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10 Cognitive Distortions – Part One

The 10 Cognitive Distortions
This is part two of an article on Cognitive Distortions, and part of the course Good Thinking. To read part two, click here.

“Depression is not an emotional disorder at all! How you feel is of no more causal relevance [to depression] than a runny nose is [to having a cold]. Every bad feeling is the result of your distorted negative thinking… Intense negative thinking always accompanies a depressive episode, or any painful emotion for that matter.”

     – David D. Burns, M.D., Feeling Good, p.28

Remember: Thoughts are never wrong – they are either helpful or unhelpful. Don’t shame yourself for thinking negatively, but become aware of the fact that problems can be viewed differently, in a way that is more helpful to you and contributes to finding a solution!
Contents

One: All-or-Nothing Thinking
Two: Overgeneralization
Three: Mental Filter
Four: Disqualifying the Positive
Five: Jumping to Conclusions
Recap

One: All-or-Nothing Thinking
The Problem

Also called dichotomous or black-and-white thinking, this refers to your tendency to evaluate your personal qualities and circumstances in extreme, absolute categories. It forms the basis for perfectionism (‘I’m a total failure for missing this deadline.’ or ‘My entire life of hard work is ruined’ when getting a B on an exam as a straight-A student). It causes you to fear any mistake or imperfection because you will then see yourself as a complete loser, having failed yourself, your family, or even everyone around you. As a result you will feel inadequate and worthless constantly, going as far as being demotivated from working entirely.

Evaluating yourself or the world in absolute terms is both unrealistic and unfounded. Finding errors and fault in things by appealing to an absolute standard is self-destructive and a fundamental cause of unhappiness. No one is perfectly happy, no one is completely attractive, and no room is perfectly clean and organized. Conversely, no one is absolutely miserable, no person is completely ugly, and no situation is irredeemably bad. Our world doesn’t allow for perfection and doesn’t deal in absolutes – only in our minds do can we take countless shades of gray and categorize them in black and white.

If you try to hold yourself or your experiences to an absolute standard you can only ever end up discrediting yourself and your life endlessly, reaching for an ideality that can never become your reality, because whatever you do and whatever happens in your life will never meet your exaggerated expectations.

The Solution

Understand that imperfections do and will exist in every person, in every situation, and in every attempt you will ever make at anything you want to achieve. Understand the difference between idealistic and realistic expectations, and become aware of your thoughts often falling into the former category, rather than the latter. Try to change things you want to see changed in yourself or your life more broadly, but only after accepting that things currently are as they are, and that things that happened in the past (even in the immediate past) have already happened, and feeling regret over it will not change the situation nor help you change it.

Place your negative cognitions (N.C.’s) in perspective, and realize that they are necessarily not as grim as you make them out to be. In doing so you will allow room for acceptance of what is, and find more clarity and peace of mind to find possible solutions to your problem and change what will be in the future.

Example N.C.: “I completely botched that presentation. I will never become successful as a public speaker. I am worthless.”

Example P.C.: “I made quite a few errors in that presentation. To prevent the same thing from happening of the future, I can now analyze these mistakes and learn from them. ‘If at first you don’t succeed, fail, fail again.’”

Two: Overgeneralization
The Problem

Overgeneralizing means you arbitrarily conclude that one thing that happened to you will occur over and over again, or has been happening over and over again. It also means that you will unfairly assume that a person will repeat something they did more often in the future. Since these things invariably pertain to things that are negative for you, you will feel upset, and anticipating more reason to be upset, you will become even more upset.

You will start extrapolating these events to other events (‘Why do these bad things always happen to me?’) and even other people (‘All men are untrustworthy.’). This will cause you to not only exaggerate the frequency with which these things happen to you, but also cause you to feel more strongly about them when they do happen (‘See? I told you they were all out to get me!’), or even cause these things to happen (e.g., a woman fresh out of an abusive relation has learned to think of all men of abusive, meaning she might be more tolerant of abuse at the hands of her next partner, because it meets her expectations for what all men do).

Generalization is a necessary tool for processing all the information our brains take in every day, and is generally a benefit to your mental well-being. The more you can generalize, the more heuristics your brain can use, the less straining a situation becomes. The problem with overgeneralization isn’t just the incorrectness of these generalizations, but the way too broad extent of your generalization and the emotional impact of having these thoughts.

