprehension – The unknown unknown . You wouldn’t know what you don’t know or you could know. For example, there is a common debate among audiophiles, laypeople, musicians, and musical technicians about a song’s file size and quality. A person who knows what a song waveform looks like can argue that larger files have more content in it. That is a valid premise, but there is an unknown assumption, that some of the content actually translates into better quality. This assumption is wrong. The unknown unknown for many is that it is ok to remove some content because our brain doesn’t register certain frequency changes. The brain masks extremely low frequencies that follow high frequencies. For all practical purposes, those frequencies are useless to humans.

The framing effect is robust, but it can be countered by listing pros and cons of options [15] presented with multiple frames. For example, if a tablet is presented with a positive frame like “9 out of 10 patients feel no side effects” vs. a negative frame like “ Only 1 out of 10 patients feel side effects,” the first frame might encourage a purchase but the second one might not. That is when the framing effect transforms equal options into unequal options through verbal cues that represent a gain vs. a loss. Using a pros and cons technique to evaluate both options – “pros: 90% good, cons: 10% bad” – can effectively cancel out the framing effect and both options are considered equal. One explanation for this is that the pros and cons method de-biases the framing effect by bringing attention to the actual information in one single “100%” or “whole” and pulling attention away from the individual frame. So information used to evaluate the 2 options is transformed and reconceptualized in one’s working memory, which becomes the new reference to evaluate options. In a study [16] , researchers saw that instructing participants to “think like a scientist” as opposed to “rely on gut reactions” reduced the impact of framing effects. This shows how the framing effect essentially acts as a heuristic to simplify decision-making by basing decisions on quick intuitive responses to presented information (primary information + framing cues).

The framing effect can vanish [17] when options are presented in a foreign language, regardless of positive/negative or gain/loss framing. One reason for this is that a foreign language is harder to process than the native tongue, so it needs deliberate thinking which reduces the influence of automatic thinking triggered by the frame. A foreign language also provides psychological distance which helps process information more abstractly and globally which pulls attention away from the specifics of a frame.

Short answer – better thinking, decision-making, and perception.

Longer answer – Humans have advanced, technologically & socially, largely due to the pre-frontal cortex and the frontal lobe which give us executive functions. Executive functions guide decision-making, planning, problem-solving, complex analysis of situations, etc. Cognitive biases interfere with these functions. For example, experts can fail to see good, novel solutions to problems or people could feel their superiors at work perform poorly . By bringing these errors into awareness and mitigating them, you will process and understand the information around you better. Simply by acknowledging the Survivorship bias, you can avoid bad productivity advice and shield yourself from bad success stories . You will know how to make better decisions in stressful and relaxed situations alike. You will shop better, manage your resources better, and have healthier conversations with lesser misunderstandings. Personal, professional, and social interactions will significantly improve as you will have learned how to make better judgments.

Now, I suppose, you’ll have a few strategies in your quiver to make good decisions by overcoming cognitive biases. Have fun thinking objectively!

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Hey! Thank you for reading; hope you enjoyed the article. I run Cognition Today to paint a holistic picture of psychology. My content here is referenced and featured in NY Times, Forbes, CNET, Entrepreneur, Lifehacker, about 15 books, academic courses, and 100s of research papers.

I’m a full-time psychology SME consultant and I work part-time with Myelin, an EdTech company. I’m also currently an overtime impostor in the AI industry. I’m attempting (mostly failing) to solve AI’s contextual awareness problem from the cognitive perspective.

I’ve studied at NIMHANS Bangalore (positive psychology), Savitribai Phule Pune University (clinical psychology), Fergusson College (BA psych), and affiliated with IIM Ahmedabad (marketing psychology).

I’m based in Pune, India. Love Sci-fi, horror media; Love rock, metal, synthwave, and K-pop music; can’t whistle; can play 2 guitars at a time.

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2 thoughts on “8 powerful ways to overcome thinking errors and cognitive biases”

Bro.. The first item here says focus on data. That’s true, but don’t you think sometimes we need to be really optimistic and have unrealistic belief to achieve success? Here I am referring to Upsc exams wherein data says 1 in 790 applicants gets selected, but those who got selected say they just had faith and never worried about competition. How to move ahead at such cross roads?

Hey, yes, focusing on data is important to overcome biases. However, it doesn’t mean one shouldn’t be optimistic. Both are compatible with each other. In your example of UPSC, it is good to be optimistic but it is also important to know what to expect.

The truth lies in a cognitive bias known as the survivorship bias – Those who were selected (survived) said that they had faith and never worried. But that’s only half the story. On the other side, there are those who had faith and never worried who also failed. Having faith and not worrying didn’t cause their success.

But that’s not it. Some people, in retrospect, downplay the negative emotions associated with a positive outcome.

In competitive situations like these, regulating emotions is important. Whether it’s the pressure, fear of failure, stress, anxiety, lack of confidence, disappointing others, etc. These aspects do affect performance. And sometimes, these factors hamper the preparation process too.

Regarding unrealistic beliefs, it’s not bad at all. It’s nice to dream and think big. But there is a point where over-optimism becomes a problem because overconfidence, lack of effort, relying on luck, etc. thinking big and high also requires some amount of strategy, thinking, healthy coping with failures, luck, good decisions, help, etc.

The optimism you are talking about sounds like a great idea to approach and take an opportunity. Many times, it is this optimism which puts people in the right place at the right time.

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Thinking errors – we all have them, but how are we managing them.

Your alarm doesn’t go off; you are late for work. You tell yourself, “this is going to be the worst day ever.” In your mind everything does go wrong that day.

“My husband is late again. I know he is having an affair. Why doesn’t he love me anymore?”

A friend tells you the dress you are wearing is beautiful and you look fantastic in it. You respond, “this old thing. I think I look fat in it.”

You are exhibiting a cognitive distortion, or what I like to call a “thinking error” – unreasonable, inaccurate and negative ways of thinking as a default protective factor of an underlying insecurity.

If these thinking errors become a pattern – a way of life – they begin to manifest habits that impact your ability to listen objectively to conversations in a real, meaningful way. This could have a profound effect on relationships.

The first way to begin combating thinking errors is to recognize them. Here are a few common ones:

• Catastrophic, or end-of-the-world thinking:  you always see yourself in the worst possible situation and there is no light at the end of the tunnel. You assume the worst is always going to happen.
• Magnification and minimization:  you exaggerate the importance of something that really is not that important; you blow the situation or incident out of proportion; you magnify your flaws and minimize your accomplishments.
• Overgeneralization:  after an unpleasant experience, you draw a conclusion that the same experience is destined to occur again. You tell yourself, “this always happens,” or “I’m never doing that again.” The key words are “always” and “never.” For example, you have a bad blind date and you conclude that all blind dates are bad.
• Jumping to conclusions:  you automatically predict the outcome and usually negatively. You assume you know what others are thinking. This also can be called fortune telling or mind reading; you base your conclusions on your emotional reaction, not facts.
• Personalization:  you blame yourself for a problem that is not entirely your fault, or you have no control over, or you blame everyone else, thinking they are going to blame you. This type of thinking error causes a person literally to view any interaction toward him/her as a personal attack.
• The “I should have” factor:  “I should have said,” or “I should have done,” you frequently find yourself saying this when you struggle with self-doubt and confidence in choices, decisions or abilities. These words are self-defeating and impact your self-esteem. In your mind, you’ve failed which further withers personal confidence.
• Disqualification:  this is the tendency to dismiss a positive occurrence as it relates to someone’s ability. Some people call this person’s thinking pattern “a hater.”
• Emotional reasoning:  our emotions – not the facts – dictate the outcome. We validate our feelings as facts.
• All or nothing:  you think in extremes, with nothing in between. You succeed or you fail. You are trying to achieve perfection always and when you don’t, you feel defeated. These extremes lack flexibility in the thought process.
• Labeling:  characterizing yourself or someone else based upon a single experience – usually a negative one – can lead to unhealthy misperceptions of yourself and others. Negative labels associated with one’s identity can foster deep personal resentment and judgement of others.

How do cognitive distortions develop? In most cases, cognitive distortions begin as a way to cope with a difficult life event. Often, we automatically think about the situation negatively, and these thoughts and emotions intensify over time and squelch positive thinking. Such thinking errors may lead to a pattern of unhealthy protective factors that insulate you from reality.

How do you flip thinking errors into positive thoughts? First, we have to be aware of those intrusive thoughts that are distorted. Recognize, acknowledge and act to redirect your thoughts. This won’t happen overnight as most people have established unhealthy thinking patterns and barriers for much of their lives. Some habits are hard to break. Therefore, it is important to work on developing new thinking habits to address life situations so you are better equipped cope in the moment of a crisis.

Here are a few ways to begin this process:

• Think before you act. Respond before you react. Become a critical thinker.
• Don’t let your feelings and emotions fuel your actions – try to stop knee jerk reactions.
• Don’t let small mistakes or flaws overwhelm you.
• Be willing to challenge yourself and your thoughts.
• Focus on controlling your thought processes; don’t let them control you.
• Focus on positive thoughts and try to push negative thinking out of your mind. Try to replace every negative thought with a positive one.
• Welcome positive people into your life, not out of your life.
• Stop comparing yourself to others.
• Practice, and keep practicing.
• Set realistic expectations for yourself.

We are willing to change our physical health and fitness – we join a gym, or we walk every day for physical health; we find the time to make those changes in our life. What about our mental fitness? We need to focus on that equally and often. Mental fitness should include the intentional effort to challenge a thought process when one becomes aware of a distorted perception not based on fact but in a feeling. Feelings create emotion, and sometimes irrational thinking and emotional distress.

If you feel you need some help overcoming your thinking errors, I recommend you see a therapist so you can begin the process of living outside your tunnel of distortions. The Center for Relationship and Sexual Health has a team of therapists ready to assist you. Simply call the center at 248.399.7447 or visit the center’s website at crsh.com to set up an appointment with a therapist.

Rita Clark is a licensed master social worker (LMSW) with more than 20 years of experience. She works with individuals, couples and families needing help with communication problems; conflict resolution and anger management issues; domestic violence; those experiencing depression, anxiety, mood disorders and co-dependence; and individuals suffering from grief, loss and trauma. Rita also specializes in men and women’s sexual health, sexual orientation and gender identity, teen violence and social adjustment issues, and kink, BDSM and fetishes.

To schedule an appointment with Rita, call The Center for Relationship and Sexual Health at 248.399.7447 or visit the center’s website at crsh.com, go to “Meet our therapists,” and set up an appointment with Rita.

About the Author: Rita Clark

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Thinking Errors: Understanding and Overcoming Cognitive Distortions

In the complex realm of human cognition, thinking errors, also known as cognitive distortions, often play a significant role. These distorted thought patterns can skew our perception of reality, impacting our emotions, behaviors, and overall mental health. This article delves into the nature of thinking errors, their common types, and strategies for overcoming them.

Decoding Thinking Errors

Thinking errors are irrational and inaccurate thoughts that individuals generally perceive as accurate. These thoughts are often automatic and can significantly influence one's emotions and behaviors.

The Origin of Thinking Errors

Cognitive distortions or thinking errors can stem from various sources, including traumatic experiences, upbringing, or mental health disorders such as anxiety or depression.

The Impact of Thinking Errors

Thinking errors can have a profound impact on an individual's mental health and overall quality of life. These distortions can fuel negative emotions and behaviors, and often contribute to mental health disorders.

Common Types of Thinking Errors

There are several types of thinking errors that psychologists have identified. Understanding these can help individuals recognize and challenge their distorted thought patterns.

All-or-Nothing Thinking

This type of thinking, also known as black-and-white thinking, involves viewing situations in absolutes. For instance, if a situation isn't perfect, it's considered a complete failure.

Overgeneralization

Overgeneralization involves drawing broad conclusions based on a single event or piece of evidence. If something bad happens once, it's expected to happen over and over again.

Catastrophizing

Catastrophizing refers to the tendency to expect the worst possible outcome in any situation. This thinking error often fuels anxiety and stress.

Strategies for Overcoming Thinking Errors

Overcoming thinking errors involves recognizing distorted thoughts, challenging them, and replacing them with more rational and accurate thoughts.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is an effective approach for dealing with thinking errors. It involves identifying distorted thoughts, evaluating their accuracy, and challenging them.

Mindfulness and Meditation

Practicing mindfulness and meditation can also help overcome thinking errors. These practices foster increased awareness of one's thoughts, making it easier to identify and challenge thinking errors.

Seeking Professional Help

If thinking errors significantly impact one's life, seeking help from a mental health professional can be beneficial. They can provide guidance, therapeutic interventions, and the necessary tools to overcome thinking errors.

Thinking errors are common but can be harmful to our mental wellbeing. Recognizing and understanding these distortions is the first step towards combating them. With effective strategies like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, mindfulness, and professional help, these distorted thought patterns can be corrected, paving the way for improved mental health and a better quality of life.

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Accept Decline

17 Common Thinking Errors: How to Identify and Replace Them

by Kristi Schwegman, LCSW | December 26, 2021

Do you believe everything you think?   You shouldn’t!

Our brains are wired to make connections.   This helps it to work fast and efficiently.   But our brains don’t get it right every time.   We have to be aware of what we’re thinking because it’s too easy for our brains to make assumptions or twist thoughts to help them fit a certain narrative that it’s created.

Go through the list of thinking errors below.   Make note of the ones you catch yourself doing most often.   Start becoming aware of your twisted thinking and stop trusting what your brain automatically comes up with.  Then, use the exercise below to help untwist these thinking errors to form more helpful, truer, and more positive thoughts.  

17 Common Thinking Errors

1. all or nothing thinking.

• Right/Wrong Thinking; Black/White; Good/Bad; Absolute or Extreme Categories
• Desire for perfection
• Can leave us feeling trapped, helpless, or lack choices and compromise

“I completely failed my interview.”

“He’s disgusting.”

2. Magnification/Minimization  

• Overstating/Understating; Unfair Comparison; Blow Things out of Proportion or Shrink Importance; Worst-case Scenarios; Predictions

“How can I ever trust him again if he lied to me?” (Magnification)

“I just told a little lie that didn’t matter anyway.” (Minimization)

3. Overgeneralization

• Thinking always/never; Conclusions based on one piece of negative evidence; Global assumptions/Assuming the worst; Never-ending patterns of defeat

“I’ll never be able to forgive her.”

“He’s always doing that.”

4. Discounting the Positive

• Positives don’t matter; Doesn’t accept positives; Finding excuses to turn positive into negative

“Who cares if I got the job, they’ll fire me when they find out I’m not that smart.”

“Yes, but she only did it once, I seriously doubt she’ll do it again.”

5. Negative Mental Filter

• Seeing only the negative; Focus on the negative; Filters out positives  

“Focusing on the B your son got on her report card rather than the 5 A’s”

“I have to do everything around the house.”

6. Labeling

• Unkind names of self/others; Assigning judgment; Exaggerated opinions

“I’m a horrible person.”

