life skills

A child accidentally spills milk and the next thing s/he hears is “you’re so clumsy” or maybe even “you’re my clumsy little baby” with a kind, cynical voice. Then s/he hears it again and again and again, and soon s/he starts to believe that s/he really is clumsy.

Every small ineptitude that happens later in the adult age makes the person feel horrible, enforcing the clumsiness label even further.

I see it all the time, how people label themselves without any solid proof:

• I’m not that smart
• I constantly make mistakes
• I’m not a practical type of person
• I’m not good with technology
• I’m bad at sports

And they label other people too:

• He’s a jerk
• He’s irresponsible
• She’s weird

There are two options when it comes to labeling yourself or others. A label might be complete fiction. Just a falsely installed belief that has nothing to do with reality. Or there really is some behavioral drawback present, but by labeling you make that one single behavior into a characteristic and apply it to the person as a whole.

Both types of labeling (or name-calling) bring nothing but negative thoughts and energy in your life.

The measure of a man is the mistakes he makes. That’s something your negative mind would say.

A negative self-label might be complete fiction

Many times, a label is complete fiction. For example, a parent decided to label the child as a clumsy one, based on completely perfectionistic expectations. In their mind, other babies never spilled any milk. Not even once.

So even a small error seems like solid proof for the negative label. Perfectionism has zero tolerance for any small errors, which are in reality part of everyday human life.

The adult person might then be as “clumsy” as any other human being. But when they break a glass, get a flat tire, don’t score a goal or any other thing happens to them that’s a pretty normal part of life, the feeling that they are the clumsiest creature on Earth resurfaces. An emotional flashback happens.

If the error happens in the presence of other people, they explain the label to other people – “I was always a little bit clumsy” or something like that. With every such explanation, they only reinforce their negative self-image.

People who aren’t observant might even believe them, but the observant ones are confused a little bit, because they don’t see any proof for such a negative label.

Make sure you find solid proof for every negative self-label you have:

• Do you statistically spill milk more often than the average person?
• Do you statistically make more mistakes than the average person?
• Are there really zero practical tasks you can accomplish?
• If you took a 100-hour technology class, how far would you really get?
• Is there not a single sport you’re really good at?

Don’t equate yourself with a single event or situation. Don’t believe everything your parents told you. Nobody is perfect. As we said, there is no perfection in real life.

Well, some things might really not be your forte. But maybe you are good enough. Which is just fine. Then there’s no need for a negative label.

A negative label is the most convenient way to protect your ego

We love to give negative labels to other people, especially when we need to protect our ego and minimize other people’s accomplishments. Negative labels are a great way to throw shit at other people and feel a little bit better about ourselves.

If a person is emotionally immature, then more successful and competent people irritate their ego. Every person who’s better at something is a source of humiliation; at the end of the day, they’re better at something.

Thus, ego tries to protect the immature ones. And then we hear expressions like:

• She might be beautiful, but she’s definitely stupid.
• He did make a lot of money, but he must be so greedy.
• He did win the competition, but he was probably cheating.
• She was promoted, but she’s a really bad person.

Sour grapes, sweet lemons and negative labels are ways to protect your ego when you encounter people that have more of something than you.

Sour grapes refer to self-deception where you make things that you want but don’t have less desirable, and with sweet lemons, you make things that you do have but are not that important to you more desirable. And with negative labels you make other people shine less than they do deserve.

You can’t be the best at everything. And there is enough for everyone. If you want more of something, go get it. Try to be happy for others when they win. And soon there won’t be any need for negative labels. Don’t create hostility with negative labels.

When a label is not based in fiction

Not all labels are based in fiction. Sometimes a label can be based on some solid proof. The problem occurs when we apply one single characteristic to the person as a whole.

• Because he’s late sometimes, he must be irresponsible.
• Because he doesn’t use a fax machine, he must be bad with technology.

You make assumptions about the person based on one event, fact or a single piece of information. But what if your assumption is completely wrong?

What if he’s not irresponsible because he’s late, he’s only going through a really hectic period in his life. You know that wrong assumptions are the mother of all fuckups, so never make assumptions about people too fast.

The problem with labeling others negatively is that you can’t do very much about it. If you label somebody as irresponsible, stupid, clumsy, un-techy or un-sporty, there’s no room for improvement, no room for growth.

It’s based on a fixed mindset, with no solution to the negative situation. But if you un-label someone and focus on their behavior, there is suddenly room for improvement. There’s suddenly an action plan that can be put in place.

