Challenge Negative Thoughts: 5 Effective Ways to Change Them
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, which means I receive a small
commission, at no extra cost to you, if you make a purchase using this link.
Please see my disclosure for more details.
He probably thinks I look so stupid right now. Ugh, I just want to hide. Unwanted negative thoughts can creep their way into our minds without us even noticing.
According to the National Science Foundation, an article was published summarizing how many thoughts humans had per day. Research indicated that the average person has about 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day. Not only that, but they found 80% were negative, and 95% were repetitive thoughts from the day before.
80% of those thousands of thoughts were negative! You may or may not even realize how often you have negative thoughts, but boy, do we think them on a habitual daily basis. These are called automatic negative thoughts (ANTs), and I’ll explain in this post what they are.
In this post, I’ll share with you 5 unhealthy thought patterns and how you can challenge negative thoughts.
What are Automatic Negative Thoughts?
Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs) are involuntary habitual thoughts that occur in a given situation that makes you react negatively. These thoughts happen so quickly that you might not even be aware that they are happening in the moment.
For example, if you have to give an individual presentation for a class assignment, you might already be predicting how badly it will go. When ANTs happen, we don’t realize the thought that came before our feelings.
How our brains are wired to think looks like this: Feelings -> Actions, BUT the reality is: Thoughts -> Feelings -> Actions. This is powerful to know because this shows that if you can rewire your thought, you can change the way you feel, which can change the way you behave.
It’s important to remember these things about all automatic negative thoughts:
- Never helpful or positive
- Always negative
- Very convincing because this has become a habitual way of thinking
- Makes you feel depressed, anxious, angry, agitated, and threatened
- Stem from core beliefs you have about yourself, others, or the world
Why Do I Have Negative Thoughts?
Negative thoughts can stem from hurtful past experiences, trauma, and certain situations that created a negative core belief of how you view yourself, others, or the world.
I have struggled with social anxiety for the majority of my life. Growing up, I was often called shy and super quiet. As a child, my mind interpreted these labels as negative.
And because of this, I started to view myself as these labels, which made me less confident in the way I carried myself. I talked softly, didn’t voice my opinions, hated public speaking, and avoided social interactions.
Unlearning negative thought patterns has been a long journey for me. 20+ years of deeply engrained core beliefs is difficult to be undone in a matter of months or even several years. But I share this because I know it is possible to change these negative thoughts.
At the moment, I’m seeing a therapist who is working with me to challenge my negative core beliefs and thoughts. And I want to share with you 5 helpful things I’ve learned in therapy so far. So keep on reading!
Challenge Negative Thoughts With These 5 Effective Tips
Tip 1: Recognize The Negative Thought
How do you recognize a negative thought? First, it starts with pausing for 1-3 seconds to try and bring awareness to the thought you’re having.
Next, focus on that negative thought. Ask yourself, Is this a helpful or negative thought? If you can recognize that the thought is making you feel negatively, then you’ve successful brought your attention to a negative thought.
Think about what you’re thinking about. This is a weird concept, but when you can think about the thoughts you’re having, your awareness grows.
Recognizing a negative thought takes practice and patience, so I’d encourage you to just focus on 1 negative thought you have per day and just bring awareness to it.
Doing so will strengthen your awareness in the moment, which will make changing your negative thoughts less overwhelming.
Be patient and try to be kind to yourself in the process of recognizing your negative thoughts!
Tip 2: Identify the Cognitive Distortion
Cognitive distortions are habitual thinking patterns that negatively influence our thoughts and emotions. Cognitive distortions give a distorted view of reality due to a distorted way of thinking.
I wanted to share with you what I’ve learned in therapy in regards to 9 common cognitive distortions that many people experience. These cognitive distortions can also be found here.
Challenge: Look over this list and see if there are any that resonate with your way of thinking. Write down the most common cognitive distortions you tend to have.
Tip 3: Challenge Your Negative Thought
When you can identify the cognitive distortions, it’s time to take it up a notch. Though, I do want to reiterate that in order to challenge your negative thoughts, the first step is to be aware that you are having negative thoughts.
Challenging your negative thoughts comes from recognizing the thought, identify the cognitive distortion, and modifying your inner dialogue by evaluating the evidence.
However, the misconception with challenging your negative thought is the belief that you need to replace them with a positive thought. Trust me, I’ve tried this and I can tell you it’s not really effective, especially if you’re jumping from: I’m socially awkward to I’m great at socializing.
Can you see how difficult it would be to believe the second statement? The key to challenging your negative thought is replacing it with a neutral thought first. Then as you start to believe the neutral thought, you can replace it with a positive thought.
So how does this look like? I’ll list out examples of each cognitive distortion (that was listed above) and show you what a neutral thought could look like.
1. Ignoring the Good. You tend to pay more attention to negative things, instead of the good that happens in a given situation.
Automatic Negative Thought: My manager gave me my employee review and said that I need to improve on my communication. She probably thinks I’m incompetent.
Neutral Thought: I’m not the best at communicating, but I’m learning how to improve. She did give some positive feedback and highlighted my strengths as well, which shows that I’m a competent employee.