“I didn’t realize you were so stupid.”

7. Blame/Self Blame

• Blaming self/others; Playing the victim; Holding others responsible; Others-blame is external, self-blame is internal

“It’s all your fault that I got fired.”

“How am I supposed to be nice when he’s always doing that to me?”

8. Heaven’s Reward Fallacy

• Expecting something, then feeling resentment when you don’t get it.

“I deserved that promotion, not him.”

“Why should I when she never acknowledges what I do?”

9. Hopelessness

• Feeling like your problems will never be solved

“No one is ever going to love me.”

“What’s the use, why bother trying to change now.”

1 0. Emotional Reasoning

• I feel it, therefore it’s true; Emotions accepted as fact; Incorrect assumptions based on feelings

“I feel like an idiot, so I must be one.”

“It feels like he’s doing it on purpose and I know he is.”

11. Should Statements

• Heavy demands; criticism of self/others; Expectations
• Includes Should, Shouldn’t, Must, Ought, and Have To

“You should have told me that.”

“He knows me; he should have known what to do.”

12. Fallacy of Fairness

• Life should be fair, just, and equal  
• Leads to anger, resentment, and bitterness

“It’s not fair he makes more money than me when I have a harder job.”

“I feel justified in acting like this.”

13. Mind Reading

• Know what others are thinking; Judgments; Conclusion Without Evidence; Reading Others Thoughts, Making Assumptions  

“He thinks I’m blowing this out of proportion and is going to break up with me.”

“She thinks I’m crazy.”

14. Fortune Telling

• Make conclusions/predictions without evidence;   What-if statements; Catastrophizing; Predicting with certainty  

“The vacation is going to be ruined because I know it’s going to rain.”

“What if they never change?”

15. Always Being Right

• Internalize opinions and will put others on trial to prove their opinions/actions are correct; Will go to great lengths; Needs to be right

“That’s not the way that I would do it.”

“Your interpretation is so wrong, that’s not what happened.”

16. Fallacy of Change

• Expecting other people to change to suit you; Pressure others to change
• Happiness is dependent on the person changing

“If only he would just be cleaner, then I wouldn’t get so upset.”

“Why should I if they aren’t?”

17. Control Fallacies

• Internal: Has control over self, others, and surroundings; Feels responsible
• External: Life is controlled by other factors, Feeling of having no control

“I feel terrible that I tutored him and he failed the test; it’s my fault.” (Internal)

“What use will it be, she’ll just leave me anyway.” (External)

It’s not easy to recognize that our thoughts are twisted and skewed.   We’ve been taught to go with whatever our initial thought and feeling is.   Plus, it’s easier and it feels so true!   But remember, feelings are facts and thoughts aren’t completely true.   We use a lens all the time through which we interpret our circumstances.  

Pause and run through this 4-part exercise to practice noticing your thinking errors and learning to untwist them.  

• Grab the Thought:   Write down what you’re currently thinking.  
• Analyze the Thought: Notice and write down any thinking errors about those thoughts.
• Replace the Thought: Write down some other thoughts you could choose to think instead.  
• Choose the Thought: Decide what thought you are going to choose to think and write it down.  

Did you decide to choose your original thought even though you came up with some alternatives?   Why or why not?

Was it easy to notice any thinking errors?   Ask a trusted person to help you out with this if you get stuck.  

Could you come up with several other thoughts instead of your initial thought?   Again, ask someone to help you if this is difficult at first.   It will get easier.  

Practice doing this 4-step thought exercise to begin choosing and thinking less twisted thinking!   Then, notice it creates different feelings, better connections with others, and more positive experiences.  

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Sources of Errors in Thinking and How to Avoid Them

• First Online: 20 December 2016

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• Balu H. Athreya 3 , 4 &
• Chrystalla Mouza 5  

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In this chapter we discuss ways in which our experiences might mislead our thinking. We identify sources of errors in thinking as well as time-honored strategies to avoid these errors. Being aware of these errors is crucial to developing critical thinking skills.

“Natural intelligence is no barrier to the propagation of error.” —John Dewey ( 1910 , p. 21) “Distortions in thinking are often due to unconscious bias and unrecognized ignorance” —Susan Stebbing ( 1939 , p. 5)

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Balu H. Athreya ( Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics, Teaching Consultant )

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Athreya, B.H., Mouza, C. (2017). Sources of Errors in Thinking and How to Avoid Them. In: Thinking Skills for the Digital Generation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12364-6_7

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Body Paragraph

Parts of the body paragraph, single controlling idea that ties back to the thesis statement.

The first thing a solid body paragraph needs to do is focus on one controlling idea-one that directly ties back to the thesis statement of the paper. While the basic paragraph only requires a controlling idea specific to that paragraph’s content, any body paragraph in an essay must always take into account what the thesis statement (or controlling idea of the essay) is. It must also take into account what role the controlling idea of that specific paragraph will play within its context.

To illustrate, let’s look at an example prompt question:

What is one thing you can do to overcome a specific thinking error?

Based on that prompt, a potential thesis statement could be:

One thing I could do to overcome the thinking error of giving up would be to pay more attention to the conditions in which the thinking error usually occurs.

This thesis statement only mentions one thing the writer can do to overcome a specific thinking error (that of giving up). The writter suggests paying more attention to the circumstances in which the thinking error tends to occur . This means that the writer will only need one body paragraph to explain this step he or she intends to take. In other words, since the thesis statement, or controlling idea of the whole essay, only has one idea in it, the essay only needs one body paragraph to discuss that one idea.

Not all essay prompts are that simple though. In the future, it is very likely that you will be asked a prompt question that will require you to share two or even three ideas instead of just the one. This would mean you would need more than one body paragraph to answer the prompt question. Look at the following example:

Ponder and Record

How might the controlling idea of this body paragraph (or even the number of body paragraphs) be different if the thesis statement were this instead:

Three things I could do to overcome the thinking error of giving up would be to pay more attention to the conditions in which the thinking error tends to occur, act to immediately change my physical and mental state so I can stop the thinking error, and then consistently reflect and evaluate how successful I was in stopping the thinking error.

• How many controlling ideas are outlined in this thesis example?
• How many body paragraphs would this essay need since each body paragraph should contain no more than one controlling idea?

In the Ponder and Record exercise above, you probably deduced that the thesis statement outlines three controlling ideas. They are:

• Paying more attention to the conditions in which the thinking error occurs
• Act immediately to change physical and mental state to stop the thinking error
• Reflect and evaluate how successful efforts to stop the thinking error were

This means that, according to this thesis, this particular essay would have three body paragraphs-- one focused on each of the three controlling ideas.

Moving forward, as you examine your prompt questions and create thesis statements, allow the number of controlling ideas you outline to be your guide. This will help you determine how many body paragraphs you will have and what each of those body paragraphs will focus on.

Topic Sentence

The basic paragraph lessons teach that the purpose of the topic sentence is to indicate what controlling idea that paragraph is going to explore . With the body paragraph, the purpose of the topic sentence is no different.

As mentioned in the section above, the only thing that changes in the body paragraph is the fact that its controlling idea (the idea shared in the topic sentence of that paragraph) must tie back to the thesis statement of the paper. All while still serving its purpose of showing what the controlling idea of that particular paragraph will be.

Let’s return to our example thesis statement to illustrate:

With this as the thesis statement of the introductory paragraph, the topic sentence of the body paragraph might be:

The testimony of experts has shown me that increased awareness about the conditions in which thinking errors occur is a great first step toward discovering ways to overcome them.

My own personal experience has shown me that increased awareness about the conditions in which thinking errors occur is a great first step toward discovering ways to overcome them.

Notice how the topic sentence strengthens the thesis statement while also creating the controlling idea and supporting details for that body paragraph? It is clear that increased awareness of the conditions in which thinking errors occur will be the controlling idea of this paragraph (as illustrated by the thesis). But it is also clear that this controlling idea will be supported by details centered on the expert testimony (if the first topic sentence example is used) or with personal experience (if the second topic sentence example is used).

• How does the topic sentence above support the thesis while also clearly creating the controlling idea of that specific paragraph?
• How does the topic sentence effectively outline the type of supporting details that will be shared in that body paragraph?

Supporting Detail

You’ll remember from your lessons on the basic paragraph that there are four basic types of supporting details you could use to support the controlling idea of your paragraph:

• Expert testimony
• Personal experiences

The body paragraph is no different. The same types of supporting details will work. Much like with your basic paragraph assignment, your Basic Essay assignment also requires you to use supporting details in your body paragraph that directly support your controlling idea. The only difference is instead of integrating two supporting details, you only need to integrate one. If you are unsure of what that might look like, let’s return to our example topic sentences:

The first topic sentence example (Example 1) indicates that an expert testimony will serve as the supporting detail for the body paragraph. So what might this look like in practice?

• Many experts in the field of psychology have highlighted the importance of not only correctly identifying the thinking errors we suffer from, but also the conditions in which they tend to occur most frequently in our lives. As Dr. John M. Grohol explained in his article “10 Proven Methods for Fixing Cognitive Distortions,” “Much like a judge overseeing a trial, [you] must remove yourself from the emotionality of the episode of irrational thinking in order to examine the evidence more objectively. A thorough examination of an experience allows you to identify the basis for your distorted thoughts.” In other words, before a thinking error can be successfully overcome, it must first be analysed as objectively as possible so the cause of the thinking error (and the conditions that tend to cause it) can be identified and modified.

The second topic sentence example (Example 2) indicates that a personal experience will serve as the supporting detail for the body paragraph. What might that look like in practice?

• Because one of my thinking errors is a tendency to want to give up and quit, I made the decision to actually keep a record of my thinking patterns over the course of a week. Anytime I had the thought to give up on a task, big or small, I would open up my notebook and write it down. I would describe what I was doing when the thought occurred and how it made me feel. By the end of the week, I realized that a lot of the time, my desire to give up happened during times of stress. In other words, I could handle a lot more (and avoid the thinking error of giving up) when I kept my stress level down. This discovery has helped me realize an important connection that I can now work toward resolving in order to lessen this thinking error’s impact on my life.
• How do the supporting detail examples above support the controlling idea established by the example topic sentence?
• What could your topic sentence and accompanying supporting details be for your own essay?

Don’t forget, if you choose to use a personal experience as a supporting detail, make sure it is based on a specific experience . It is not enough to reflect on a principle as it relates to your life in general.

The Concluding/The Transition Sentence

The final sentence of the body paragraph is the concluding/transition sentence. While similar to the simple concluding sentence of the basic paragraph, the concluding/transition sentence not only serves the purpose of providing closure for the controlling idea shared throughout the paragraph, but also the purpose of transitioning the reader to the next paragraph (whether it be another body paragraph or the concluding paragraph).

In the basic paragraph this sentence should not be a simple restatement of the topic sentence. Rather, it should be a brief summary of how the supporting details shared throughout the paragraph support the controlling idea of that paragraph. The same is true of the concluding/transition sentence in the body paragraph with this small addition- this sentence can also serve as a link back to the thesis statement (the controlling idea of the essay) as well.

Let’s return to our example to illustrate. Based on all of the example sentences shared in this lesson so far, the body paragraph for this particular essay prompt (with its topic sentence and supporting detail) might look like the following:

The testimony of experts has shown me that increased awareness about the conditions in which thinking errors occur is a great first step toward discovering ways to overcome them. Many experts in the field of psychology have highlighted the importance of not only correctly identifying the thinking errors we suffer from, but also the conditions in which they tend to occur most frequently in our lives. As Dr. John M. Grohol explained in his article “10 Proven Methods for Fixing Cognitive Distortions,” “Much like a judge overseeing a trial, [you] must remove yourself from the emotionality of the episode of irrational thinking in order to examine the evidence more objectively. A thorough examination of an experience allows you to identify the basis for your distorted thoughts.” In other words, before a thinking error can be successfully overcome, it must first be analysed as objectively as possible so the cause of the thinking error (and the conditions that tend to cause it) can be identified and modified.

Based on the paragraph above, a possible concluding/transition sentence might be:

I am confident that a consistent analysis of the conditions in which my thinking error of giving up occurs will help me to control and eventually overcome this specific thinking error.

Notice how this sentence provides a sense of completion in terms of the controlling idea and supporting details shared throughout the paragraph? Do you also see how the sentence transitions the reader from the controlling idea of that paragraph back to the controlling idea- or thesis statement- of the entire essay?

• How could you avoid making your concluding/transition sentence a simple restatement of your topic sentence?
• What might your own concluding/transition sentence be based on the topic sentence and supporting details you plan to share?

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Home » Blog » Mental Health » What are Thinking Errors in CBT (and how to manage them)

• 9 May / 2021

What are Thinking Errors in CBT (and how to manage them)

When generally talking about how effective CBT Therapy can be, we have discussed how two main components are involved in this type of work: Cognitive Therapy, which deals with the way we think, and Behavioural Therapy, which deals with our actions. 

In this post, we’ll focus on one aspect of Cognitive Therapy which is crucial to CBT: dealing with Thinking Errors. These are automatic, often unrealistic types of thinking that can rapidly affect our mood and keep us stuck in a cycle of anxiety, sadness or other difficult emotions. However, in CBT, learning how to identify and label them, can make the difference between escalating and containing our difficult emotions.

What are Thinking Errors?

Thinking Errors – also known as Cognitive Distortions – are irrational and extreme ways of thinking that can maintain mental and emotional issues. Anxiety, low mood, worry, anger management issues are often fuelled by this type of thinking.

Thinking errors, proposed initially by Aaron Beck (1963) (one of the leading CBT figures), are essential in how CBT works with anxiety and other issues.

Although we all fall prey to irrational and extreme thinking, Thinking Errors are a distinctive aspect of the everyday life of those who often experience unpleasant emotions. In anxiety, for instance, the unpleasant feelings are triggered by frequent negative and unbalanced thinking. This type of thinking then informs decisions on how to act, which are equally unhelpful. This chain of events keeps us stuck in a vicious anxiety cycle, as the one below. 

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</p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p><strong>Please include attribution to https://therapy-central.com with this graphic.</strong></p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p><a href=’https://therapy-central.com/2021/05/09/thinking-errors-cbt-and-manage-them/’><img src=’https://therapy-central.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Anxiety_CBT_Vicious_Cycle.png’ alt=’CBT Vicious Cycle of Anxiety’ 540px border=’0′ /></a></p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p>

How do Thinking Errors Affect Anxiety?

Thinking errors play an essential role in keeping us anxious, low or frustrated. They’re what makes the difference between seeing the glass half full or half empty.

Cognitive distortions tend to be consistent with the expectations we have of a situation. For instance, if we have a generally negative outlook on how others see us, it’s more likely that our thinking errors will confirm such negative expectations. For example, after our boss expresses dissatisfaction with our department’s performance, typical thinking errors that may arise could be: “She thinks I am rubbish” (Mind Reading) and “I will lose my job” (Catastrophising). 