You can teach a person to use a fax machine, you can talk with them to not be late or repeat any other similar behavior, you can find a sport you dislike the least and start practicing it, and so on.

Negative labels usually mark people with a negative characteristic that they can do nothing about. And that’s big distorted thinking in a negative way. Everyone can improve.

Negative labels are a great way to create distance in relationships

If a person has a low capacity for love, they strive to create distance even in the closest relationships. There is a subconscious fear of abandonment and even if distance seems like a good risk mitigation strategy, it’s not.

The distance drives people away. In the end, they leave, doing exactly what we’re afraid of.

There are many ways to create distance. Criticism, irresponsibility, passive-aggressiveness and a negative label, of course. Your mind can easily find one thing about your spouse, friend, relative, business partner or lover that you focus on and that irritates you every time you’re together.

A small behavior, body part or something for which you can create a negative label and that goes through your mind over and over again. Well, not only in your mind, you throw it straight in the face of the people you love. You eat so fast, your gluttony is killing me.

In reality, you’re probably only afraid of closeness, you’re afraid of accepting the other person as they are and having a close connection. A multidimensional connection. There is absolutely always a better solution than throwing labels in people’s faces.

Labeling is nothing but an extreme form of overgeneralization that belittles you and others and destroys relationships. Don’t let your negative mind run on fear, trying to protect your ego with immature mechanisms.

Humans do exist. But fools, losers and jerks do not. David Burns

Remember, it’s probably not a characteristic, but rather a behavior that can be improved or changed; if the label is not only fiction in your head. Instead of labeling, try to accurately describe the behavior that bothers you, and figure out why with the 5-whys analysis.

Then talk with the other person about it, in the most kind and honest way possible. And stop labeling yourself and others, it only brings negativity to your life and the life of others.

The all-or-nothing mindset (also known as polarized thinking, dichotomous thinking or “black‑and‑white thinking”) is a common thinking error that turns you into a bitter perfectionist who gets emotionally irritated by the smallest deviations from unreachable expectations.

Since your expectations are completely unrealistic, and then life happens, you are constantly irritated, bitter and depressed.

With all-or-nothing thinking, any small imperfection turns your life into a big drama. Many times, you even tend to blame yourself for it. And during the day, many imperfections always do happen.

How good can you feel then about yourself and life? Once you become aware of your all-or-nothing thinking patterns and how silly they are, you can finally breathe easier and calm down.

Here are some examples of all-or-nothing thinking:

• In partnership: You see your partner as perfect and you are so madly in love. They are smart, charming, caring, passionate … everything you ever wanted. Then one day they don’t call you or you have a little fight for whatever reason. And the relationship isn’t perfect anymore, it goes from everything to nothing. You start to dwell on how unlucky you are, you focus on your partner’s imperfections and how you don’t deserve real love.
• In other relationships: The same can happen in every relationship … with your parents, kids, or friends. They might be wonderful, until they do the slightest thing that’s not within your expectations, and the value of the relationship falls to nothing.
• At your job: You want it all, a high salary, good job, creative type of work, flexibility, the best coworkers, good bonuses etc. And then one single thing that doesn’t completely meet your expectations makes your job the worst job in the world.
• In an exam: You provided really good answers to all of the questions in an exam, except one. But because of this one question, you feel horrible and ashamed, the examiner will see you for the fake you are or you might even fail the test.
• Diet: You decide to follow a new diet. But because it’s so demanding, you only manage to follow it 90% of the time. But this 90% feels like you completely failed the diet, you’ll never lose weight and you feel like complete loser.
• Different life situations: Travelling, wedding, almost any situation where you have unrealistic expectations. You expect your travel or wedding to be perfect, and then a mosquito bites you, and everything turns into the worst experience of your life.
• How you see yourself: The favorite target of your mind is unfortunately you. Consequently, you are no exception in going from everything to nothing. For example, you might have a nice day and feel good, but then you make a small error at work, and suddenly you are worth nothing.

When you mind is thinking in absolute all-or-nothing terms, usually words (absolute terms) like “always”, “never”, “every”, “nothing”, “either … or” are used. You don’t see things holistically, but only as right or wrong, good or bad, black or white and middle ground is not considered.

All-or-nothing thinking usually comes with a “should” statement and strong feelings of self-blame. You convince yourself that things should be different (more perfect) and then on top of that, you often blame yourself for the situation.

You focus on how your shortcomings, bad decisions, failures or mistakes have gotten you in such a horrible situation. You know that you are not good enough, that you don’t deserve things and that you’re a compete loser.