When first you overgeneralize a trivial situation (for instance, dropping your cup of coffee on a particularly stressful morning, and thinking ‘Why am I always such a damned klutz?’), you’re establishing a dangerous precedent not just for a future repeating and amplification of that situation (‘Why can’t I do something as basic as holding a damn coffee cup? Geez!’), but also things that evoke a similar feeling (for example, imagine your being late for work after having to clean up that coffee cup, thinking ‘A klutz and a failure!’ as your boss starts yelling at you).

In the end, none of this is even remotely fair or realistic!

The Solution

Stop making such harsh and rash judgments, especially when doing so only causes you to feel bad! Understand that no small number of things that happen, and especially a single negative event on a bad day, is indicative of anything larger than ‘what just happened, happened’! See these situations for what for the isolated events that they are. Don’t allow yourself to make them bigger than that, and don’t allow these events to make you feel any worse than you’re already feeling.

When trying to overcome jealousy or rejection, which is fundamentally a self-esteem issue of which overgeneralization and black-and-white thinking are always at the root, it is important to understand that not only is the rejection you’re most fearing not permanent (i.e. not general over time), meaning that a rejection by a single person now doesn’t necessarily mean he or she will always reject you, but it’s also not general across people, meaning that one person’s rejection does not mean that other people will also reject you in the same way. There is simply no reason to believe this, nor is there any use in doing so.

Example N.C.: “My co-worker is rude and abrasive to me, and that’s just how it goes. People just always seem to find a reason to be annoyed by me.”
Example P.C.: “My co-worker was rude and abrasive to me. I didn’t deserved that, so I’m sure he had his own reasons – probably a bad day or something. If it continues, I’ll have to step up and say something, but I’m sure that won’t be necessary.”

Three: Mental Filter
The Problem

Also called ‘selective abstraction’, when your mental filter is active you tend to pick any negative detail of an event or person and dwell on it incessantly, and by making the focus something entirely negative you end up contaminating the entire event or person.

By shifting your focus to a negative aspect, or even conjuring one because your mood or state of mind compells you to, you end up with an entirely negative perspective that can chronically devastate your mood. Good things become bad, bad things become unbearable.

By not being aware of this ‘filtering process’ that blocks out the positive aspects of an event (‘I got an A+, sure, but I still made 17 errors, which just shouldn’t happen.’) or person (‘Sure, this guy is great and he obviously likes me, but he’s too richer — he’s bound to find someone prettier.’), you end up with a mindset that doesn’t allow for anything positive in your life, leaving you in a cycle that is not as much vicious as it is inescapable. You’ll conclude that everything is negative, adding to the belief that things are generally bad (see Two).

The Solution

Only noticing the negative aspects of a situation that can be almost entirely positive is a matter of attention first and foremost. To overcome it, you can list the all the good and bad things about a situation or a person and award scores to each thing listed. In doing so, you are accomplishing two things:

To make this work, force yourself to look at the good things, or even invent good things to fill up your list. This distracts you from the bad things and makes you more attuned to finding the good.
By awarding an arbitrary number to each good and bad attribute of this sum, you are forcing your brain to both accept and properly credit the positive. As seen in the game of life, simply crediting something is enough to have it effect change in your way of thinking.

You can also rethink each individual bad part, neutralizing them, or you can simply distract yourself by focusing in on the good things. If you choose the latter option, make sure not to try to block out the bad thought, but simply let it be and prioritize consciously thinking about the good over the bad.

Example N.C.: “This girl wasn’t very enthusiastic when she said goodbye. She basically ignored me. She must not like me at all, or be embarrassed about being seen with me. She’s never like this when we’re alone.”
Example P.C.: “She was very lively in the conversation we just had. She was very happy about seeing me, brief as it was. And since she was very energetic and really needed to get that energy out of her system, I can see her being a bit distracted as she went away. After all, if she really didn’t like me, why would she be happy to stay as long as she did?”