By falling trap of and believing these thinking errors are factual, we will sink deeper into the negative emotions associated with them, for example, worry, anxiety or fear.

This is why thinking errors are a critical component in increasing and maintaining our anxiety.

How do Thoughts Affect our Mental Health?

If you missed our main article on CBT therapy for anxiety , let’s briefly refresh why thoughts are so crucial to our mental health. CBT believes that we feel anxious, sad or angry because of the thoughts (or images) triggered by the situations that make us feel anxious, sad or angry. 

With anxiety, for instance, if you notice your heart racing and have the thought: “I’ll have a heart attack!” this is likely to make you feel anxious. Although it’s completely normal to feel anxious if you believe you’re having a heart attack, if you look closely (and if you don’t have a physical condition), the likelihood of that thought being true is generally very low. Yet, by believing in such a thought, you’re accidentally falling into the trap of anxiety. This is the reason we label these kinds of thoughts as negative or ‘unhelpful’. Your unhelpful thoughts become a prime target of CBT Therapy.

How does CBT work with Thinking Errors?

One of the aims of CBT Therapy for Anxiety (and other issues) is to work on challenging and reframing negative, unhelpful thoughts. This almost always involves some form of journaling and keeping a diary of the thoughts that affect your mood daily. The goal here is to help you identify your unhelpful thoughts and label them as irrational. Following that, with the help of a CBT therapist, the work shifts towards generating more balanced and rational, evidence-based alternative thoughts.

When new, realistic and balanced thoughts are adopted, replacing the unhelpful, irrational ones, you will start to notice a reduction in the intensity of your anxiety reaction. The more unhelpful thoughts are recognised and replaced with helpful, realistic ones, the more anxiety loses its grip on you. You’re able to live a life guided by your choices rather than by fear.

</p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p><strong>Please include attribution to https://therapy-central.com with this graphic.</strong></p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p><a href=’https://therapy-central.com/2021/05/09/thinking-errors-cbt-and-manage-them/’><img src=’https://therapy-central.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/MostCommonThinkingErrorsCBT.png’ alt=’The Most Common Thinking Errors in CBT’ 540px border=’0′ /></a></p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p>

How Can We Identify Thinking Errors? A Practical Example

Challenging and reframing unhelpful thoughts can be significantly improved when you can categorise them as thinking errors.

Once you know how they sound, it’s easy to identify if one of your thoughts is a thinking error. When you identify a thought as a thinking error, it’s much more likely to lose its credibility, leading you to feel less anxious, sad or angry.

In other words, recognising and labelling thinking errors when they arise can significantly improve our ability to start escaping the anxiety trap.

Let’s see how it’s done with an example:  

• Jennifer is at a work meeting with 10 other people; she’s usually a bit shy and tends to not talk too much when there are many people around for fear of being judged.
• Jennifer’s boss explains that her department did not meet the targets and expresses her disappointment.
• Jennifer feels anxious and on edge. Although she knows her team has done everything they could to meet the target, she chooses not to say a word for fear of confronting her boss.
• After the meeting, Jennifer returns to her desk. She notices her anxiety increasing. Her heart is racing. In her mind, many thoughts crop up about her boss and the meeting: “ She thinks I am rubbish “, “ I will be fired “. Her mind is on a roll, and her thoughts escalate: “ I will never get another job “, “ I won’t be able to pay the rent and end up living on the street “.
• The more these thoughts mount up, unchallenged, the more Jennifer’s Anxiety grows, to the point of needing to take the afternoon off to go home and cool down.
• When she’s back home, Jennifer feels less anxious. However, other negative thoughts crop up, like: “ I’m such a failure for having left earlier “, “ others must have noticed my anxiety and believe I am rubbish “. Ultimately these thoughts contribute to maintaining her anxiety.

What’s the issue with Jennifer, then? The main problem is that whenever thoughts naturally arise, she accepts them as facts, no matter how potentially far-fetched or irrational they might be.

If we look closely, many of her thoughts are pretty unhelpful and irrational. Crucially, the most powerful ones are precisely thinking errors! Here they are:

– “ She thinks I am rubbish ” – Mind Reading

– “ I will never get another job ” Catastrophising/Overgeneralising

– “ I will end up living on the street ” Catastrophising/Overgeneralising

</p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p><strong>Please include attribution to https://therapy-central.com with this graphic.</strong></p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p><a href=’https://therapy-central.com/2021/05/09/thinking-errors-cbt-and-manage-them/’><img src=’https://therapy-central.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/TipsToCorrectThinkingErrors.png’ alt=’Tips to Correct Thinking Errors CBT’ 540px border=’0′ /></a></p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p>

How to Correct Thinking Errors? Some Practical Tips:

  Catching our minds engaging in thinking errors, and labelling them can be an effective way to avoid making them and tackling anxiety and other challenging emotions in our everyday lives.

If Jennifer could recognise and label her own thoughts as thinking errors in our example, she would have a chance to dismiss them and start decreasing her anxiety. She could then choose to not escape the situation by leaving work early and would ultimately feel better about herself. 

Over time, Jennifer would feel more confident and would less likely fall prey to her thinking errors in the future!

1) Start a daily journal.

Pick your favourite medium (a notebook, your notes app or anything else) and write down the negative emotions you feel daily (e.g., anxiety, worry, sadness, etc.). Then, next to them, jot down the thoughts associated with those emotions (e.g., “my boss thinks I am rubbish”). To do this, ask yourself, “What thought or image is making me feel distressed?”. 

2) Identify and Label your Thinking Errors.

After step one, take a look at the table (or infographic) below, with a list of some of the most well-known thinking errors, and see if any of the thoughts you wrote down can be labelled as thinking errors.

3) Reality Check!

Once you have identified any of your thoughts as thinking errors, it’s time for a reality check. Ask yourself whether they are actually true and remind yourself that these cognitive distortions are known to be unrealistic, extreme and irrational. There is very likely no good reason to believe them. 

Repeating these steps consistently has the potential to help you gradually reduce your anxiety (as well as other negative emotions).

What Are Common Thinking Errors?

Overcome Thinking Errors starting Today!

Thinking errors (or Cognitive Distortions) are well-known mechanisms that keep our negative emotions going. Hopefully, this article helped you learn more about them and get you started on tackling them. Keep in mind that there are times in which we’re stuck in a vicious cycles of  anxiety, sadness and other difficult emotions, and we might not be able to get out of them on our own. If your difficult emotions have significantly started affecting your life, get in touch with us for professional help. Our CBT trained therapists have the expertise to help you work with your thinking errors and negative emotions, discover more about CBT Therapy .

With our help, you’ll have the chance to make the crucial changes to bring balance and fulfilment back into your life!

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Beck, A. T. (1963). Thinking and depression: I. Idiosyncratic content and cognitive distortions . Archives of general psychiatry , 9 (4), 324-333. Chicago

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21 thinking errors and how to change them.

Updated: May 11, 2022

The term "thinking errors" refers to self-defeating thinking patterns. The majority of people who have thinking errors are unaware of it. It's when what you're thinking doesn't match up with reality. During emotional periods, thinking errors are fully active in your mind and lead to strong emotions and (self)destructive behavior.

Thoughts run through our heads all day long, without us consciously managing them. Each of us is estimated to have roughly 125.000 thoughts per day, with about 80.000 of those being us talking to ourselves about ourselves. Everyone has unhelpful thinking patterns, schemas, and thinking errors that cause them to perceive reality in a distorted way.

What Are Thinking Errors?

Thinking errors, also known as cognitive distortions, are thoughts that do not match up with reality. These thoughts often have negative consequences. People who experience thinking errors are often not aware of it and perceive their thoughts as the truth.

What are common Thinking Errors?

Thinking errors are not logical and are unrealistic ways of thinking. They make you not perceive the situation as it actually is but in a distorted way. Thinking errors are still fairly easy to spot. Common thinking errors with examples :

All or nothing (black and white) thinking : It's all or nothing, good or bad, either perfect or a complete failure. There is no middle ground, and there are no gray areas.

Generalizing : You draw a general conclusion based on a single incident or evidence. You believe that if something bad happened once, it will repeat itself again and again. The words 'always' and 'never' play an important role. Example: You ask someone out on a date, and you are rejected. You conclude that no one ever wants to go out with you.

Selective negative focus (tunnel vision) : You only extract the negative details from every situation and focus on that part. You leave any positive or neutral details aside. You conclude that the whole situation is negative. Example: You get the test results back at school, and it turns out you have answered 5 out of 100 questions incorrectly. You continue to focus on those five mistakes and completely ignore the 95 questions you got right.

Suppressing the positive : You deny anything that conflicts with your negative attitude and often quickly come up with clever ways to undermine positive information. Example: Someone compliments you on your appearance. You immediately undermine the comment by saying that he or she has no taste.

Unfair comparison : You tend to always compare yourself and your achievements with others who have it better, more beautiful, nicer, easier, etc. This often leaves you feeling disappointed and dissatisfied.

Jumping to conclusions : You are far too quick to jump to a negative conclusion that doesn't match the facts or the overall situation. Example: Your colleague says no to your request to do something for you, and you immediately think that he or she doesn't like you.

Mind-reading : You assume that someone else is thinking something, and without checking that your assumptions are correct, you react based on that assumption. You think you already know what the other person is thinking and feeling. Example: You want to ask your employer for a raise, but you assume that he or she doesn't like you, and so you get mad because you don't get a raise.

Negative predictions/self-fulfilling prophecy : You imagine that something bad is about to happen, you believe the prediction is true, and you react as if it has already happened. This is often referred to as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Example: You want to ask your employer for a raise, but you assume you won't get it. As a result, you don't even ask for it and don't try your best to earn a raise.

Magnify : You blow things out of their proportions. Example: Your partner doesn't want to have sex with you because he or she is tired, and you immediately think that he or she has someone else and will leave you soon.

Minimize : You decide to ignore the obvious information. Example: Every night, your partner returns home late, with no explanation for where he or she has been. Your partner is texting and has phone conversations that you are not allowed to know anything about. You refuse the thought that your partner could be having an affair. You tell yourself that he or she is working overtime to get ahead and that the person is just a colleague.

Emotional Reasoning : You view your emotions as evidence of how things really are. ''I feel, therefore I am''. Example: You feel anxious and unsafe when you enter a room; so you conclude that the room is a dangerous place.

''How it should be'' statement : You have a list of unavoidable rules of how things should be and especially how you and others should behave. Example: Your doctor is ten minutes late for your appointment. You think that everyone should always be exactly on time and you get very angry about his/her lack of respect.

Labeling : You put a label on someone and then treat that person as if he or she fits your description. Example: You find out that someone you know is unemployed. You conclude that that person is lazy, and you refuse to help that person with anything in the future.

Involve yourself : You relate an event to yourself when there is no reason to. Example: At work, a group of colleagues is talking to each other. You immediately assume that it will be about you.

Misconceptions about fairness : You believe that everything in life should be fair, and you get upset when injustice happens. Example: Your colleague has been promoted to a project for which you have done the most work. You're quitting your job because you think you should have gotten that promotion.

Reward misconceptions : You believe that you should always be rewarded when you do something good. Attention must be paid to it, and recognition and appreciation must be expressed.

Misconceptions about control : You believe that you should always be in control of everything that happens to you and around you. Example: You get upset when your food burns because you had to watch your child when the bell rang and didn't hear the kitchen timer. You expect yourself to have better control over the household, your child, and unexpected visitors.

Doom-mongering : You foresee disaster in every situation. Example: You go to a job interview and become worried when you realize that you won't get the job anyway. And if you do get one, you'll probably be treated terribly by your employer, you'll be fired before you know it, and no one will ever hire you for any position again. Every situation always seems to be a (horror)movie that ends badly.

Accusing others : You hold others responsible for your misery, and you refuse to look at your own doing. Example: You get a ticket for speeding and blame your child for distracting you while driving.

Blaming yourself : You blame yourself for every problem you run into. You judge yourself while you ignore others' doings.

Superstitious thinking : Illogical connections between cause and effect. Example: If I like something, it is always taken away immediately. When I go out, it always rains.

How do you challenge Thinking Errors?

Below are a few questions that can help you challenge thinking errors. This is easiest to do when you are not in an emotional period. Examine your thoughts and notice if any of them are distorted and/or negative. Ask yourself the following questions:

What evidence do I have that this is the truth?

Do I have one or more past experiences that contradict this thought?

If I asked 100 people if they believed this thought, what would they say?

If I look back on this in five years, will I see it differently?

How does this thought bother me?

Can you think of anything else?

Do I think differently about this when I'm not in an emotional episode?

When I felt this way in the past, what did I think about to feel better?

Do I have any strengths or positive qualities, or are there any positives to the situation?

Is it possible that I'm blaming myself for something over which I have no control?

Will this thought hold up in court? What would a judge ultimately say about it?

It's possible that it's more than just thinking errors, and that they are schemas developed from your childhood. If you want to learn more about this, you could read more about The 19 Schemas of Borderline Personality Disorder .

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5 Fatal Thinking Errors, and How to Fix Them

PART 1 IN SERIES How Not to Think

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Our mind is the heart of our heart as well as the seat of our mental abilities and power. With our minds, we construct reality and determine our future.

Because the way we think governs the way we act and believe, both within ourselves and with others, critically examining our thinking patterns becomes a necessity. In an age where one’s deeds speak louder than one’s words, thoughts that may lead us astray take on more significance. That’s why conducting a careful examination of the way we think can help us enormously.

So what are the most common thinking errors people tend to make?

The science of cognitive behavioral therapy—geared to changing our thought patterns with positive changes in behavior—has identified nine common errors in thinking. In this essay, we’ll look at the first five and how to avoid them; and in the next essay, we’ll explore the final four common errors.

1. Binocular Vision

If you answered yes to either of those questions, you may need to work on widening the focus of your thinking, balancing your positive and negative thoughts more realistically. The Baha’i teachings recommend widening that focus by enlarging your field of vision to embrace the entire world:

… led by the light of the name of the All-Seeing God, make your escape from the darkness that surroundeth you. Let your vision be world-embracing, rather than confined to your own self. –  Baha’u’llah , Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah , p. 94.

2. Black-and-White Thinking

Ask yourself: do I think about things only in extreme or opposite ways? For example, do I categorize actions or events or people as good or bad, all or none, black or white? This kind of thought pattern, which makes no allowance for the grey areas that exist in between black-and-white thinking, can trap us in our own mental prison. By definition, black-and-white thinking makes only binary choices possible, and severely limits our options in the world.

The Baha’i teachings recommend adopting a more moderate, nuanced approach to our thinking, through the use of reason and knowledge:

A good character is in the sight of God and His chosen ones and the possessors of insight, the most excellent and praiseworthy of all things, but always on condition that its center of emanation should be reason and knowledge and its base should be true moderation. – Abdu’l-Baha , The Secret of Divine Civilization , p. 59.