Everything starts with unrealistic expectations

All-or-nothing thinking always starts with unrealistic expectations. You unconsciously set the bar so high, it’s simply unreachable. And then your mind keeps guard for any small deviation, an imperfection that happens sooner or later.

When that happens, you are devastated and can’t believe how unlucky you are. But that’s only your mind trying to make your life miserable.

It’s absolutely good to keep high standards and strive for the best, but at the same time you must keep realistic expectations. There’s no such thing as a perfect job, every job has its pluses and minuses.

People do make mistakes, even you, and that’s pretty normal. All relationships have their ups and downs. Mosquitos do bite if you decide to go on a travel adventure during the summer.

Making a fixed vision of how something must turn out perfectly, otherwise it’s worth nothing is a formula for making sure an experience will be shitty for you.

Because even when the highest standards are met, you can always find some imperfections to dwell on. There can always be this one small thing that makes everything worthless. That kind of thinking can only bring misery to your life.

Extreme form of thinking: I’m either a success or a failure. If I don’t do everything perfectly, then I’m a failure. An outcome less than 100% equals 0%.

If you are wondering where that kind of thinking comes from, it’s very simple. You want everything to be perfect in order to be more loved, admired and accepted.

And you assume that every small imperfection will put you on a judging stand, where people will gossip how unworthy of love you are. But that’s only your perception, because nothing was probably good enough for your parents.

The problem is that in your mind, everything goes to nothing

The problem with all-or-nothing thinking is going from 100% to 0% and then back to 100% and again back to 0% again and again.

You swing from a perfect illusion in your mind until you find a small imperfection and then everything goes to nothing. When things calm down, you might go straight back to your illusion until you spot another imperfection.

Everything is perfect, you had one little fight, and your mind is already at a breakup. You feel wonderful at your job, it’s perfect, it’s just that the salary could be 10% higher, and suddenly you’re dreaming of how much better other jobs must be and how unlucky you are.

You have this good friend who never lets you down, and this one time they didn’t call, and you’re so mad at them, you never expected they can be so irresponsible. A mosquito bites you, a mosquito … on a dreamy Thai island and now your arm itches, how can you enjoy the view now …

Sometimes in life, things do get shitty. Sometimes bad things do happen. Some things in life are unacceptable and can really throw you out of the center.

But more often than not, your mind tries to convince you that things are much darker and terrible than they actually are. When that happens it’s time to stop your mind and enjoy life instead.

If things go 80% your way on your wedding day, maybe that’s a realistic expectation. And for the other 20% you might just surrender and accept that not everything is under your control.

The problem doesn’t occur if you see a few errors and try to correct them, or strive to make things even better the next time. The problem is when a person, situation or experience goes to complete shit, destruction, misery, worthlessness, devastation or ruin just because something (small) didn’t go as you expected.

A small imperfection, and suddenly you don’t see the good things anymore. Everything is bad, black. All the pluses are gone. If you can’t have it perfect, you would rather have nothing. That’s not how life works.

The gray areas where life unfolds

It’s only your mind’s illusion that people would love you more if you were perfect. It’s only your mind’s dirty misconception that you can only be happy if you have the perfect job, the perfect wedding, trip, spouse, friends or anything else.

You can be happy, even when life is not perfect. Because life rarely is perfect, since there are almost no absolutes in this world.

No emotionally healthy person would expect you to be perfect. That can only be an expectation from people who suffer from the same cognitive distortions and people who are unhappy with themselves. As you are when you think in absolute terms.

Perfect standards are shared only among unhappy people, your inner critic and probably your parents who were never satisfied. It’s time to take a step out of this vicious circle. It’s time to free yourself and be happy in all life’s imperfections.

Every job has its pluses and minuses. There are always minuses present. Long working hours, long commute, boring work, average salary or whatever. You don’t have to suffer at a job you hate, but you can find a job that meets most of your standards and then simply enjoy your work. A small thing you don’t like is not a big enough reason to make yourself miserable at work.

On every vacation, some things don’t go as expected. Maybe a hotel room is smaller than you expect, there are too many rainy days or your wallet gets stolen. These things happen all the time. But most of them can be solved quickly or should simply be accepted since they are out of your control, and then you can continue enjoying your vacation.

And every relationship has its pluses and minuses. Every relationship has its ups and downs. And there is always some annoying behavior you don’t like about every single person. Being late, laughing too loudly or talking a little bit too much. But that doesn’t make a relationship worthless. That’s not something to fixate your mind on. Instead focus on all the positives.

