3 Ways to Challenge Negative Thoughts

Overcoming Negative Thought Patterns:

Have you ever heard that little voice in your head that just keeps overwhelming your mind with negative thoughts? Do you want to learn how to challenge these thoughts and boost your confidence and self-esteem? Let’s discuss some different strategies that can be helpful for tuning out that negative thinking.

Anxiety plays a huge part in the challenges of negative thinking patterns. Negative thought patterns can have a detrimental impact on self-esteem and mental health. It's important to understand ways to challenge these thoughts so that you can start your healing journey to self-love and acceptance. Sometimes we feel panicked about something in the moment, and so our brains will automatically assume the worst. But there are ways we can correct this behavior!

The Benefits of CBT Therapy:

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT for short, is an effective tool used in lots of therapeutic and psychiatric environments to help patients reframe their thinking. Instead of always assuming the worst, CBT therapy invites you to challenge these thoughts and view these ideas from a different perspective In the world of modern psychiatry, CBT therapy is considered to be the “gold standard treatment” for patients. This behavior modification has been shown to work both in the short term and the long term for mental health recovery. The success rate on average tends to be around almost 50%, giving this therapy strategy a good chance of helping you become more successful and more likely to ditch some of those negative thoughts.

Prepare Yourself to Challenge Those Thoughts:

Negative thoughts don’t do you any favors and you know it. If anything, they just keep you down, in the same place you’ve been stuck in for a long time. The longer you continue to listen to that “inner critic”, or in our case, the outrageous critic who jumps to conclusions way too easily, the more you start to believe those thoughts. You are in control of that. Believe that you have the power to be in control of that and you are halfway there! Remember to go into this therapy exercise with a positive and open mindset so you can see the most benefits.

There are three simple techniques we can use to challenge these negative thoughts. First, write down as many thoughts as you can that you have had before about yourself. Examine the thoughts and choose one to work on.

Strategy #1: Negative Reframe

The first strategy is called a “reframe”. You take that statement and try to figure out why you came to that conclusion. Once you are able to answer those questions, you "reframe" or turn your negative thought into a positive.

Questions to ask yourself:

What led you to this thought?

Is there evidence showing this thought to be true?

What evidence shows these thoughts are NOT true?

What is another perspective?

Evaluate how helpful this thought is.

Construct your reframed thought.

Example:

Negative Thought: "I'm just fooling myself if I think I would be able to do that"

Reframe: "I am brave and resilient, and I want to try this out because I believe in myself and think I can do it"

Once you have reframed your thought, write it down on paper and hang it up somewhere that you might go by often during the day, or keep it in your pocket and pull it out when you need an extra boost in self-esteem!

Strategy #2: Self-Compassion

This one is pretty simple. Think of someone who loves and cares about you very much. Analyze the thought you had and decide whether they would say something like that to you. Instead, think of what they might say to you or tell you, and write a note to yourself from the perspective of that person. What would they say to you right now if they heard you saying this? Write this down and keep it with you to ground your thoughts.

Strategy #3: Examining Core Beliefs

Sometimes our negative thought patterns are even more deeply rooted in our self-esteem due to years of trauma or anxiety. In this case, you might want to examine your core beliefs to really find out where this is coming from. Instead of looking at just one small negative thought like, “My face looks so bad”, examine the underlying core belief that the statement suggests. In this case, the statement suggests that the person does not find themselves physically attractive, so their core belief might be "I am ugly". Think about this core belief and really evaluate whether you believe it to be true or not:

Do you really think you are ugly?

Can you make any argument that this is true, or is this thought exaggerated?

Examples of negative core beliefs:

-I’m unlovable

-I’m not good enough

-I’m a bad person

-I’m stupid

-I’m ugly

-I’m abnormal

-I’m boring

Look at these core beliefs and see if you can come up with reasons why these statements are false about what you think of yourself. If you struggle, incorporate the strategy from the last exercise: pretend you are a friend or family member, write down what they would say to you that contradicts these negative core beliefs.

To Conclude:

CBT Therapy can be a great way to start challenging your negative thoughts and boosting your self esteem. The beauty of CBT is that you can do as little or as much of it as you want. If you want to start small, focus on one thought or one core belief for a week. See how your opinion changes over the course of the week. Write your thoughts down in a journal that you can reexamine at the end of the week and reflect on. What did this exercise help you learn? What did you learn about yourself?

What to Remember:

It’s kind of like planting little seeds in your brain that will eventually further strengthen and grow your self-esteem. You start automatically thinking of the opposing perspective when thoughts start running through your head, you ask yourself is it necessary to be worried about this right now? You start prioritizing what thoughts in your head get to leave and which get to stay. This is an important skill for anyone to learn.