3. Wearing Dark or Rose-Colored Glasses

Do I think only of the bad side of things? Or do I see things in a rosy or naïve way? Sometimes we can filter our thinking through an unrealistic lens, mistaking our negative or overly positive impressions for the truth. We can take off those dark or rose-colored glasses, the Baha’i teachings suggest, by acknowledging the reality that human beings are essentially spiritual in their nature:

As for the spiritual perfections they are man’s birthright and belong to him alone of all creation. Man is, in reality, a spiritual being, and only when he lives in the spirit is he truly happy. This spiritual longing and perception belongs to all men alike … – Abdu’l-Baha , Paris Talks , p. 24.

4. Fortune-Telling

Do I make negative predictions about what will happen in the future, without enough information? Am I a pessimist? Psychologists also call this kind of thinking “catastrophizing,” and it can lead to a very dim view of the world and our place in it. Regardless of what might happen, no one can predict the future. Only an optimistic, hopeful view of future events can sustain our enthusiasm for what may come. The Baha’i teachings advise us to:

Lift up your hearts above the present and look with eyes of faith into the future! Today the seed is sown, the grain falls upon the earth, but behold the day will come when it shall rise a glorious tree and the branches thereof shall be laden with fruit. Rejoice and be glad that this day has dawned, try to realize its power, for it is indeed wonderful! – Ibid., p. 22.

5. Making It Personal

Do I make things my responsibility when I don’t need to? Do I blame myself for things I can’t control? Sometimes, we blame ourselves for things beyond our scope or ability to direct. As individuals, we’re powerless to control many of the forces that impact our lives, and recognizing that powerlessness can have a very freeing effect. The Baha’i teachings ask us to admit that we’re powerless over many of life’s vicissitudes, and to accept them as the natural boundaries of our human existence:

Were any one to soar, on whatever wings, as long as Thine own Being endureth, throughout the immensity of Thy knowledge, he would still be powerless to transgress the bounds which the contingent world hath set for him. – Baha’u’llah , Prayers and Meditations by Baha’u’llah , p. 133.

Tags: Spiritual Growth

Rodney Richards

Rodney helps writers edit, polish, and publish their work since retiring from an IT and Energy career in New Jersey state government in 2009. He's published his memoir Coffee, Cigarettes, Death & Mania about successfully navigating bipolar mental illness. Also published are 100 essays on...

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7 Steps to Stop Overthinking Your Writing

Writers are often known as thinkers. Indeed, we’re often proud of the connotation. We spend a lot of time in our heads. We love to read. We research like we love it (because we do). And we know a lot (though usually not quite as much as we think we do).

However, thinking and writing—especially creative writing such as storytelling—can sometimes seem strangely out of balance. As much as writers may identify as thinkers, we usually prefer the actual act of writing to be less about thinking and more about  flowing .

What we’re talking about is “thinking” in the sense of active and logical thinking. Naturally, we are thinking when the words are flowing, but in those moments it often seems less that we are thinking the thoughts and more that the thoughts are thinking us . When we take too much control, it ceases to work that way.

And that’s a problem—because the more a writer learns about  how to write and  how stories work, the more conscious our thinking becomes. Sometimes this reaches the crisis where writing becomes a lot of work simply because we are doing all the work. We’re the ones doing all the thinking, rather than just being the conduit and letting the thoughts think us.

Susan Geiger recently messaged me on Patreon about this all-too-common conundrum:

I have a problem, a serious one: I am too serious. I love writing and stories in general. However, I have thought so much about plot development, character arcs, theme, story structure, etc., that I’m a bit uptight when I write. I have effectively zapped the joy out of it. I am so tense when I write and put so much pressure on myself that my serious attitude has leaked into the writing itself, leaving the story utterly humorless. If you have any advice on how to relax and lighten up in writing again, I would greatly appreciate it.

Not long after, I received a similar email from David Fraser:

Have noticed my tendency to over-complicate. Overthink. Maybe you would consider writing a post…

I figured I better write the post! If nothing else, maybe I’ll learn a thing or two myself. 😉

7 Important Transformations to Stop Overthinking Your Writing

I love thinking. I love it just as much in its own right as writing. But it does have a tendency to run away with itself and become overthinking. One my favorite ditties, gleaned from a Facebook meme years ago:

If you’re happy and you know it, overthink.

If you’re happy and you know it, then your brain will surely blow it—overthink!

Conquering Writer’s Block and Summoning Inspiration (Amazon affiliate link)

We can easily find many tips and tricks for seeking inspiration and powering through writer’s block . Most, however, are quick prescriptions aimed to overcome the symptoms rather than the ailment itself. In reality, the problems of overthinking your writing are both the result of and a contribution to the larger challenge of living a creative life —particularly in what is an adamantly head-oriented culture.

I have given much thought to this over the years (the irony of which is not lost…). As I’ve written about elsewhere, I know I have a lot of journey left on this road . But in response to Susan and David’s query, here are some things I’m learning about how you can stop overthinking your writing.

1. Slay the Perfectionist

The logical brain wants things to be… logical. Logic, taken it its furthest extent, demands perfection. But perfection is only theoretical and therefore logically unobtainable. Still, we strive. Indeed, perfectionism is ingrained in the writing culture , stemming understandably from the desire to get a story “right” so it can be successfully published.

There is a balance here to be sure. We  need our rational brains turned on in order to write, and certainly we need them in order to learn how to write well (see #5 below). But somehow the parasitic perfectionistic part of ourselves always figures out a way to burrow so deeply into our “logic” that we have a hard time thinking rationally without also striving for perfection.

The perfectionist—the inner critic—is in fact a great enemy of the creative storyteller. After all, stories themselves are tales of our imperfections . Our words and our pages are where we capture all the messiness of our lives. Only in embracing that messiness can we be truly creative.

2. Resurrect the Child

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been saying “stories are my language.” But that’s not strictly true. Stories were the language of my child self. But, no, even that is not quite true. Stories were the lived experience of my child life. I didn’t tell stories. I lived them. I was always inside a story.

I only started writing because at some point in my early teens, I wanted to record some of my favorites so I wouldn’t forget them. The irony is I have forgotten my stories—my  true stories—precisely because I started writing them down and then became obsessed (albeit joyfully obsessed) with  understanding the principles of storytelling and writing .

The child self doesn’t care about rules, doesn’t care about impressing others, certainly doesn’t care about being a commercial success. In stark contrast to the perfectionist’s mentality of scarcity, the child creates from an endless well of personal abundance.

Creating back then wasn’t about “making writing a job” or laboring at sentence structure or striving for original ideas . Creating in childhood was about having fun. When you start overthinking your writing, the fun slips away. And when the fun comes back? The overthinking stops.

3. Reprogram the Ego

I think the ego gets a bad rap. We  need it. It’s our interface with the world. It helps us survive, helps us communicate with others, helps us fit in or stand out, helps us get stuff done . But I daresay all of us have gotten some bad code in there somewhere. And the ego is single-minded. It’s going to run that code all day every day and twice on Sundays—if we let it.

I like to envision my ego as the little cleaner robot “Mo” in Pixar’s Wall-E . Like Mo, it valiantly and obsessively pursues the job it’s been given—and gets very frustrated when it’s knocked off course. But at some point its very durability causes it to become outmoded. That’s when I have to stop letting it run on autopilot, take it into the shop, and update its programs beyond 1.0.

In this Age of the Internet, writers have been given the incredible opportunity to become successful entrepreneurs. But when we plug this opportunity (along with our perfectionism) into the ego, it has a tendency to whir right into workaholicism and/or paralysis . Once again, this is often driven by a scarcity/fear mentality.

Ego work is deep work, but learning to find and reprogram outdated or corrupted code can free us up from the fear that often prompts overthinking.

4. Enthrone Your Artist

When I first started writing down my childhood stories, the page was simply an extension of the stage upon which I played out my stories 24/7. But at some point, as my life became less and less embodied and more and more exclusively mental, I started playing less and thinking more. The more I enthroned my Thinker in all other areas of my life, the harder it became to switch modes when writing time rolled around.

Lately, I  have realized that to be able to bring that true  flow of creativity to my time at the page, I must  live in that flow. Indeed, however much I may identify as a writer and think of stories as my creative outlet, my creativity does not have to solely express through my writing.

My writing is not my art. My life is my art.

Every moment is an opportunity for creativity—if we let it flow. We must retrain ourselves—to get out of our heads, to get into our bodies, to experience our five senses, to push past the anxiety into joy. Our creativity contributes to every moment.

Jane Friedman had a great point in her e-letter a few months ago about how even making your bed is an act of creativity—because we do it to make our lives more beautiful. And yet how many of us really think of it that way? We tend to associate making the bed with chores or adulting or avoiding criticism. But is that really why we do it? It certainly doesn’t  have to be why we do it.

5. Honor Your Logician

None of this is to suggest our rational, thinking, logical brains aren’t important—especially in our writing. Writing well is as much a craft as an art. Indeed, the craft of writing is a delight in itself. Most of us come to appreciate the glories of the theories and techniques we study. Indeed, part of the reason we end up overthinking may well be (*raises hand*) because we love thinking about writing . Certainly our inner logician has the ability to offer untold help in improving our communication skills on the page.

We must honor our inner logicians. But it’s best if we can also learn to keep them in the classroom. They are there to teach us, to bring consciousness to our rough skills. But by their very nature, they are  thinkers not  doers . The doing belongs to a different part of us. We must take the lessons our logicians teach us within our mental classrooms and then leave the classrooms to go play in the real world, to get our hands dirty, to see what we can create.

Just because we honor and love our logicians does not mean they get to follow us around, offering commentary on everything we do.

6. Reclaim Your Hunter

As I’ve struggled mightily these last few years with being, as Susan said at the beginning of the post,  too serious in my writing, I’ve realized only recently that it’s because I’ve run out of material. My child self was a hunter and seeker of stories. She went on adventures every day and came back with more ideas than she could ever write. For a long time, my adult self has been living on the waning remnants of that childhood wealth.

I know enough about stories to think of good plots, characters, etc. But I miss the riches of natural inspiration. I don’t want to think up stories. I want to discover them. I want adventures like I used to have.

And yet the adventures that used to be so easy can somehow begin to seem perilous as time goes on—or at least like a lot of work. Indeed, I think that may be the crux of the dilemma: we think creativity should always be as effortless as it was in the beginning. Because it came so easily when we were young or just starting out with our writing, we don’t realize that creativity only emerges when we achieve and maintain certain balances in our lives. Balance requires discipline. And the further out of balance we are—the more our thinking brains have tyrannized over our creative selves—the more discipline it takes to recreate the circumstances we may once have taken for granted.

7. Listen to Your Heart

The head and the heart don’t always communicate with each other. The head talks such a good spiel that sometimes the heart gets convinced to take a backseat in spite of itself. This can look like many things—from writing to the market instead of the stories we’re truly passionate about, to simply doubting our favorite scenes in light of “proper” technique.

But the heart won’t be denied forever. If it doesn’t get to write what it wants, what it loves,  how it wants to write, then it will leave you and your head to your own devices—and sooner or later that turns out to not be nearly as much fun.

Now, of course, the heart doesn’t always  lead us to fun and joy. Sometimes what the heart most wants us to write about are stories that are  far more difficult than those the head so rationally proposes. But the thing the heart brings that the head (bless it) does not is our life’s blood —purpose, meaning, passion. The head can have its say later during revisions. But when we sit down to write, it’s the heart we should be checking in with: “I’m ready. Are you?”

In summary: What I’m learning is that combating overthinking is less about turning the brain off and more about turning everything else on . It’s about leaving the desk, leaving the computer, leaving the Internet (God help us). It’s about seeing, hearing, touching, tasting—with both our outer and inner senses. It’s about remembering how to live every bit as fully as we used to, so we can dream every bit as fully as we used to.

Wordplayers, tell me your opinions! Do you ever struggle to stop overthinking your writing? Why do you think this is? Tell me in the comments!

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K.M. Weiland is the award-winning and internationally-published author of the acclaimed writing guides Outlining Your Novel , Structuring Your Novel , and Creating Character Arcs . A native of western Nebraska, she writes historical and fantasy novels and mentors authors on her award-winning website Helping Writers Become Authors.

Timely as ever 😉 You always seem to post about what I’m struggling with. Of course, now I’m going to go on an internet deep-dive to research how to reprogram my ego… lol

I daresay overthinking is an easy bullseye when addressing writers. 😉 Have fun with your research!

I agree with JLTaylor! Excellent timing, KM!

Thank you for this! I am a dreadful over thinker, and I really appreciate the reminder, this morning, to get out of my head. I’ve been tying myself in knots today about everything I want to get done this week before Thanksgiving (my arbitrary, self-imposed deadline) as well as writing. It is nice to think that digging up the last of the potatoes and scrubbing the kitchen floor can be considered art, and maybe even valuable research. (After all, story people eat potatoes sometimes too…)

Great post, Katie. I think the “aha” revelation is about not deactivating our rationality but activating the other attributes that make us human.

I used to design and start up mineral processing plants. It embodies many of the rational skills a writer employs – production goal & quality targets (premise), strategy (outlining), key unit operations (big moments/plot points), process control plan (character development), etc. And then troubleshooting (editing) when all components don’t mesh as planned. And more troubleshooting. And more. Then it finally all comes together and fills a need (payoff).

I never designed a perfect plant, although each functioned more elegantly, with fewer hiccups, than the one which preceded it. Except, to your point, writing is harder. Much harder. Because a mineral processing plant doesn’t have to connect to a consumer’s brain and provide a vicarious, emotional experience like the stories we long to tell. It requires mind melding and empathy, combined with logic. No pump in any plant I helped build could outperform the heart in volume pumped per unit weight.

I think many of us read your blog and share our thoughts because our quest to write *successfully* feels Tolkienesque. To not write is to die.

@Louis: “Our quest to write *successfully* feels Tolkienesque. To not write is to die.”

Oh wow. So true.

Honestly, the image that comes to mind in regard to digging up potatoes and scrubbing the floor is quite a lovely one. 🙂

I agree! As did mineral processing plants “functioning elegantly.”

Guilty as charged. My lifetime career as an engineer predisposes me to overthinking. I try hard to be a mix first of a planner, and then a pantzer. My latest book has degenerated into excessive planning. This post gives me a kick in the pants butt to loosen up. Thanks.

By the way, your profile shows you in Scottsbluff. I am a few miles west in Denver, Colorado. Hello neighbor.

I hear you. As I contemplate where I want to go with my fiction in the coming New Year, I am wondering if perhaps what I really *need* to do is not writing itself but a focus on refilling my inspiration well. On the one hand, that feels right and fun. On the other hand, the idea of not actively pursuing productivity is massively triggering! I suppose that probably means I should do it. 😉

A fellow writer in my writing group is a lawyer, and he often includes far too meticulous detail, leaving little for readers to create on their own. Then he invariably redeems himself with a closing paragraph or sentence that impels readers to continue – not necessarily a cliff-hanger, but still a distinct driving force. I can ignore the overwriting when I have such a model of closing to emulate.