Life unfolds in the gray areas. There are no black and whites. Don’t bring things in your mind from everything, when they seem perfect, to nothing when the smallest thing doesn’t go according to your expectations.

It doesn’t make sense to go from 100% to 0% when only 5% doesn’t go as you expected. Don’t go for perfect, go for good enough instead.

In everything good, there is something bad

You are probably familiar with the Yin and Yang symbol from the Chinese philosophy. The symbol perfectly illustrates the duality of life, how contrary forces are interdependent and interconnected, and how nothing can be perfect in the natural world.

The only thing I would add are gray areas on the borders between the dualities.

First of all, the good can’t exist without the bad. If you didn’t experience at least some sorrows, troubles and challenges, you simply wouldn’t know what good, smooth and awesome is.

There is no light without dark. So, don’t expect only light. Expect life to happen as a whole experience, with all the good things and not-so-good things.

Secondly, there is a little bit of bad in everything good and a little bit of good in everything bad.

You can turn a disaster into a blessing (with a redemptive narrative), a tragedy into a comedy, and a problem into an innovative solution. Only a movie with a good complication is a good movie.

On the other hand, soft times make soft people, too much chocolate will make you puke, and too much money can make you super lazy. There are no absolutes and perfections in life.

Almost everything has its pluses and minuses. With everything that you experience, everyone you meet, there are some good things and some things not to your liking.

Just make sure your mind doesn’t turn the whole Yin and Yang symbol into a big dark black hole because a small stain appears on your white canvas. If you let your mind escalate in such a negative direction, you’re definitely going to experience only misery in life.

You must become mindful of when your emotional response is out of proportion in all-or-nothing a way.

How to deal with all-or-nothing thinking – Thinking in shades of gray

First of all, you must become aware of the big difference between when something bad does happen to you and you have every right to feel anger, sadness or any other negative emotions, and when a small irritation or imperfection turns your mind into a drunken negative monkey that tries to hurt you and everybody around.

There’s a big difference between the following situations:

• After dating a person for a few months, you realize they’re not the person for you, that you don’t fit together very well and it’s time to break up. It’s okay to be sad, but you know it’s the right thing to do.
• You are dating for a few months and everything is going so well. You are crazy in love and happy, but then you have a small fight; or you find a small imperfection. For example, your music tastes differ. And then suddenly everything goes to nothing, you see only the dark in the person, your miserable love life, everything is so dark …
• You were dating for a few months, things went really well, you were crazy in love, but then s/he cheated on you. You were so angry and disappointed and it hurt so much. You decided to break up, because cheating is unacceptable to you.

It’s not hard to recognize the scenario in which all-or-nothing thinking is present. It’s the second one, of course.

The first step to evict the all-or-nothing thinking error is to mindfully recognize when your mind is going crazy and takes something from 100% straight to 0%, just because of a small imperfection.

The all-or-nothing mindset is a recipe for a miserable life. Don’t be trapped in your own unrealistic standards. Nobody is 100% right or 100% wrong.

Cognitive behavioral therapist David D. Burns, author of the book Feeling Good, recommends that you practice a technique called “Thinking in Shades of Gray”.

Try to evaluate a situation, person or anything that forces you into black-and-white thinking on a sliding scale from 0% to 100%. You will quickly realize that there aren’t many things that can be marked at 0%.

You can’t be everything and you can’t be nothing. We are all somewhere in between. And I like you as you are, you don’t have to be perfect.

Jumping to conclusions is one of the most common forms of negative thinking. The problem with this type of a cognitive distortion is that conclusions are in most cases negative; catastrophically negative.

You usually jump to a negative conclusion without any justifiable facts of the situation or reality. In the next step, you start torturing yourself with how unlucky you are.

The “Jumping-to-conclusions” mindset is like owning a crystal ball that predicts only misery. If you had such a crystal ball , what would you do with it? You would throw it immediately away, of course.

So there is not a single reason to keep such a negative way of thinking in your mind. There are two types of cognitive distortive thinking where you automatically jump to a negative conclusion:

1. Fortunetelling
2. Mind reading

Fortunetelling

The first type of jumping to conclusions is called fortunetelling. You anticipate that a specific situation will turn out badly, no matter what you do.

You convince yourself that a negative outcome is an already established fact. You arbitrarily predict a poor outcome for you. No other option is possible. Period.

When you jump to such a negative conclusion, you automatically become negative, depressed, anxious, sad or angry. Your mind is filled with negative thoughts that trigger severe negative emotions.

