A major contribution to failure and a destructor of self-confidence is the manner of negative thinking. When you think negatively, you are only affirming the worst that could happen to yourself or others in a situation. If negative thinking becomes a habit, you gradually reduce the level of confidence in your thinking patterns and even in actions. It also minimizes your ability to assert your needs and opinions. Such mental attitude makes you question or underrate the value of your own thoughts, emotions, and needs. That is why it is important to monitor negative thoughts and the effects it can bring in order to maintain that level of confidence and assertiveness.
Wrong Thinking Patterns
The cause of negativity is mainly rooted from incorrect thinking patterns. There are various types of these patterns or styles in negative thinking that you may be demonstrating. In most cases, people are manifesting it but do not seem to realize that these are becoming the traps of negative thinking. When you simply allow yourself to fall to these traps, it may be difficult for you to set yourself free from being tied to a negative mental attitude unless you make a conscious effort to keep these negative thinking traps from eating you alive.
Knowing the Traps of Negative Thinking
Negative thinking traps are considered as thoughts that lead the mind to think of the bad side of things rather than expect the good outcomes. With negativities in the mind, you are simply allowing feelings of worry and anxiety since your mind is already trapped to these intrusive thoughts. The following are a few examples of negative thinking traps:
Forecasting the Future
Do you sometimes find yourself thinking that you are not going to succeed on something even before acting or working on it? Do you always think of the outcome of a situation to be negative? If so, you are allowing yourself to be trapped in negativity.
Assuming the Thoughts of Others
Making assumptions is pretty risky since there is no solid basis or evidence of those assumed thoughts. You are simply making guesses and presumptions of what other people are thinking about you or about a circumstance. If you allow assumption to become a mental habit, you are definitely locked in your negative thoughts.
Extreme Perception of Things
Some people can easily just give up on minor failures and then regard the whole situation as a total disaster. Have you experienced quitting on a task because of a small mistake and you think that the entire thing will no longer work? You simply failed to see the bigger picture, and you let yourself break down only because of a minor flaw.
Highlighting the Negative
You would know when you experience this kind of trap when your point of focus or highlight on a situation is more of the negative rather than the positive. You dwell more on the faults, negative comments, and pessimistic reactions and so you are entertaining the very thought of negativity.
Comparing Oneself to Others
You must have experienced feeling low and inferior after you started comparing yourself to other people who celebrate success and satisfaction in life. You start to wonder why they are on the pedestal and you are still at the bottom. If your comparison encourages negative differences, your negative thoughts got you trapped into feeling desperate, hopeless, and worthless.
Injecting Negative Words on Positive Statements
This is a deceitful negative thinking trap. When you think you have conditioned yourself to think positively, you fall to the trap of wrong mind conditioning because the use of negative terms on your statements seems a lot more powerful and has more impact.
Getting Out of the Trap
These negative thinking traps are not hopeless cases of you becoming completely pessimistic. The important thing is a complete awareness that you are demonstrating a pattern of negative thinking and before it locks your mind up into utter negativity, you still have a chance of getting out of the trap by consciously making an effort to transform it. You can start seeing things on a lighter perspective and probably minimize the use of negative words in your statements. The goal is to break a habit formed out of entertaining negative thoughts.