Four: Disqualifying the Positive
The Problem

Far more wretched and damaging than just a negative Mental Filter, disqualifying the positive is a persistent tendency to take neutral or positive aspects of something and warp it into something negative. This distortion doesn’t just make you ignore the positive, it enables you to take even the most blessed experiences and turn them into a mental hell. As David D. Burns puts it, you become a psychological alchemist capable of ‘transforming golden joy into emotional lead.’

For every negative assumption you can make about yourself, e.g. ‘I am worthless’ or ‘I am incompetent,’ you are already quite capable of your attention to facts that confirm those assumptions, and favor those facts over facts that refute those assumptions. When your mental filter focuses in on these negative facts, it can be enough to simply divert your attention to the positive ones. But what happens when you teach yourself to cleverly turn all those positive things into negative ones? You end up with a depressive mindset that can turn even the most soothing thoughts into the most paining punishments.

For instance, suppose you just got fired from your job. The statement ”I am a failure.” is on replay inside your head, and every negative point only serves to reinforce it, e.g. ‘Without this job I lost my chance at a successful career,’ ‘I just threw away ten years of my life’ or ‘My parents will be so disappointed in me.’ Your friends come over and list some positive things in an attempt to console you, like ‘This gives you a chance to explore other career opportunities,’ ‘Your boss always had it out for you, so now you can find a more pleasant welcoming workplace,’ and ‘You were the most successful marketer they had.’

Which all are reasons to feel at least a bit of relief in being freed from that hostile work environment. But, as a skilled self-persuader with a spiteful agenda, you manage to refute each and everyone of these arguments. ‘Explore other career opportunities, so I can fail at those at well? That is, if I even get a chance to fail horribly at them, which I’m sure I will.’ ‘If my boss had it out for me, that’s completely my fault. If I had been likable I’m sure I wouldn’t have so easily be replaced.’ ‘I was top salesman and I was still let go just like that. Only goes to show how horrible I am to work with.’

Even Aristotle couldn’t argue his way out of that level of misery.

The Solution

Stop being so needlessly cruel! Seriously. No situation is irredeemably bad! The situation isn’t  the problem – ever! In our previous example, you could have been let off with a full early retirement and that still wouldn’t have been enough  for you to stop beating yourself up about it. If you manage to convince yourself that there is nothing positive worth considering about a situation, even those things that are unmistakably positive, then you are being needlessly cruel to yourself. Not only are your thoughts extremely harmful, they are completely dishonest. You are lying to yourself.

You don’t even need to deny or ignore the negative aspects of something, but you shouldn’t let them hurt you, either, and you definitely should not be ignoring the positive alternative explanations that are equally valid, if not more so. Even when the list of negative things seems so vast that you don’t believe there is a way to talk yourself out of believing that something is beyond hope, who are you helping by rejecting the positive things that are equally real?

Example N.C.: “That was a complete mess. Stuttering constantly and failing at something as simple as small talk, it just turned into the most embarrassing show ever. And she could see my embarrassment, which possibly makes it even worse. I should just give up at even trying to be sociable. The fact that I got dressed up and walked behaved up until that point only serves to show what a fake I am.”
Example P.C.: “Well, I was looking quite sharp, and I think I can forgive myself the occasional screw-up. I at least got her to laugh, so at least one of us got some fun out of it. Even the smoothest talkers stumble at some point, and hey, maybe she’ll think I just stumble over my words when talking to her. Really, that’s kind of a compliment. Plus, if I try better next time, we can even poke fun at it together. Persistence is key, and I have that in abundance.”

Five: Jumping to Conclusions
The Problem

You tend tend to jump to negative conclusions that are not justified by the facts of the situation. You fill in gaps, and no matter how good you believe your reasons to be, you conclude something from a point of uncertainty and nearly always to your own detriment. There are two primary examples of this:

Mind reading: Making an assumption about the intent, beliefs or opinions of someone else, without bothering to verify with that person of whether or not your own assumption is correct.
Fortune telling: You predict the outcome of a decision or the occurrence of a future event, which is ultimately a miserable prospect that leads to more misery now, whether or not it will actually come to pass. You imagine something bad to happen and take this prediction is fact (and suffer the emotional consequences as if it had already happened) even though it is not based in reality at all.