Consequently you suffer, because the outcome in your head is not the same as you wish it would be.

But what if I tell you that you very frequently jump to wrong conclusions. What if you’re making a typical fortuneteller error? You assume something will happen, but you only assume it.

You don’t know it. You actually have no idea whether your predictions are true or not.

Acting on a wrong assumption is the basis of all big fu*kups. And torturing yourself based on untested assumptions is the ugliest form of mistrust in yourself, life and your personal power.

Bad things do happen from time to time (even to good people), but not as often as your mind would like you to think. And even more importantly, there is zero benefit to giving yourself a hard time before having all the facts. Simply because you are probably wrong!

Let me give you a few examples of fortuneteller errors I made recently:

• I worked with a client who had some financial trouble. I was 100 % sure she will be late with the payment. I was even in a bad mood for a couple of hours because of it. She paid the invoice before the due date.
• I had a medical checkup for a health issue. I had a really bad feeling about it. I expected the worst. I was so sure about my intuition. Deep down I felt like the bad outcome is something I have to experience to learn from it. I was so moody for a couple of days before the checkup. The results of the exam were perfectly fine. But I was so sure.

There are many common forms of fortunetelling. An exam that you will fail even though you studied properly and prepared yourself, a parking spot that you will definitely not find, the new product that you’re about to launch and nobody is going to buy, the promotion that you will 100% not get, and so on.

With fortunetelling, you’re torturing yourself based on assumptions that your negative mind made up. It has nothing to do with reality, at least until you gather all the facts and get proper feedback.

And in 90 % of the situations, things that you worry about have nothing to do with reality.

Mind reading

Mind reading is the second form of negative thinking when we talk about jumping to conclusions. If fortunetelling is about situations that you falsely assume will turn negative, mind reading is about untested negative assumptions about people.

You assume people don’t like you, won’t respond positively to your suggestions and similar, even though your assumptions are only a negative construct of your mind.

With mind reading, you are determined that you know how others are feeling towards you, even if they never said or did anything to that effect.

In the end, you prefer to torture yourself in the negative belief rather than opening a conversation and figuring out what people really do think about you.

Let me give you a few common examples of mind reading:

• You assume that she will definitely turn you down, before you even ask her out.
• You assume that the client doesn’t want to work with you, before you even send an offer.
• You assume nobody will like an article you just wrote anyway.
• You assume that people are focused only on that one imperfection you have with your body.
• You assume that some group of people doesn’t like you and they make fun of you.

There are many other forms of mind reading. You believe people don’t respect you, that you’ll get automatically rejected or that others won’t respond positively to your needs. But the reality might be completely different.

You don’t know for real what others think about you until you ask them. From time to time, some people might just not like you. And there are always some haters present in everyone’s life, especially when you stand up for something.

But they can’t really hurt you, if you don’t let them. You always have the chance to focus on your supporters, and embrace and understand the haters. The only question is what you focus your mind on.

The ridiculousness of mind reading is that you make assumptions about people before you even realize. You have no idea what is the opinion of another person, you only build a negative construct in your mind to feed your negative thoughts and emotions.

You let your mind turn into your worst enemy. Wouldn’t you rather visualize positive things? Make sure your mind is an asset not a liability.

Why do people visit fortunetellers?

Fortunetelling is a big business. When your mind fantasizes about all the possible negative outcomes, you need to balance it somehow. You need reassurance that things are not that negative as your mind is picturing them for you.

Then you visit a fortuneteller and they tell you (hopefully) that everything is going to be okay, one way or another. And negative thoughts slowly fade away.

Finally, you can also see all the positive signs. Finally, you gain some trust in yourself and life. That’s why people most often visit fortunetellers.

They have a great mistrust in themselves and life, and consequently they look for external confirmation that things can turn out positively. That gives them hope, and hope is what fuels a positive outlook.

But having a fortuneteller is only a crutch with a short-term supporting effect. Your mind can go crazy again very soon and go back to dark interpretations of reality – by jumping to conclusions or any other cognitive distortion.

That’s why people most often need to visit the fortuneteller over and over again. To calm down their insecurities. And that can be quite expensive.

Consequently, a much better alternative is to slowly develop trust in yourself and life, build a superior life strategy, develop competences that match your challenges, and on top of that manage your mind properly. Once you learn to manage your mind, you don’t need external crutches anymore.

It’s time that you stop jumping to conclusions

You don’t need to visit a fortuneteller to gain reassurance in yourself or life. All you have to do is to make sure your mind is not a negative crystal ball that only sees misery in your future.