I really enjoy meditation because it gives you an opportunity to become more aware of your thinking and come to terms with it. I used to overthink things, but do that much less now. Besides writing, it also helps with music. Not to mention life in general.

Writing and “life in general” are so tied up together, I find. 🙂

I love this post, but the main thing that gets in the way of my flow is thinking about the real world. I try to write every day, but some days the pandemic and other current events follow me into my writing world. I feel so much anxiety that I almost feel paralyzed.

I hear you. To the degree you’re able, I highly recommend limiting media consumption. The more rigorously I’ve done this in my life, the commensurately happier I am.

True dat on the media. I’ve eliminated TV from my apartment. All I have is ROKU and my DVD’s. I DO NOT miss the TV at all. I have had TV for close to a year now.

Same here. I only plug in the antennae for the Super Bowl. :p

I read news every morning. 🙁 I’m actually feeling much better today, but I think I’m going to try to have some news-free days. I have this weird social justice thing where I feel like I have to bear witness to horrible things, but I definitely need to back off.

Funny, I have been thinking about this theme all day (and all week). I have always been far too serious and this shows in the first novel I am writing. In fact I got this feedback and I was devastated – it’s so true, of me and my novel!!! So I have invented ‘Pixie’. Pixie lives inside me as a ‘guide’ or even a ‘sub-personality’. She is teaching me how to live more creatively and with greater spontaneity. I rewrote my first chapter, following a bit advice from Pixie, and the energy that came through was amazing. By the way, I may sound mad but I am boringly sane 🙂

Love it! Just the fact that you named your Muse (and named her something so whimsical) is a delightful return to playful creativity.

Love it! Not boring at all and quite sane. Hello, Pixie! What a great story about your effective muse.

This post came at the right moment for me. I hit a bump in my WIP and I’ve been re-reading how-to books, making diagrams and puzzling over my outlines, but not writing. I need to unwind and now I know why.

Yup, I’ve been there a lot this past year.

Oh, wow! I sometimes fall into this, and then realize I need to step back and let the Muse iron out the wrinkles (letting the thoughts think me, as you aptly put it). it doesn’t happen often, but I know we are all subject to it at one time or another. This post is a keeper, and I’ll be sharing it with my writing group.

In addition, I think you are telling us that when dancing with our writing, to let our hearts lead, not our heads.

Exactly. Although the head needs to be an active dancer too. 🙂

When I’m overthinking I find that my work often becomes clever, too clever. To ground it, I get outside and revisit the places I’ve elected to write about in my stories. If that requires a road trip, so much the better! Thanks for your post.

This is a good way to put it–and remedy it.

It’s about balance.

I use my right brain to develop the story. I use my left brain to map it out (i.e., outline). I use my right brain to flesh out the outline. I use my left brain to review and edit my musings. Back and forth until I feel I’m done with it. At least that is how I think it is supposed to be…

However, that being said, after reading all your blogs and buying your books (and others), I can say that I feel, as they say, I am over-egging the pudding. It’s good to have the understanding of the mechanics, but after a time I need to step back and look at the broader picture.

I’m at a point where I am not sure if what I have been doing is good or bad and I need someone with a skilled set of eyes to review my efforts to see if I am on the right path or have I veered over the edge.

That internal nagging voice sows nothing but doubt.

“I use my right brain to develop the story. I use my left brain to map it out (i.e., outline). I use my right brain to flesh out the outline. I use my left brain to review and edit my musings. Back and forth until I feel I’m done with it. At least that is how I think it is supposed to be…”

This is exactly how I’ve always viewed it.

Beta readers are great for offering that needed objectivity. Sometimes the nagging doubt isn’t accurate. It’s helpful if you can identify exactly *what* you’re doubting. If it’s something you can fix, then you can fix it. But if it *is* just a doubt, then realizing that can help you move on.

Thanks, I agree with beta readers helping with the writing.

My doubt has less to do with prose and more to do with theme and structure. Many because my protagonist is no so much “living the lie”, but dragged into the stories conflict from the beginning. The complexity of her part in the plot (and its sequel) make it difficult to follow “the lie versus the need” arc—I think.

Could be she’s on a Flat Arc. Or it could be that it’s not a Hero’s Journey. I’m going to be talking about alternative archetypal arcs in a series next year.

Ah, ha! A flat arc. Maybe I’m trying to put a left foot into a right shoe.

I look forward to that series.

Here’s the link to the Flat Arc series if you’re interested in that right now: https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/flat-character-arc-1/

Yay! I love hearing about alternate story arcs! I am all geeky that way. I have a brother who is a music major, and watching him geek out over music theory makes me wonder if that’s what I look like on the outside….

Probably. 😉

“That internal nagging voice sows nothing but doubt.”

This. Exactly this.

I know my story by heart, but when I sit down to write, I doubt that I can ever do it justice anywhere outside my head. Then I panic and don’t write. Or I avoid writing altogether. Overthinking just makes this problem worse.

I need to get out of my own way and just write.

You will never do justice to a story you fail to write.

Just do it. It won’t matter if it is not great. If it isn’t, do it again. It will be better.

The more you write (and read), the better you get. Micheal Angelo’s first work of art wasn’t likely much. If he stopped there, the world would be deprived of something special. If you stop, so will you.

I like this statement best: The head can have its say later during revisions. But when we sit down to write, it’s the heart we should be checking in with: Ken

Honestly, I should probably paste that above my computer as a reminder to myself. :p

Exactly. True, but hard to do. 🙂

Yesssssss!!!!! It’s nice to know I am in such great company. Love to study, research and read about storycrafting, but it is definitely hard to turn off that critic when you want the creativity to flow.

Great post, as usual! Kris

It’d be nice if the different parts of ourselves had a handy on/off switch, wouldn’t it? :p

AMEN. If you find the switch, I’m sure we’ll be reading about it in a future article. 🙂

I can so identify with listening to the critical voices in my life (especially my own :)). I long to go back to my days of improv in college. We had such a blast. Sure, we had seeds of ideas from current events and audience members but the fun came from storytelling in the moment.

So, today my word picture is that writing is like fudge not concrete. Concrete requires all the forms and shapes to be in place before you pour the wet material into place. You scrape around the edges a bit to clean it up but then you let it sit there, trusting that the forms give you the desired final result.

Ah, but fudge! Have you ever been to one of those fancy fudge shops where you can watch them making the stuff right there in front of you? They cook the butter and milk and sugar and flavors in a giant copper pot, stirring and stirring until the whole place smells of chocolate or cinnamon or peanut butter. When it reaches the proper consistency, they pour the thick liquid out onto a huge marble-top table that slowly leeches away the heat from the sauce. They walk around the table with big, wide paddles, keeping the fudge from oozing over the edge, folding it back in on itself as it thickens and begins to take its final form.

All through the process of cooling and shaping you could take a taste of the fudge and get that delightful sweet sensation on your tongue. But at the end, the rich brick, thick enough to hold its shape, can be sliced and squared and enjoyed in small chunks because the flavor and texture are so intense and so smooth that just a little bit goes a long, long way.

I have come to realize that my WIP has the basic story that I want to tell. It needs some reshaping, providing a little more context and foreshadowing to draw the reader into one of the two major story arcs. There are little tweaks in dialogue and description as I work my way through my revisions going from version 1.0 to 2.0. I’m learning about the kind of structure that helps my story as opposed to what would just turn it into a cookie cutter version of someone else’s idea. I’m also learning that I am still a very young writer.

So, Happy Thanksgiving, all. Katie, you and your blog are one of the things that I am thankful for this year. I have learned some wonderful things here and there are more to come! Journey on, young warrior. The paths through the storyverse are many and varied and beautiful and intense. And I’m pretty sure they have places for some really good food along the way. 😀

Of course, the problem with fudge is that you might get tempted into eating it all before you finish shaping it. 😉

Thanks for the kind words! I am certainly thankful for you and all the other Wordplayers out there too!

Well, in the writing/fudge analogy, eating would correspond to reading the story. Sounds like you might still be struggling with the scarcity mindset there. Fudge for everyone! 😛

So true. Turn everything else back on, or maybe turn on what wasn’t turned on before. I always go back to 2008-10 when one major event after another shattered my life. It culminated in my having an appointment with death and being pulled back in the ER hours short of making that appointment. Years of recovery followed.

In the aftermath, my creative self has flourished. Yes, it’s as if in the midst of all the changes and gasping for air that wasn’t there, that all my “off” switches were turned to “on.” I have to barricade my door to keep story ideas out. If I allowed them in I’d be reduced to creative paralysis. Me, the woman who dreaded the mere thought of revising, now launches into revising with a smile. Each moment is relishing every step in the process. Some of it might be because I’m older, and certainly some of it is because I was given a second chance, but with each passing week writing is becoming more fun.

Because of my lung damage I’ve been in lockdown since March 18th. I’ve watched little video, consumed more books, and been productive beyond my wildest imaginings. This is what rediscovering (or discovering for the first time) the fun in writing looks like. Your post captured it and only made me more grateful for each moment. Thank you.

This is an amazing story! Very sorry about your health struggles, but what a triumphant return. 🙂

I am always overthinking. :/ Overthinking is my biggest weakness I do believe.

Just don’t overthink whether overthinking is your biggest weakness. 😉

Ha ha! So true for us overthinkers. I think there should be another OA: Overthinkers Anonymous.

KM, WOW! It’s like you wrote this article/blog TO ME, for everybody else’s benefit. Because of the way I lived my childhood, of course I’d end up a perfectionist. I must learn to turn off that perfectionism in my writing. I’m guilty of all your seven points at one time or the other. I have rewritten my opening five times because if I’ve learned one thing, I’ve learned that the opening is the most important part of the book. But it has been at a fairly high cost – time. As a perfectionist, it is extremely hard to write something that isn’t perfect. Many times I’ve had to literally quit writing and holler, “STOP it!” You ought to see a page of writing. It looks like a road map, what with all the margin side notes, arrows, cross-outs, additions, and, and, and, and ad infinitum. Many times times I get lost in the arrows. LOL. So thanks for this post. It is uncanny that whatever I seem to be struggling with, I head for your site and “BAM,” there’s a post that speaks to the problem. You and Jerry Jenkins are my go-to help. I’ve gone through his Novel Blue Blueprint Course and learned a lot. It is where I learned of you and your site. I have a number of your books on writing and structure. Anyway, I like how Jerry has the capacity to write one day and edit the next. I am trying hard to follow that regimen, but I am getting better at it. One final comment, I take my writing seriously, NOT THAT OTHERS DON’T, believe me. So I join others herein who take their writing seriously as well. (Pro Writing Aid doesn’t like the two words “as well either.” But I think I’ll leave them in, this time. Sorry, for the long comment but I’m a writer, what can I say.” LOL. God bless.

I think there’s a high percentage of perfectionists among writers. For whatever reason, it seems to go with the territory. But the good news is we’re all in good company and can learn from each other’s experience. 🙂

Thank God for this post! I haven’t been commenting on any of your posts, K.M., since I’ve been going crazy about this short story contest I’m entering for 2021. I’ve been super panicked when I try writing and I end up just scratching off every single idea. I know my stories aren’t that bad, but I want it to be perfect so so so much that I’m just going nuts!

This helped so much. You have no idea. 🙂

Good luck in the contest! I’m sure whatever you write–whether it wins or not–will offer the rewards of new experiences and lessons learned.

Wow, K.M. You really struck a chord with this post today!

If there’s a universal problem among writers, I have a feeling this is it! :p

Wonderful, as always, KM. I relate, as I suspect most of us do, to the problem. I love the childhood analogy…which spoke to my heart. Section #3 on Ego? I have no idea what that means. I read it several times. I watched Wall-e. Still no light coming on in that regards and now… help me!… I am positive I can’t ‘get it’ because I am ‘overthinking’ it! LOL.

I’m talking about the ego in the more classical sense (and I’m certainly no expert). These days, when we talk about “ego,” we often use it, rather incorrectly, as a reference to arrogance. Really, the ego is a (theorized) part of our psychological makeup which is often the most surface or personality-oriented. It’s the part of us that interacts with the world and, as such, often gets out of touch with other, deeper parts. It’s a fascinating study!

I feel like I overthink all the time because I just took my first writing class this year and my brain is overwhelmed by learning the craft. It’s hard to stay in creative mode when I worry if I’m making any progress with all the do’s and dont’s of storytelling.

The logical, thinking side *is* important to writing. Just take it slow and be kind to yourself. It can be overwhelming in the beginning, but it all starts to fall into place with time and experience.

Wow! Thank you, Katie, for that link. I gobble that up now (pun intended). 🙂

Happy Thanksgiving! 😉

The link you sent has turned into another purchase (Character Arcs). 🙂

And my wife and I are working on preparing for Thanks Giving right now. Happy Thanks Given for you and your family!

Think Gratitude Mindset…

Happy Thanksgiving to you as well! I hope you enjoy the book. 🙂

Hi KMW You got that in one! My ‘constipation’ (aka overthinking) comes in the editing phase where I read my flowing, creative stuff and begin overthinking structure etc.etc. I know there are whole sections that I should sacrifice but I get caught up in the small details. I sit there wondering whether if I just add a new sentence here, take that paragraph out, rewrite it – the list goes on. Even though Iove them, I really need to kill my darlings and get it over with.

I recommend a “graveyard file”–a document where you can stick your darlings, so you can try the story without them, but easily retrieve them if you change your mind.

Having read a few of your books and others before setting out on my own path, I can’t help but think that you are toying with the idea that there is a trade off between focusing on the plan, the outline, and the plot and letting the story flow out of you without a fixed idea or intention of where it’s going and how it’s going to get there. When you tap into the flow do you trust where it takes you? Perhaps, after all these years of focusing on the plan and on the technique, you have realized that it reduces your capacity to tap into the flow of your stories that are waiting to be told.

Yep, that about sums it up. 🙂

Though I haven’t left a comment in some time, I’m still listening to these diligently 🙂 I just had to pop in to say this one really strikes a chord. You frame the problem so well here and I’m pretty sure it’s a struggle every creative faces in their journey, regardless of craft. Thanks for taking the time to both think and share about it with us!

Thanks for chiming in! 🙂 Yes, I rather tend to think that the creative life is a constant spiral revolving around an evermore integrated relationship between order and chaos/creativity, planning and flowing, logic and inspiration.

In reading this I was struck by two things. First, some types of overthinking bare a striking resemblance to multi-tasking, which many people try to do, but doesn’t work very well and is a major contributor to workplace stress. It’s not a perfect comparison, frankly I find I need a little bit of my editor voice while I’m drafting lest the first draft be so mushy that it’s useless. Really, what I think I should strive for for is to make my different voices an orchestra, each pitching in when needed, and harmonizing, but not fighting for the spotlight. Theme voice, plot voice, structure voice, line-editor voice, drafting voice, all of these are valuable every step of the way. The quandary is how to find the conductor voice which makes the activity both fun and productive. You definitely have good thoughts about searching for the baton.