By trying to predict the opinions or behaviors of another person, you are causing unnecessary tension and influencing your own mood and behavior negatively. This in turn leads to strained communication on your part, or evasion of the other person, leading good events being avoided for risk of things ending badly. Invariably, these will strain the relationship and your own mood further, leading to a vicious cycle of negativity that completely fabricated by your own unwanted thoughts. By imagining a bad outcome to a future event or an undertaking you’re considering, you will create an aversion to experiencing that event and try to avoid it, even though your expectation of failure or disaster is completely unrealistic.

In both these cases you are preventing yourself from finding out whether you are actually right in your assumptions (note: you never are), and so you can do nothing to rid yourself of a mental anguish that is undoubtedly much more severe than the discomfort you would feel if your imagined threat turned out to be real after all.

Some examples of Mind Reading:

It’s your first day working a new job, and a new co-worker is particularly abrasive and rude to you. You think to yourself, ‘He must not like me at all.’
While giving an excellent presentation, you see someone in the front row who is yawning and falls fast asleep a few minutes after. You tell yourself, ‘This audience thinks I’m uninteresting. They are bored out of their minds.’
You meet a friend at a gym you both go to, and when you finish your work-out routine together he leaves without so much as a word of goodbye. You conclude, ‘He must not like me much anymore.’ Afterwards, your friend doesn’t respond to any of your various Facebook messages during the weekend. You now fully resign to the ‘fact’ that he must not want to talk to you anymore.

None of these claims have any solid basis for believing them (and if they did, they still wouldn’t need to be a problem), but you still might suffer the consequences of thinking them. Stress, feelings of worthlessness, or being offended. You might respond by ignoring the person, withdrawing yourself from communicating with them and meeting them, or by launching a counterattack. Because of this, your self-defeating behavior- and thought pattern might become a self-fulfilling prophecy and create tension and negativity in a relationship without any proper justification. This is often the illusory cause of jealousy and mistrust.

Some examples of Fortune Telling:

Panic attacks work much in the same way. You tell yourself ‘I’m going to pass out or go crazy,’ and even though it is impossible to actually pass out during a panic attack, you inadvertently cause your panic attack to occur, while nothing would be amiss if you hadn’t worried about getting in a worrisome situation in the first place. Additionally, these predictions are unrealistic because you’ve probably never gone ‘crazy’ once in your life – so how could you possibly have just cause to make that prediction?
Depressed people often make the prediction that they will not improve, and the resulting hopelessness and stress will serve to worsen their emotional state and ‘confirm’ their suspicion. However, during therapy they will often improve regardless of whether or not they change that belief, indicating that the belief is completely unfounded. Getting that insight plays a major role in recovery from any type of emotional or anxiety disorder.

The Solution

First of, most of your assumptions are simply wrong. Further, the validity of your own assumptions isn’t even important to the situation at hand, and isn’t conducive to feeling good about that situation. So if you are going to make a prediction, make sure it is both positive (to feel good about it) and without expecting a certain positive thing (to not get hung by disappointment).

If you find yourself jumping to these conclusions, realize that as much as they might seem real in your head, there is nothing realistic about them, and continuing to convince yourself otherwise from that point on is a choice that you can decide against.

As a final example, take the situation described earlier, where your friend didn’t respond to your texts after he hastily ‘abandoned’ you at the gym:

Example N.C.: “He doesn’t want to talk to me. I best not message him anymore, as he’ll just think I’m obnoxious or pushy if I keep bothering him. I’ll only make a fool of myself. I best avoid him from now on.”

Example P.C.: ”He is probably busy. If he can’t respond right now, that’s fine. I could probably send him another message to see if he got around to reading my other message, and then I best leave it at him. I don’t know what’s going on in his life right now, he could just be busy for all I know. I will get an answer eventually.”

A few days later, your friend texts you back saying that he was away for the weekend and his phone wasn’t responsive when trying to text back. All the worry you could have had would’ve been completely pointless!

Recap

1. All-or-Nothing Thinking: Categorizing things in absolute terms, as either entirely good or entirely bad. When you or your experience fall short of your ideals, you consider it an abject failure.