The best thing is that you can get rid of a big portion of anxiety and negativity, as long as you discipline your mind not to jump to conclusions. There are some simple exercises how you can achieve that.

1. Check the facts

The best thing to do, if possible, is to check the facts and see if reality matches the negative perception. You will realize that it does only sometimes, but most often doesn’t.

When you see the reality undistorted, you don’t see only negatives, but also positives in your life.

• You might get rejected from time to time, but there are many people who enjoy your company
• Your article might not go viral, but there are absolutely readers who appreciate it
• What about all the situations when you were lucky and found the parking spot before everyone else?

Check the facts if possible. And make sure you check all the facts.

Ask the person to grab a coffee with you. If you get rejected, find someone who is really your fit. Send an offer to a potential client. Send your resume to the company you want to work for. Publish that article. And so on. And do all these things several times before you draw any conclusions.

Don’t assume negative outcomes, if in reality you have no idea what will happen. Instead just do a small manageable step, gather the feedback and adjust if necessary.

Gather all the facts as soon as possible and stop torturing yourself with imaginary beliefs. Performing life experiments is a great way to manage insecurities and see uncertainty as a scientist whose job is to discover how reality really is.

2. Practice thought stopping

Every time your mind tries to take you to a dark place with a negative conclusion, stop it. Simply say “No!” straight back to your negative mind. Just say, “we don’t know that yet”.

Remind yourself that your assumptions are not based on real facts, but just on negative beliefs. Don’t let your mind to turn into your worst enemy. Stop it at the first negative thought.

In the beginning, you might have to do it hundreds of times daily. Your mind goes crazy and you say no. And again and again and again.

In the beginning, you have to be strong, and make sure that you don’t let your mind off the leash no matter what. You have to be strong and defend yourself and reality. And the reality is that you don’t know the outcome yet.

3. Remind yourself of past positive outcomes

An additional exercise you can do to reframe your thinking in a more positive way is to find proofs of how your mind was wrong in your past. Remind yourself of all the situations where you got a positive response, even though you anticipated a negative outcome.

A client said yes to your offer, a person positively responded to your invitation to go out, you got a lot of praise for something that you did, or things somehow turned out just fine when you assumed the worst.

Remind yourself that your mind can overanalyze things and focus on the negatives, and that you won’t let it do the same this time. That should absolutely calm you down.

From time to time, we all get some negative news, and in such situations you must act appropriately to minimize the risk and pain. But you need to get rid of the thinking that most situations in your life will turn negative.

4. Practice trusting yourself and life

The less you trust yourself and life, the more your mind jumps to negative conclusions. The less you trust yourself and life, the more you need external crutches that calm down your insecurities.

The best and most permanent solution to discard jumping to conclusions is to practice trusting yourself and life. You must believe deep down that you’re going to be okay, no matter what happens.

You must believe in your personal power that there is always a step forward you can make, there is always an alternative path to your goal, and there is a positive narrative to find in every negative situation.

Let me give you some examples of how to practice trusting yourself and life:

• List all the ways how you can adjust your strategy or alternative paths to your goal when you hear a “no” from somebody.
• Read forums to see what kind of positive things people found in tough situations similar to yours.
• Develop a new set of competences that better meet the challenges that life throws at you.
• Write down every single instance when your mind anticipated something bad based on false assumptions, and then the positive outcome happened. When you have dozens of such cases, you can slowly start to mistrust your negative mind and trust in yourself instead.

Unrealistic expectations – the other extreme

Constantly jumping to negative conclusions is a nasty form of negative thinking. It’s a very common way of making one’s life miserable. It takes some consistent work on your mindset to get rid of such negative self-fulfilling prophecy.

But while working on your mindset, you must be very careful not to go into another extreme; the extreme of having unrealistic expectations that everything will happen as you wish without any obstacles.

The point of dealing with your mindset and negative thoughts is to see reality as it is – and then accept it, build and follow a superior strategy based on it, and finally start living a happy and successful life by mastering yourself and life’s rules.

That means you don’t let your mind see only the negative, especially where there are no facts for it, but at the same time you also don’t sail away towards positive illusions.

From time to time, bad things do happen. Sometimes you do get rejected. Most often it takes a lot more hard work than anticipated when you go after your goals or try to learn something new. And there are always some obstacles on the path of life.

But much like there are obstacles on the road, so there are lucky breaks, progress and positive responses. Having realistic expectations and focusing on the positive, without jumping to any conclusions when you don’t have the facts, is the optimal way of thinking. Employ it!