Now that I’ve written that, my second observation seems less interesting – avoiding perfectionism comes down to accepting ourselves as imperfect children of God (or whatever mystical force brings you comfort).

Thanks again Katie. I’m still not sure I have Curly engaged, and somewhat fearful he’s who has my conductor’s baton.

I think it’s a great analogy! And, yes, please don’t give Curly the baton…

Thank you Katie, very helpful. I have a similar problem to Max in his comment, just above. I can sit down without even a character or much of a plot and just start blasting out words. And have been a writer for 30 years for magazines and am learning fiction’s a different pair of rollerblades altogether. I’ve written fiction along the way but the problem I have with free-flowing and just blasting words onto the page is that when I go back into the editing mode the left brain really goes nuts. I find this gets me to a point where I don’t trust my original instincts anymore, or I end up throwing so much out that I’m in danger of la-hoo za-hing the original heart and drive of the story, and my joy in writing it. It’s like my critic/editor becomes a little too or a lot too fine pointed about making it just “right”. I like the suggestion you made about a garbage file. Or whatever you called it. I use Scrivener which is an excellent program. And it has a snapshot feature where you can save different phases of your editing and re-examine and recall them at any time too. They’re always there in the corpus of the program. Still, and I really enjoyed your piece here today, it’s a dilemma for me to detect when I’m going over the exhaustion line and my brain is just spinning its wheels but I keep making changes and making changes and making changes. I don’t know whether to be more deliberate in the beginning, in other words to some degree have a loose working plot, or to just live with it and quit punishing myself for endlessly rewriting until I feel like I’ve got it right. I look back at stories or books I wrote in the 1980s for example and I see all kinds of “mistakes”. And I remember how hard I worked on them back then. Of course there is a lot to be said for seasoning as a human being and as a writer. But the hyper editing/perfectionism for me is the one trait that really savages my enthusiasm to keep going back at it day after day. It’s almost like never being able to be satisfied. I think that’s the biggest challenge I have in my writing. Now I’m gonna go back and edit this so it’s clear, ha ha!

I think you’ve highlighted why overthinking is such an endemic struggle for writers. At some point, we all end up in the throes of doubt and hyper-criticism of our own work. And that experience stinks. And we totally want to avoid it the next time around. So the overthinking in the editing phase may then turn into overthinking in the outlining or drafting stages.

The key, as ever, is not to *avoid* thinking but to learn think accurately. I find that much of the angst in the editing phase is either because we don’t know what we’re doing or we don’t know that we *do* know what we’re doing. If we can get very clear about what is *actually* going on, it can be helpful in allowing our thinking to do its job without kicking unnecessarily into high gear.

I talk about that some in this post: https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/thinking-clearly/

I find this argument fascinating…that when we revise, we don’t know what we’re doing, or we do.

It brings to mind a story a docent at a museum related to us about a famed painter, Piet Mondrian, was it? who famously entered museums and retouched his paintings that were already hanging on display, and the curators would have to beg him to stop! But he knew what he was doing, constantly evolving his theme into a purity of line and balance, and he was never satisfied. Which reminds me of another story of a kindergarten art teacher whose students, all of them, turned out the most incredible pieces. She was interviewed on NPR years ago and the host asked her, what’s her secret? How did she get all of her students to create such magnificent work? She said, “I guess I just know when to take the paper and crayons away so they don’t wreck it.”

I wonder if we employed a muse, like “Pixie” mentioned in a previous comment, if that would help us know when to stop revising/overthinking. We might let go before overthinking ruins the piece, or help us continue when we’ve barely started.

How to restart the heart though? That’s what I’m struggling with. I’ve found lately (pre-COVID even) that writing hasn’t felt fun. I’ve been working hard to learn about structure, to polish and edit and try to publish – but doing that I think has led me away from the pure creativity (not to mention the fun of constant rejections). So I’ve slowly realized that my heart has left, like you said, and I’m not sure how to convince it to come back! Thanks for giving us a lot to think about!

Honestly, that’s what I’m working on too. Let me know when you figure it out. I’ll do the same! 😀

For now though, the message that keeps coming through clearly to me is: Patience.

I do not like this message, but there it is. :p

Hi Cecily, I hope it’s okay to jump in. A couple of years ago I had three really horrible reviews on GR. They were friends and I could see their ‘mean girl’ discussion as well as the reviews. It was humiliating and traumatic. I almost did something really stupid and I also stopped writing for about seven months. Then an author friend gave me a copy of Stephen Pressfield’s The War of Art. It’s excellent. It’ll get you back in the fight and doing what you love again. I hope this helps you. It literally saved my life.

Reading your post leads me to look at the problem in a different way. I do agree that we can and do obsess to the point of stasis. A part of my brain always seems to be noodling over a question, subplot, or conversation in the story I’m working on. Sometimes it’s consciously, sometimes deeper. On the other hand, a number of your seven points seem to have some flavor of overthinking.

It seems to me that a key to take advantage of overthinking is to use your suggestions to immerse ourselves into the world we are trying to expose. As you say, many of us put a lot of effort into outlines and world building. But so much more lives in our imagination than we can put down on paper. The detailed history of the universe we put together rolls around our subconscious.

Story structure and craft are the physics and natural order that expose our story. But when I’m floundering, it helps to drop into my story and use those tools in kind of a virtual way to navigate the complexities around me. In other words, I try to watch what is happening and understand the underlying reasons.

For example, it may be that the elderly Queen has a soft spot in her heart for the diplomat from a rival kingdom because he reminds her of a lover when she was young. That pushes her to a decision which leads to set of complications, and finally to war that destroys her realm. We may choose to include some of those incidents as beats in our story. But there are a complex set of dynamics behind each one that will never see the light of day.

We, as authors, owe it to ourselves and our readers to delve into as many of those possibilities as we reasonably can. A masterful example is The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien (as well as his notes and unfinished works).

I guess the point I’m trying to make is you are right on both points. Overthinking can become a big problem. It can also be a way to enhance our understanding of our work.

By the way, this method might also be useful when we hit that mountain called writer’s block. Some random character or situation in our imaginary worlds may spur an idea to explore – maybe even unrelated to our current efforts. We might not choose to write it as a story, but I think that is where we can rediscover the fun.

Be safe and Happy Holidays (as well as we can in these days of COVID).

This is great, and I agree. I absolutely realize that in writing this post, it is a case of the blind trying to lead the blind. 😉

Great post. I’m finding that the more I learn about the craft of writing, the more overthinking I’m doing: “Is this opening chapter good enough? Is there a great hook?” and on and on. Being an engineer, mathematician, and software geek, I’m predisposed to logic and overthinking. After self-publishing a historical fiction novel, I’m struggling to find the creativity need to launch a viable sequel. I’m thinking of turning to fantasy because as a former D&D dungeon master and RPG gamer, I find creating worlds to be a lot of fun. It’s where my heart is I guess. Am I overthinking again?!

I think (!) this is a very common experience among writers. We run on instinct for a bit, realize we need to learn some more, then become temporarily too dependent on our learnings, then balance out with the instinct again.

From a fellow software, mathematics and engineering geek, its like when you really understand that a clean compile doesn’t mean that the program really works. Only after you have understood the goal of the program (and if you are smart, actually used your own code), then you are ready to improve the code. In writing terms, read your story and ask how you *as a reader* would feel about the story as written. I wouldn’t say that your concern for the effect on the reader is overthinking. Just engage your users for feedback early and often. And you qualify as a user in this scenario.

Brilliant, brilliant article. Thank you. I write in the midst of a hurricane. The ideas flow, the words pour. But later, when I come back to edit, I find that this word isn’t quite right, or that comma is in the wrong place, or this sentence is way too long and needs to be broken up because it breaks all the rules. And suddenly, the hurricane has stopped, the storm has abated and there was nothing to say after all. Damn! I over-thought it out of existence.

It’s a balance for sure–and a tricky one sometimes.

I’m so glad you wrote this and that I read it! I’ve read so much about the “rules of the road” when it comes to writing fiction that it scared me out of my journey. Now I feel I can start again and worry about any signs I missed later during revision.

Thank you so much!

Hear, hear!

Struggling with this a lot lately–or rather, dropped writing for a bit because the struggle was getting exhausting and interfering too much with the rest of life. I’ve learned a TON about story structure, character arcs etc in recent years but haven’t actually written much prose in that time, so I feel like although I know exactly what I want to write, I forgot how to do it. So I’d spend a writing session staring at the page, knowing exactly which bits of emotion, action and information I need to put into words next but not finding the words.

I like your conclusion that ‘combating overthinking is less about turning the brain off and more about turning everything else on’. I find the same approach can work nicely with changing habits: focus not on what I want to stop doing but what I want to do instead. I hope I can make it work for this too!

I think sometimes we have to take the time to let what we’ve learned process, percolate, and return to a more “habitual” level where it doesn’t require as much of our cognitive space upfront.

I think you’re right, I’ve noticed that happening before. I may also have had some other life stuff, stress, etc getting in the way. I’ll let the writing theory percolate a bit more, sort through the other stuff, and then see if my brain wants to do prose again!

Dear Anna, your website is brilliant! So creative. I love it! And the sketches for your kingdom of Mennistriam… “I’ve learned a TON about story structure, character arcs etc in recent years but haven’t actually written much prose in that time, so I feel like although I know exactly what I want to write, I forgot how to do it.” Oh goodness, get writing, girl! To hell with all those shoulds and shouldn’ts. Your characters are itching to stretch and play. You’ve created the setting, now let them free!

Thank you! That website is my perpetually unfinished design/coding playground, always lovely to hear that someone enjoys it!

Oh, don’t worry, they’ve been playing… I’ve been experimenting with writing more overview-to-detail than front-to-back (like the snowflake method but different) and it seems to work great for the way my brain works. And the characters have a lot to say at every step of the process! I actually have a finished version of the shortest Mennistriam story that’s somewhat between an outline and a very ugly first draft; the point where I’m having trouble is turning that into reader-comprehensible prose. I can do it, as my writing group’s enthusiasm about the first scene shows, it’s just taking too much effort at the moment. That may have to do with other areas of life rather than writing, so I’m focusing on those. Hopefully the writing lessons and insights will use that time to process and percolate as Katie suggests above!

Ah, glad to hear you ARE writing. I thought you had stopped. I hope your creativity percolates, as you say. Good luck!

I love this: “…stories themselves are tales of our imperfections. Our words and our pages are where we capture all the messiness of our lives.”

Yes! I often find that the words in my journal leap of the page and I feel inspired by them, but when I take a closer look, my logician says, that’s a poorly constructed sentence.

And, “We must honor our inner logicians. But it’s best if we can also learn to keep them in the classroom.”

I agree, because the logician often destroys messy creativity, but does that mean we need to keep a bit of messiness in our work? When I edit, it’s a bit like having OCD. I want to make sure every dangling modifier and misplaced participle is removed, sure, but what if that destroys the tone, the easy breezy feel of the piece?

Or are we just talking about letting the creative juices flow first, and then entering the classroom to clean up our work? That we must balance recess and playground time with classroom instruction? Never just all classroom or all recess? Because we need both?

I guess when I’ve edited the life out of my work, then I need a bit a recess. I need to put that particular chapter away for a week (or longer?), give it a rest and come back to it with fresh eyes, like going on vacation and returning to work renewed.

Wonderful article. Thank you, K.M.. And now, I shall go back and read all the other comments!

It’s been fun reading all the comments. Thanks again!

I think it’s helpful to remember the old saying about how “in writing, there are no rules, only guidelines.”

When I met my husband more than 15 years ago, he used to say “Lighten up, Francis” to me. Oy. We were both lawyers then and, if I’m being perfectly honest, lightening up wasn’t a way to succeed in that field. I worked mainly on corporate/tax matters. Out of place commas could be a huge problem, so I was constantly in fear of making mistakes at work.

When I had my son (who is now seven), I took time off from the law and all of a sudden I started hearing little snippets in my head. It took me a while to realize this was, my GOD could it be possible, my IMAGINATION working again after years of stifling my creativity with political science courses and then law school/bar exam/billing hours.

I started writing a novel during my son’s naps. This was the same time I found your website and began soaking in all of the information I didn’t even know I didn’t know. And so my lawyer’s brain took over my creativity from a very early stage in my journey.

I’ve been writing creatively off and on since 2014 (mostly off this year thanks to my kids being at home with me all day every day and sucking up all of my emotional lifeforce). This year has been difficult for me, BUT it’s taught me a huge lesson. One you so perfectly pointed out in your post when you said this:

“Because it came so easily when we were young or just starting out with our writing, we don’t realize that creativity only emerges when we achieve and maintain certain balances in our lives. Balance requires discipline. And the further out of balance we are—the more our thinking brains have tyrannized over our creative selves—the more discipline it takes to recreate the circumstances we may once have taken for granted.”

When I was feeling at my most creative, brimming with excitement about a story percolating in my head, it was when I was training for a marathon. I was moving my body constantly. I was healthy and fitter than I had been since I played volleyball in college. My kids were also in school a few days a week, so not only could I write in the morning before they woke up but I also had time to exercise and let my mind wander a bit while they were in the good care of nurturing teachers.

This is why what you said about maintaining balance is so meaningful to me. I’ve been doing the willpower old boy thing to myself this year. When the pandemic hit I was about half way through my novel (the first one I’ve actually tried to finish). There’s never a good time for a global health crisis, but the timing was very complicated in terms of where I was in my writing journey. I was at a difficult point in my novel and pushing through the middle of a novel (so I’ve heard) is hard under the easiest of circumstances.

The pandemic threw me way, way off balance. I basically chose to spend most of my free time writing rather than moving my body, because the urge to write is still there and the desire to finish my novel almost rising to an obsession. And I was clearly relying on depleted energy stores to, as you say, recreate the circumstances that worked for my creativity. The truth was (and remains, unfortunately, with the recent uptick in COVID cases), that it was not possible to recreate these circumstances. My reality has changed and there is nothing I can do about it. In order to nourish my creativity, I need time to move, I need time to write, I need time to let my mind wander, and I need external stimuli.

I’ve *almost* let go of my novel completely because of how hard it’s been to drag myself to the page in the absence of the things I need to live creatively. But the desire to complete the project and to prove to myself I can finish a novel is stronger. I will say, though, that it’s been hard to fend off the feelings of anger, frustration and disappointment that come along with the feeling of loss of control over my creative pursuits. Especially when I had worked so hard to understand what my creativity actually required.

I thought I had a specific question to ask you when I began to write this. It seems, though, simply an exercise of reflection for me. To any of you who read this, thank you. Perhaps reading the result of me spilling thoughts into the comments will lead to some clarity for you.