Correct this distortion by becoming aware of the ideal that you are comparing yourself or your experience to. Imperfections are a fact of life, and trying to get around that fact is self-destructive, and counterproductive to changing things for the better.

2. Overgeneralization: You take a single negative event or behavior and extrapolate it to other events and behaviors across time (this always happens) and across people (everyone does this). You overestimate the frequency and the emotional severity of normal occurrences.

Correct this distortion by isolating that event or behavior and treating it as an incident. Use that awareness to prevent occurrences in the future, but don’t assume that future occurrences are inevitable and unavoidable – they aren’t.

3. Mental Filter: You pick out one or a few negative details and focus exclusively on those. You ignore the positive details, preventing them from weighing in emotionally in your evaluation of your experience.

Correct this distortion by placing these negative details in perspective. They are part of a vast amount of details, most of which are neutral and positive. Divert your attention to these positive things, and prioritize them over the negative ones. If necessary, make a list of all positive, neutral and negative details and value them with arbitrary scores.

4. Disqualifying the Positive: You reject the positive details entirely and insist that they ‘don’t count’ in your experience, or even transform them into something negative entirely. In doing so you can maintain self-destructive beliefs even when they don’t conform to your day-to-day reality.

Correct this distortion by accepting the positive things as well. Resist your urge to waiver the positive things or transform them into something worse. Valuing things positive or negative is a mental process, and whether or not you decide to accept positive things or interpret things in a positive light is under your direct control.

5. Jumping to Conclusions: You make negative assumptions based on baseless (mis)interpretations of your experiences. You do this while there is no definitive evidence that supports your conclusions and the severity of those conclusions.

Correct this distortion by reserving judgment and fact-checking. If you think something is off, confirm it! And, when you notice that you were unreasonably quick to judge or assume, acknowledge it! Only by becoming aware of your rash, unfair and unreasonably negative assumptions can you prevent yourself from  causing yourself more unnecessary pain and stress in the future!

Remember: Thoughts create emotions, and so how you feel about your experiencies is determined only by how you choose to look at them!
Also remember: Resist the urge to defend yourself! You don’t have to convince anyone that you’re right or justified in feeling how you feel. Of course you are! Your feelings are your feelings, and they can never be wrong! However, since you are right regardless of whether you feel good or bad about something, you have to ask yourself only the question: Is thinking and feeling this way helpful or unhelpful!
If you enjoyed reading this, please check out the part two of this article, and if you want to support us, please Like us on Facebook and join our community!
Thanks for reading, and best of luck in becoming a better you!

Game of Life – What is Motivation?

Used Terminology:

Acceptance; Internal reward; Cognitive causation; Ironic Processing a.k.a White bears/Synthetic obsessions; 

TED TALK ON GAMIFICATION: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2N-5maKZ9Q

[001] Motivation Fundamentals – The Theory behind the Method [001.1] What is motivation? Without going into excruciating detail and omitting some non-vital facts, motivation isn’t actually a thing on its own. To become motivated and capable of motivating yourself, it is key to realize the following: Motivation is not a character trait, nor a situation, nor a state of being. Motivation exists as the product of the equation [Value of Perceived Motivators] – [Value of Perceived Demotivators], where the value is entirely subjective and decided by your own person valuation system. Motivators are: 1) The Expected reward/pay-off; 2) Self-Efficacy (How capable you find yourself to complete the task at hand, or: how likely is it you’ll be able to complete the task?); 3) other Internal or External rewards received during and after your various actions. Demotivators are: 1) Stress in any capacity; 2) Worries or other negative cognitions or emotions that cause stress; 3) punishments, including internal ones, leading to stress, and 4) any counterpoint to your motivators that cause any of the preceding. Example: Your essay is taking longer to finish than you’d have hoped. It’s 0:20 and you should’ve gone to bed before midnight. You lament about how slow you are and how you can “never get anything done in time.” This makes you feel ashamed and worthless. Feeling shame and worthlessness is an internal punishment, stemming from your negative cognition about yourself or your behavior, and this creates stress. Meanwhile, you’ve successfully managed to lower your sense of self-efficacy, which feeds into this. TL;DR version: In one hand you hold your rewards, in the other hand you you’re your stressors. These balance out to create your motivation and, if motivation > 0, will put your brain into action.

