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Writer's pictureAudrey Palmer

Have You Thought About the Way You Think?




Have you thought about the way that you think?  Why you say the things that you say?  How effective you are?  What are your thinking habits?  We all have thinking habits and thinking traps that direct our actions and ultimately our attitude.  Our thinking habits can help or hinder our progress in relationships and life.  Those who have negative habits tend to be less happy and unable to move on from adversities. 


What are these thinking habits?  After being a trainer in resilience I became familiar with negative and positive thinking habit and traps.  


  • All or Nothing Thinking - those who believe that there is no in between, only good and bad all or nothing. Those people tend to be inflexible in thinking and relationships. They need to learn to dance in shades of grey look at the full picture and see all the nuances.  

  • Mind Reading – mind reading assumes that we know what another person is thinking. The problems with mindreading are that we don’t do it well. We then react to others based on our own imagination, not what on the person said. We run into problems because we react based on our own thinking, not the other person’s behaviour.

  • Prediction - this knows what will happen in the future. Those who predict the future act according to the prediction .

  • Catastrophizing - this is imagining the worst will happen. We are the perpetual Eeyore who has the constant dark cloud following them around.


When I lived in Jamaica we had a tall coconut tree in the front of our yard.  Year after year,  after storm, the tree kept standing.   It was long and flexible, so it moved with the wind.  As tall as it was it did not break.  When the wind of adversities came along through storms, it swayed and moved, but did not break.  Sometimes like that tall tree we need to move with the wind.  Changes will happen in every life, the way we handle the changes will determine how  content we are  with our lives.   Sometimes we have to just “roll with it”.  The old saying “ a rolling stone gathers no moss” still true.  Those who keep moving will not keep debris around them.  People like those tend to more positive and happier in life.  What are these positive attitudes?  


Stop. Think. Reflect.  This is not a thinking habit, but used often can have positive effects on a persons attitude.  Stop the negative thinking, think about the options, and make a positive choice, reflex on the options for the future.


What is the alternative hypothesis?  Especially when we enter into mind reading and prediction, a good question to ask is what else is going on? What could the problem be? 

Think on positive things.


Start the day off with an attitude of gratitude.


Winnie the Pooh had a thinking time.  Give yourself negative thinking time, write all the things that could go wrong them write all the things that could go right.  Move on after your thinking time


 Blessed are the flexible, for the shall not be bent out of shape.

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