Thanks very much for sharing this. It’s actually helped me realize something for myself as well–and that is that the pandemic has had a greater effect on my creativity this year than I’ve let myself admit. It actually feels like a weight lifted to realize and say that. I’d struggled last year as well and have been chalking a lot of this year’s “non-writing” to the fallout from that. But undoubtedly the global circumstances have had their impact as well. I always find peace in being able to better understand the causes and motivations for things. Even if the realizations don’t change the outcome, they usually help me let go of self-flagellating explanations.

2020 has been a tremendous year for lessons learned. In the end, I’m very thankful for that.

K-Denying our realities is certainly not benign.

I often find I expect myself to work with the energy and ferocity that I had when I was a 25 year old lawyer even though I’m a 37 year old mother of two small children. On top of that, I am teaching myself to write fiction. Cobbling together a syllabus for my studies, practicing on my own without much feedback, working in the dark with no accountability whatsoever except to my own dreams, which are quiet when compared with the demands of my kids. Those are my realities when it comes to writing fiction, but still I beat myself up when I think about the old me, the one who was able to work 70 hours a week at a Big Law firm and do so quite successfully.

I was struggling personally last year as well. Reading your blogs as you were uncovering the connection between your creativity and your life was so nourishing to me. It taught me so much about, once again, that elusive balance that, as the famous song goes, you don’t know that you have ’til it’s gone.

Thank you, as always, for sharing on this blog. You help so many of us light up the dark parts with your wisdom.

Yes, I relate to this very much. I suppose we also tend to idealize our past selves. In re-reading old journals from ten years ago, I suddenly remembered that I’ve gone through similar creative dry spells over and over throughout my life. This latest one is more pronounced maybe, but it’s not new. Strangely, that’s encouraging. 😀

Somewhere, early on, I learned the unhealthy pattern that

Caring about something = Controlling it = Working to exhaustion in the attempt to control it

In my case, the pattern was reinforced by some of the effort coming naturally and by ignoring the truth that what I cared about might not be what was best for me to care about.

The learning process is still going on. 😉

Hi Sarah, just saying I once stopped working on a novel for at least four years, maybe even longer, before I went back to it. When I did, the passion was still there, the characters still breathing. For whatever reason, life, more pressing projects, overthinking, fear, had gotten in the way. Just saying never say never when it comes to a project you love, no matter how long it may lie dormant while life gets in the way.

Thank you, Polly 🙂 I’ve been clinging to it out of fear that I’d lose it. Hearing that it’s possible to go back after a long hiatus is encouraging.

I liked the part “My life is my art.” Not sure I understood it right, but deep down my inner child hugged the shared thought.

Thank you for your writings and insights. You give me lots to think about. Over-thinking, to me, seems like thinking which leads one astray from one’s conscious goal. At the same time, I can see how such diversion can sometimes lead one to a better goal, and expose the original goal as merely a hand-hold on a climb toward a partially obscured truth. Perhaps the worst overthought is that which takes away without giving anything of value.

Your article helped me make sense of something I’ve been living. I’m getting tired of writing. What I used to love is becoming a chore to me and I can’t get excited about it much. Your articled reminded me of when I loved writing what was my life like then. It was when my children were home and we were always outdoors in nature. I miss that connection with nature, since we seldom go out much anymore. I also miss music. I love certain music I used to play while I write. Why don’t I go outside or play music anymore? Since my husband’s retirement we don’t do the fun things we used to do. We seem so serious all the time. I know there’s a pandemic on but I could still get outside and listen to my music, but it just never seems to happen. Maybe I answered my own question of why isn’t writing fun anymore? I have to get back to the fun things I used to do that would spark ideas in my head. There’s no reason I can’t get outside and walk again or take my “boom box” up into the office and play “my” music while writing. I’m going to try it tomorrow and see if that’s what is missing. I’ll let you know if it works.

Great insight – and encouragement to trust the writer inside the heart and soul.

Thank you for this timely post!

Thanks for stopping by! 🙂

Wow. it’s 2021 and the pandemic is wearing me out so having to write a novel and be creative is like killing me. I just took a deep dive editing course that last 2 mos which resulted in ‘this-is-what-your-book-needs’ overload. I have tried to get over it and write but what I need is a break. I need to breathe. I need to leave my ms alone for a while to get my creativity back. Watching comedy shows helps. 🙂

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• Life Hacking

8 Common Thinking Mistakes Our Brains Make Every Day and How to Prevent Them

Get ready to have your mind blown.

I was seriously shocked at some of these mistakes in thinking that I subconsciously make all the time . Obviously, none of them are huge, life-threatening mistakes, but they are really surprising and avoiding them could help us to make more rational, sensible decisions.

Especially as we strive for continued self-improvement as we build Buffer’s social media management platform , if we look at our values , being aware of the mistakes we naturally have in our thinking can make a big difference in avoiding them. Unfortunately, most of these occur subconsciously, so it will also take time and effort to avoid them—if you even want to.

Regardless, I think it’s fascinating to learn more about how we think and make decisions every day, so let’s take a look at some of these thinking habits we didn’t know we had.

1. We surround ourselves with information that matches our beliefs

We tend to like people who think like us. If we agree with someone’s beliefs, we’re more likely to be friends with them. While this makes sense, it means that we subconsciously begin to ignore or dismiss anything that threatens our world views, since we surround ourselves with people and information that confirm what we already think.

This is called confirmation bias . If you’ve ever heard of the frequency illusion , this is very similar. The frequency illusion occurs when you buy a new car, and suddenly you see the same car everywhere. Or when a pregnant woman suddenly notices other pregnant women all over the place. It’s a passive experience, where our brains seek out information that’s related to us, but we believe there’s been an actual increase in the frequency of those occurrences.

It’s similar to how improving our body language can actually also change who we are as people.

Confirmation bias is a more active form of the same experience. It happens when we proactively seek out information that confirms our existing beliefs.

Not only do we do this with the information we take in, but we approach our memories this way , as well. In an experiment in 1979 at the University of Minnesota , participants read a story about a women called Jane who acted extroverted in some situations and introverted in others. When the participants returned a few days later, they were divided into two groups. One group was asked if Jane would be suited to a job as a librarian, the other group were asked about her having a job as a real-estate agent. The librarian group remembered Jane as being introverted and later said that she would not be suited to a real-estate job. The real-estate group did the exact opposite: they remembered Jane as extroverted, said she would be suited to a real-estate job and when they were later asked if she would make a good librarian, they said no .

In 2009, a study at Ohio State showed that we will spend 36 percent more time reading an essay if it aligns with our opinions.

Whenever your opinions or beliefs are so intertwined with your self-image you couldn’t pull them away without damaging your core concepts of self, you avoid situations which may cause harm to those beliefs. – David McRaney

This trailer for David McRaney’s book, You are Now Less Dumb, explains this concept really well with a story about how people used to think geese grew on trees (seriously), and how challenging our beliefs on a regular basis is the only way to avoid getting caught up in the confirmation bias:

2. We believe in the “swimmer’s body” illusion

This has to be one of my favorite thinking mistakes I came across. In Rolf Dobelli’s book, The Art of Thinking Clearly , he explains how our ideas about talent and extensive training are well off-track :

Professional swimmers don’t have perfect bodies because they train extensively. Rather, they are good swimmers because of their physiques. How their bodies are designed is a factor for selection and not the result of their activities.

The “swimmer’s body illusion” occurs when we confuse selection factors with results . Another good example is top performing universities: are they actually the best schools, or do they choose the best students, who do well regardless of the school’s influence? Our mind often plays tricks on us and that is one of the key ones to be aware of.

What really jumped out at me when researching this section was this particular line from Dobelli’s book:

Without this illusion, half of advertising campaigns would not work.

It makes perfect sense, when you think about it. If we believed that we were predisposed to be good at certain things (or not), we wouldn’t buy into ad campaigns that promised to improve our skills in areas where it’s unlikely we’ll ever excel.

This is similar to the skill of learning to say no , or how our creativity actually works : Both diverge strongly to what we think is true, versus what actions will actually help us get the result we want.

3. We worry about things we’ve already lost

No matter how much I pay attention to the sunk cost fallacy, I still naturally gravitate towards it.

The term sunk cost refers to any cost (not just monetary, but also time and effort) that has been paid already and cannot be recovered. So, a payment of time or money that’s gone forever, basically.

The reason we can’t ignore the cost, even though it’s already been paid, is that we wired to feel loss far more strongly than gain. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman explains this in his book, Thinking Fast and Slow :

Organisms that placed more urgency on avoiding threats than they did on maximizing opportunities were more likely to pass on their genes. So, over time, the prospect of losses has become a more powerful motivator on your behavior than the promise of gains.

The sunk cost fallacy plays on this tendency of ours to emphasize loss over gain. This research study is a great example of how it works:

Hal Arkes and Catehrine Blumer created an experiment in 1985 which demonstrated your tendency to go fuzzy when sunk costs come along. They asked subjects to assume they had spent $100 on a ticket for a ski trip in Michigan, but soon after found a better ski trip in Wisconsin for $50 and bought a ticket for this trip too. They then asked the people in the study to imagine they learned the two trips overlapped and the tickets couldn’t be refunded or resold. Which one do you think they chose, the $100 good vacation, or the $50 great one? Over half of the people in the study went with the more expensive trip. It may not have promised to be as fun, but the loss seemed greater .

So, just like the other mistakes I’ve explained in this post, the sunk cost fallacy leads us to miss or ignore the logical facts presented to us, and instead make irrational decisions based on our emotions—without even realizing we’re doing so:

The fallacy prevents you from realizing the best choice is to do whatever promises the better experience in the future, not which negates the feeling of loss in the past.

Being such a subconscious reaction, it’s hard to avoid this one. Our best bet is to try to separate the current facts we have from anything that happened in the past. For instance, if you buy a movie ticket only to realize the movie is terrible, you could either:

a) stay and watch the movie, to “get your money’s worth” since you’ve already paid for the ticket (sunk cost fallacy)

or b) leave the cinema and use that time to do something you’ll actually enjoy.

The thing to remember is this: you can’t get that investment back. It’s gone. Don’t let it cloud your judgement in whatever decision you’re making in this moment—let it remain in the past.

4. We incorrectly predict odds

Imagine you’re playing Heads or Tails with a friend. You flip a coin, over and over, each time guessing whether it will turn up heads or tails. You have a 50/50 chance of being right each time.

Now suppose you’ve flipped the coin five times already and it’s turned up heads every time . Surely, surely , the next one will be tails, right? The chances of it being tails must be higher now, right?

Well, no. The chances of tails turning up are 50/50. Every time. Even if you turned up heads the last twenty times. The odds don’t change.

The gambler’s fallacy is a glitch in our thinking —once again, we’re proven to be illogical creatures. The problem occurs when we place too much weight on past events and confuse our memory with how the world actually works, believing that they will have an effect on future outcomes (or, in the case of Heads or Tails, any weight, since past events make absolutely no difference to the odds).

Unfortunately, gambling addictions in particular are also affected by a similar mistake in thinking —the positive expectation bias. This is when we mistakenly think that eventually, our luck has to change for the better. Somehow, we find it impossible to accept bad results and give up—we often insist on keeping at it until we get positive results, regardless of what the odds of that happening actually are.

5. We rationalize purchases we don’t want

I’m as guilty of this as anyone. How many times have you gotten home after a shopping trip only to be less than satisfied with your purchase decisions and started rationalizing them to yourself? Maybe you didn’t really want it after all, or in hindsight you thought it was too expensive. Or maybe it didn’t do what you hoped, and was actually useless to you.

Regardless, we’re pretty good at convincing ourselves that those flashy, useless, badly thought-out purchases are necessary after all. This is known as post-purchase rationalization or Buyer’s Stockholm Syndrome .

The reason we’re so good at this comes back to psychology of language :

Social psychologists say it stems from the principle of commitment, our psychological desire to stay consistent and avoid a state of cognitive dissonance.

Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort we get when we’re trying to hold onto two competing ideas or theories. For instance, if we think of ourselves as being nice to strangers, but then we see someone fall over and don’t stop to help them, we would then have conflicting veiws about ourselves: we are nice to strangers, but we weren’t nice to the stranger who fell over. This creates so much discomfort that we have to change our thinking to match our actions—i.e. we start thinking of ourselves as someone who is not nice to strangers, since that’s what our actions proved.

So in the case of our impulse shopping trip, we would need to rationalize the purchases until we truly believe we needed to buy those things, so that our thoughts about ourselves line up with our actions (making the purchases).

The tricky thing in avoiding this mistake is that we generally act before we think (which can be one of the most important element that successful people have as traits !), leaving us to rationalize our actions afterwards.

Being aware of this mistake can help us avoid it by predicting it before taking action—for instance, as we’re considering a purchase, we often know that we will have to rationalize it to ourselves later. If we can recognize this, perhaps we can avoid it. It’s not an easy one to tackle, though!

6. We make decisions based on the anchoring effect

Dan Ariely is a behavioural economist who gave one of my favorite TED talks ever about the irrationality of the human brain when it comes to making decisions .

He illustrates this particular mistake in our thinking superbly, with multiple examples. The anchoring effect essentially works like this: rather than making a decision based on pure value for investment (time, money, etc.), we factor in comparative value—that is, how much value an option offers when compared to another option .

Let’s look at some examples from Dan, to illustrate this effect in practice:

One example is an experiment that Dan conducted using two kinds of chocolates for sale in a booth: Hershey’s Kisses and Lindt Truffles. The Kisses were one penny each, while the Truffles were fifteen cents each. Considering the quality differences between the two kinds of chocolates and the normal prices of both items, the Truffles were a great deal, and the majority of visitors to the booth chose the Truffles.

For the next stage of his experiment, Dan offered the same two choices, but lowered the prices by one cent each. So now the Kisses were free, and the Truffles cost fourteen cents each. Of course, the Truffles are even more of a bargain now, but since the Kisses were free, most people chose those instead.

Your loss aversion system is always vigilant, waiting on standby to keep you from giving up more than you can afford to spare, so you calculate the balance between cost and reward whenever possible. – You Are Not So Smart

Another example Dan offers in his TED talk is when consumers are given holiday options to choose between. When given a choice of a trip to Rome, all expenses paid, or a similar trip to Paris, the decision is quite hard. Each city comes with its own food, culture and travel experiences that the consumer must choose between.

When a third option is added, however, such as the same Rome trip, but without coffee included in the morning, things change. When the consumer sees that they have to pay 2,50 euros for coffee in the third trip option, not only does the original Rome trip suddenly seem superior out of these two, it also seems superior to the Paris trip . Even though they probably hadn’t even considered whether coffee was included or not before the third option was added.

Here’s an even better example from another of Dan’s experiments:

Dan found this real ad for subscriptions to The Economist, and used it to see how a seemingly useless choice (like Rome without coffee) affects our decisions.

To begin with, there were three choices: subscribe to The Economist web version for $59, the print version for $125, or subscribe to both the print and web versions for $125. It’s pretty clear what the useless option is here . When Dan gave this form to 100 MIT students and asked them which option they would choose, 84% chose the combo deal for $125. 16% chose the cheaper, web-only option, and nobody chose the print-only option for $125.