2. Blowing Things Up. When something ‘bad’ happens, your mind tends to make a big deal out of a seemingly small matter of the given situation.
Automatic Negative Thought: I have to cancel my date for tomorrow since I got sick. He’s probably going to get mad at me. This is awful!
Neutral Thought: Getting sick is something out of my control. I didn’t know that I would get sick. It’s just unfortunate timing and I’ll just have to reschedule.
3. Fortune Telling. Predicting that things will go badly in the future.
Automatic Negative Thought: I want to have a get together with my friends for my birthday party, but they don’t know each other. It’s going to be so awkward. Maybe I shouldn’t then.
Neutral Thought: It’s true that they don’t know each other, but even if things are awkward in the beginning, that’s so normal. It takes time to warm up to each other. Essentially, they want to celebrate you.
4. Mind Reading. Thinking that you know what the other person is thinking without enough evidence or information.
Automatic Negative Thought: I don’t know how to use that fitness machine, but I really want to use it. Everyone’s going to make fun of me and think I’m stupid if I look lost at the gym.
Neutral Thought: Everyone starts as a beginner at the gym. If I’m too nervous, I can go at a less busy time. I’ll watch videos to get familiar with the equipment. If anything, everybody may be concerned about how they look at the gym instead of you.
5. Negative Labeling. Believing negative core beliefs about yourself which influences the way you think and feel.
Automatic Negative Thought: I’m not a good candidate for this position. I don’t know if I should take it. It’s best that I just stick with what’s comfortable for me.
Neutral Thought: What is my definition of a ‘good candidate’? I don’t have to be perfect to be good. Everyone makes mistakes along the way. It’s normal to be afraid of stepping out of my comfort zone , but I’ll never know unless I try.
6. Setting the Bar Too High. You set your standards for yourself way too high and expect perfection from yourself.
Automatic Negative Thought: I have get an A+ on every exam or else I’m a failure.
Neutral Thought: Getting anything below an A+ does not mean I’m a failure. Would I think that my friend is a failure for getting a B+? No, not at all. My worth is not tied to my performance.
7. Self-blaming. You tend to blame yourself when things go wrong, even when these things had nothing to do with you.
Automatic Negative Thought: It’s my fault that he left me for someone else. I wasn’t good enough for him.
Neutral Thought: It seemed like he was never satisfied when he was with me. I’d rather be with someone who appreciates me for me. I choose to believe that my worth is not tied to other people’s actions.
8. Feelings as Facts. You believe the statement: If I feel this way, it must be true.
Automatic Negative Thought: I feel ugly, so I must be ugly.
Neutral Thought: How I feel is not a determination of my worth. There have been days where I feel more confident in my appearance, so this shows that my feelings are not facts.
9. “Should” Statements. You set “should” rules on how you, others, and the world should be.
Automatic Negative Thought: I should always be busy. It is wrong not to be busy. I could not tolerate being idle and spending my day resting.
Neutral Thought: It’s okay to be idle sometimes. I can test this out by going to a coffee shop and reading a book. I’ll journal how I feel.
Tip 4: Keep A Thought Journal
Journaling is a great exercise to record your memories, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. It’s one of the best tools to understand and work through your anxiety.
Here are some benefits to keeping a thought journal:
- You can keep record of past events that have happened.
- If you struggle with social anxiety, you can keep note of any safety behaviors or situations that you tend to avoid.
- You can practice identifying and challenging your negative thoughts by writing them down.
- You can collect evidence and data in regards to your social interactions with others and anything that triggers negative thoughts and feelings. You can record whether or not you have enough evidence to support your thoughts.
Tip 5: Use the 5-4-3-2-1 Coping Technique
This is actually a tip that my therapist gave me which is called the 5-4-3-2-1 coping technique.
It’s a very simple exercise that helps you to cope with anxiety. The goal is to focus on your 5 senses and slow down. With anxiety, it’s easy to be hyperaware of your surroundings, so this exercise helps you to be more present in the moment.
This is the 5-4-3-2-1 method:
- 5: Name FIVE things you see around you.
- 4: Name FOUR things you can touch around you.
- 3: Name THREE things you can hear.
- 2: Name TWO things you can smell.
- 1: Name ONE thing you can taste. Because taste is sometimes hard to identify, you could substitute this by acknowledging your favorite thing to taste.
Conclusion
There you have it! These are 5 therapist-approved ways of challenging your negative thoughts and overcoming them.
To recap this post, here are the main takeaways to remember:
- Recognize the negative thought and build your awareness muscle.
- Identify the cognitive distortion. Refer to tip #2 for the 9 most common cognitive distortions.
- Challenge the negative thought by replacing it with a neutral thought.
- Keep a thought journal to record your emotions, feelings, and behaviors.
- Use the 5-4-3-2-1 Coping Technique to cope with your anxiety and be more present in the moment.
I’d love to know which tip you found the most helpful. Leave a comment below to let me know!
Related Posts
How To Overcome Your Deep Fear of Rejection
12 Best Personal Growth Books That Will Transform Your Life