Next, Dan removed the ‘useless’ print-only option which nobody wanted and tried the experiment with another group of 100 MIT students. This time, the majority chose the cheaper, web-only version, and the minority chose the combo deal. So even though nobody wanted the bad-value $125 print-only option, it wasn’t actually useless—in fact, it actually informed the decisions people made between the two other options by making the combo deal seem more valuable in relation .

This mistake is called the anchoring effect , because we tend to focus on a particular value and compare it to our other options, seeing the difference between values rather than the value of each option itself.

Eliminating the ‘useless’ options ourselves as we make decisions can help us choose more wisely. On the other hand, Dan says that a big part of the problem comes from simply not knowing our own preferences very well, so perhaps that’s the area we should focus on more, instead.

Whilst we know that our decision making skills as people are often poor , (more on this topic here ), it’s fascinating how “free” can affect us. In fact “free” has been mentioned before as one of the most powerful ways that can affect our decision making .

7. We believe our memories more than facts

Our memories are highly fallible and plastic. And yet, we tend to subconsciously favor them over objective facts. The availability heuristic is a good example of this. It works like this:

Suppose you read a page of text and then you’re asked whether the page includes more words that end in “ing” or more words with “n” as the second-last letter. Obviously, it would be impossible for there to be more “ing” words than words with “n” as their penultimate letter (it took me a while to get that—read over the sentence again, carefully, if you’re not sure why that is). However , words ending in “ing” are easier to recall than words like hand, end, or and, which have “n” as their second-last letter, so we would naturally answer that there are more “ing” words .

What’s happening here is that we are basing our answer of probability (i.e. whether it’s probable that there are more “ing” words on the page) on how available relevant examples are (i.e. how easily we can recall them). Our troubles in recalling words with “n” as the second last letter make us think those words don’t occur very often, and we subconsciously ignore the obvious facts in front of us.

Although the availability heuristic is a natural process in how we think, two Chicago scholars have explained how wrong it can be:

Yet reliable statistical evidence will outperform the availability heuristic every time.

The lesson here? Whenever possible, look at the facts. Examine the data. Don’t base a factual decision on your gut instinct without at least exploring the data objectively first. If we look at the psychology of language in general , we’ll find even more evidence that looking at facts first is necessary.

8. We pay more attention to stereotypes than we think

The funny thing about lots of these thinking mistakes especially related to memory is that they’re so ingrained, I had to think long and hard about why they’re mistakes at all! This one is a good example—it took me a while to understand how illogical this pattern of thinking is.

It’s another one that explains how easily we ignore actual facts :

The human mind is so wedded to stereotypes and so distracted by vivid descriptions that it will seize upon them, even when they defy logic, rather than upon truly relevant facts.

Here’s an example to illustrate the mistake, from researchers Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky:

In 1983 Kahneman and Tversky tested how illogical human thinking is by describing the following imaginary person:

Linda is thirty-one years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in antinuclear demonstrations.

The researchers asked people to read this description, and then asked them to answer this question:

Which alternative is more probable?

• Linda is a bank teller.
• Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement.

Here’s where it can get a bit tricky to understand (at least, it did for me!)—If answer #2 is true, #1 is also true . This means that #2 cannot be the answer to the question of probability.

Unfortunately, few of us realize this, because we’re so overcome by the more detailed description of #2. Plus, as the earlier quote pointed out, stereotypes are so deeply ingrained in our minds that subconsciously apply them to others.

Roughly 85% of people chose option #2 as the answer. A simple choice of words can change everything.

Again, we see here how irrational and illogical we can be, even when the facts are seemingly obvious.

I love this quote from researcher Daniel Kahneman on the differences between economics and psychology:

I was astonished. My economic colleagues worked in the building next door, but I had not appreciated the profound difference between our intellectual worlds. To a psychologist, it is self-evident that people are neither fully rational nor completely selfish, and that their tastes are anything but stable.

Clearly, it’s normal for us to be irrational and to think illogically, especially when language acts as a limitation to how we think , even though we rarely realize we’re doing it. Still, being aware of the pitfalls we often fall into when making decisions can help us to at least recognize them, if not avoid them.

Have you come across any other interesting mistakes we make in the way we think? Let us know in the comments.

Image credits: Evolving Personal Finance , Overload Online , timesfreepress.com , Relatively Interesting, Above the Market , Blue Dog’s Eyes , Swim. Bike. Run. , web-books.com

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3 Common Thinking Errors and How to Overcome Them

Through byu-pathway and with the help of our savior, we can overcome these errors in our thinking.

However, the Savior promised that we would be able to “overcome” all error and suffering with His help. Student Caroline Asuron from Tanzania stated, “BYU-Pathway has helped me correct some of the thinking errors I used to practice. Now I feel that I am a better parent and spouse.” Through BYU-Pathway, and with the help of our Savior, we can overcome common thinking errors and find joy and peace.

Ever thought any of the following common thinking errors? Read on to find ways to overcome them.

1. “I don’t have what it takes to succeed.”

In life we will encounter many stumbling blocks . It may seem like things will never improve and that we don’t have the skills to succeed, especially in school. But believing that we can’t improve is called a fixed mindset — and having one narrows our perspective of ourselves and of the world. Instead of remaining as we are, we can use the opportunities and tools given through BYU-Pathway to improve our situation.

Maddy Worthington, a student from Utah, USA, shares her experience: “I had a really difficult time in high school. I did so poorly that they told me not even to think about college. Now I’m halfway through my bachelor’s degree in communication. I give credit to BYU-Pathway because that’s where I learned to tell myself ‘you are better than you think you are, you can do this.’””

If we do our best to be worthy, the Spirit will help us open our eyes and clear our minds to be able to see our divine potential. We will begin to see things more clearly instead of having our judgment blurred with self-doubt.

2. “I am right; you are wrong.”

When people do things differently than us, it can be natural to not understand why they do things the way they do. Truth: Good people generally do the things that feel right to them. Understanding this can help us to have more empathy and to be patient when others' perspectives don't align with our own.

The skills learned through BYU-Pathway can help students overcome these natural tendencies. For example, students have the opportunity to communicate their experiences through discussion boards and weekly gatherings, which helps them gain the ability to listen and communicate effectively. These opportunities help them maintain an open mind and to learn to respond rather than react.

Enrico Occiano from the Philippines shared this about his gathering: “With each other’s support, criticism, and encouragement, everyone has become a better person at the end of the semester. The brave sharing of experiences in front of the class and in group discussions greatly enriched everyone’s experiences.”

3. “I’ll do it tomorrow.”

BYU-Pathway offers a support system to help students achieve their goals. There are many people along the way to cheer you on.

How can I improve?

PathwayConnect students will remember a lesson from week 11 of PC 101: Life Skills. This lesson teaches a pattern to recognize and overcome thinking errors.

• Stop: recognize a thinking error.
• Think: recognize the source of the thinking error.
• Act: do something to stop the thinking error (ex. Deep breaths, prayer, hymn).
• Reflect: think about what went well and what you could improve next time.

10 Thinking Errors That Will Crush Your Mental Strength

... and how to overcome them..

Posted January 24, 2015 | Reviewed by Matt Huston

• Often, our conscious thoughts aren't realistic; they're irrational and inaccurate.
• Recognizing and replacing inaccurate thoughts can be the key to improving communication, relationships, and decision-making.
• Assuming knowledge of what's going on in someone else's mind is a thinking error that can lead to problems.

Mental strength requires a three-pronged approach— managing our thoughts , regulating our emotions , and behaving productively despite our circumstances .

While all three areas can be a struggle, it's often our thoughts that make it most difficult to be mentally strong.

As we go about our daily routines, our internal monologue narrates our experience. Our self-talk guides our behavior and influences the way we interact with others. It also plays a major role in how you feel about yourself, other people, and the world in general.

Quite often, however, our conscious thoughts aren't realistic; they're irrational and inaccurate. Believing our irrational thoughts can lead to problems, including communication issues, relationship problems, and unhealthy decisions.

Whether you're striving to reach personal or professional goals, the key to success often starts with recognizing and replacing inaccurate thoughts. The most common thinking errors can be divided into these 10 categories, which are adapted from David Burns's book, Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy .

1. All-or-Nothing Thinking Sometimes we see things as being black or white: Perhaps you have two categories of coworkers in your mind—the good ones and the bad ones. Or maybe you look at each project as either a success or a failure. Recognize the shades of gray, rather than putting things in terms of all good or all bad.

2. Overgeneralizing It's easy to take one particular event and generalize it to the rest of our life. If you failed to close one deal, you may decide, "I'm bad at closing deals." Or if you are treated poorly by one family member, you might think, "Everyone in my family is rude." Take notice of times when an incident may apply to only one specific situation, instead of all other areas of life.

3. Filtering Out the Positive If nine good things happen, and one bad thing, sometimes we filter out the good and zoom in on the bad. Maybe we declare we had a bad day, despite the positive events that occurred. Or maybe we look back at our performance and declare it was terrible because we made a single mistake. Filtering out the positive can prevent you from establishing a realistic outlook on a situation. Develop a balanced outlook by noticing both the positive and the negative.

4. Mind-Reading We can never be sure what someone else is thinking. Yet, everyone occasionally assumes they know what's going on in someone else's mind. Thinking things like "He must have thought I was stupid at the meeting" makes inferences that aren't necessarily based on reality. Remind yourself that you may not be making accurate guesses about other people's perceptions.

5. Catastrophizing Sometimes we think things are much worse than they actually are. If you fall short on meeting your financial goals one month you may think, "I'm going to end up bankrupt," or "I'll never have enough money to retire," even though there's no evidence that the situation is nearly that dire. It can be easy to get swept up into catastrophizing a situation once your thoughts become negative. When you begin predicting doom and gloom, remind yourself that there are many other potential outcomes.

6. Emotional Reasoning Our emotions aren't always based on reality but we often assume those feelings are rational. If you're worried about making a career change, you might assume, "If I'm this scared about it, I just shouldn't change jobs." Or, you may be tempted to assume, "If I feel like a loser, I must be a loser." It's essential to recognize that emotions, just like our thoughts, aren't always based on the facts.

7. Labeling Labeling involves putting a name to something. Instead of thinking, "He made a mistake," you might label your neighbor as "an idiot." Labeling people and experiences places them into categories that are often based on isolated incidents. Notice when you try to categorize things and work to avoid placing mental labels on everything.

8. Fortune-telling Although none of us knows what will happen in the future, we sometimes like to try our hand at fortune-telling. We think things like, "I'm going to embarrass myself tomorrow," or "If I go on a diet , I'll probably just gain weight." These types of thoughts can become self-fulfilling prophecies if you're not careful. When you're predicting doom and gloom, remind yourself of all the other possible outcomes.

9. Personalization As much as we'd like to say we don't think the world revolves around us, it's easy to personalize everything. If a friend doesn't call back, you may assume, "She must be mad at me," or if a co-worker is grumpy, you might conclude, "He doesn't like me." When you catch yourself personalizing situations, take time to point out other possible factors that may be influencing the circumstances.

10. Unreal Ideal Making unfair comparisons between ourselves and other people can ruin our motivation . Looking at someone who has achieved much success and thinking, "I should have been able to do that," isn't helpful, especially if that person had some lucky breaks or competitive advantages along the way. Rather than measuring your life against someone else's, commit to focusing on your own path to success.

Fixing Thinking Errors Once you recognize your thinking errors, you can begin trying to challenge those thoughts. Look for exceptions to the rule and gather evidence that your thoughts aren't 100% true. Then, you can begin replacing them with more realistic thoughts.

The goal doesn't need to be to replace negative thoughts with overly idealistic or positive ones. Instead, replace them with realistic thoughts. Changing the way you think takes a lot of effort initially, but with practice, you'll notice big changes—not just in the way you think, but also in the way you feel and behave. You can make peace with the past, look at the present differently, and think about the future in a way that will support your chances of reaching your goals.

Amy Morin, LCSW, is a licensed clinical social worker, psychotherapist, and the author of 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do .

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Sticking up for yourself is no easy task. But there are concrete skills you can use to hone your assertiveness and advocate for yourself.

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How to Stop Overthinking Tests and Projects

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Are you guilty of dwelling on a problem much longer than you should? Many people get caught up in overthinking problems from time to time, but some people make a habit of it. This habit can affect grades and academic performance because students get so caught up in thinking mode that they never get to a good solution.

Some people who overthink tend to get stuck in analysis mode by over-analyzing every nook and cranny of a situation repeatedly, and in a circular pattern (around and back again). That situation is sometimes called ​ analysis paralysis . It's also one form of procrastination .

Analysis Paralysis

It’s not difficult to imagine why this could be unhelpful or even harmful to academic work.

Students who encounter certain kinds of test questions are in danger of analysis paralysis:

• Complex essay questions can cause you to get stuck thinking about a single aspect of the question and ignore others.
• You will be at a loss when trying to decide how to start writing an answer to essay questions because there are so many options. This can be a time-waster.
• Long multiple-choice questions can also cause analysis paralysis. You may try to read too much into the question and spin yourself into total confusion.
• You can also overthink their choices in a multiple-choice situation and read more into each choice than you should.

If the situations above sound familiar, you are like many other students. You are also wise to recognize that this is a potential problem for you. If you know it, then you can address it!

Stop Overthinking

Overthinking during a test can really hurt! The big risk you face is failing to complete the test because you think too much and can’t make a decision. Go into the test with a time management plan.

As soon as you get the test , do a quick assessment to determine how much time you should spend on each section. The open-ended essay answers are the most time-consuming.

If you tend to be an overthinker, you will have to manage your urge to dwell on the many possibilities when trying to answer an open-ended test question. To do this, you must give yourself time to brainstorm , but also give yourself a time limit. Once you reach the predetermined time limit, you must stop thinking and go into action.

If you’re facing a multiple-choice, resist the tendency to read too much into the questions and answers. Read the question once, then (without looking at your options) think of a good answer. Then see if this matches one that’s listed. If it does, select it and move on!

Thinking Too Much About Assignments

Creative students can also think too much when it comes to getting started on a research paper or a big project because there are so many possibilities. A creative mind loves to explore possibilities.

Although it probably goes against your nature, you will have to force yourself to be methodical when selecting a topic . You can be creative and imaginative for the first day or two to come up with a list of possible topics, then stop. Pick one and go with it.

Creative projects like fiction writing and art projects can be downright paralyzing as well. There are so many directions you could go! How can you possibly start? What if you make the wrong choice?

The truth is that you will continue to create as you go. The final creative project rarely ends up exactly as you intended at first. Just relax, get started, and create as you go. It’s ok!

Students can also fall into analysis paralysis when starting to write a school report. The best way to conquer this type of roadblock is to start writing in the middle, don’t try to start at the beginning. You can go back and write the introduction and rearrange your paragraphs as you edit.

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