TL;DR of TL;DR – Motivation Equation:

Motivation Product = [Expected and actual reward] – [Stressors]

So, to become motivated (Motivation Product > 0), you need to do two things: 1) Increase the value of your rewards, and 2) decrease the negative value of your stressors.
Easy enough so far, right?

Some other facts about motivation.

Fact 1: Internal reward (see: Terminology) works better than external rewards, is easier to last, increases in effectiveness of time rather than decreasing, self-perpetuates, and over-all gradually makes you more satisfied with yourself and whatever it is you’ve done.
*Fact 2: * Internal reward can be generated at will, with practice. Additionally, any arbitrary act or marker can serve to generate internal reward. Further additionally, any act can and should be rewarded, and in doing so motivation becomes stronger and internal reward more valuable, not lesser.
Fact 3: The number one thing stopping you from motivating yourself is your awareness that you are not motivated, and your existing belief, however minor, that you cannot be motivated. These things disappear fastest by exposing your brain to reward constantly, and in any applicable situation, no matter how minor. So, you have to do practically nothing to start the self-perpetuating cycle of self-motivation. How lucky is that?
Fact 4: Smaller steps to a larger goal, as you’ve often heard, work for two reasons, both of which you can deduce by inserting the variables in the Motivation Equation above. The reasons are 1) Higher self-efficacy and 2) Higher perceived reward (since they are all but guaranteed).

[001.2] Simplified Awareness and Acceptance:

*This is a preliminary way to reduce stress, to help you right now, without making you suffer through the elaborate learning process of things like NC/PC lists (Cognitive Reappraisal), exposure and systematic desentization, EMDR-therapy and EFT, etc.
Additionally, in the next section, I’m going to give you a preliminary way to use Awareness and Acceptance, and reward yourself, without making you suffer through creating your own scoring and reward system. For those interested, they will follow in due time.*

Awareness (part of Mindfulness) works, look at this[4] and [this]( http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/08/health/la-he-mindfulness-20110109[5] ]. How does it work, though?

Simply put, brains fuck up, in ways more aptly explained by the theory behind White Bears/Synthetic obsessions. The thoughts/emotions are there, you don’t want them to be there, soon you will fear them being there, you won’t want to fear them being there, and when either the fear or the thought is there or even thought to be there, you will become terribly stressed. Again: brains fuck up. Now how do we unfuck them down?
We acknowledge that they’re there, without doing or thinking anything.
You might think: “What’s this voodoo? What, you’ve heard of this, but how do we learn them? Hey, you said this would be easy, not that I needed to be a Yogi!”
Or, you might not, in which case someone else probably did. So I’m not completely wrong.
Anyway, I promised you an easy, simple way to accomplish ‘Awareness’ and ‘Acceptance,’ without the exhausting process of reappraisal that (Fact!) most skilled psychonauts agree can often cause more stress and fears and NC’s after becoming ‘aware’ of the initial NC’s, and even traumatize you or burn you out in the process. (The theory behind it is interesting but long-winded – think ‘Too aware,’ ‘anticipatory fear,’ ‘fear of what isn’t thought,’ and take it from there.)
Awareness is simply ‘noticing an emotion, physical sensation, or thought’ – those more aware notice increasingly more of these, and as such become better at contextualizing them and devaluing them, or at the very least use the same level of devaluation in a timely and effective manner.
Acceptance is not doing anything about it, effectively allowing whatever negativity (or positivity) is there to exist in your mind without impacting you, the independent and neutral observer.
There’s three other facts that I need to point out, and they all hold true no matter what way of self-regulation or self-management you use (with NC/PC in particular, with EMDR as possible exception):
Not writing down your thinking (specifically: that you’re thinking, though when possible what you’re thinking) is asking for the thought to not leave your mind, unless you’re well-trained at letting thoughts dissipate (through trained mindfulness/meditation). In any situation is better to acknowledge a thought and write it down, both as soon as possible.
Whether they’re positive or negative, lingering thoughts will prove stressful in some capacity eventually.
No even remotely negative thought is worth the energy spent thinking about it, no matter how acute the worry or how real the perceived consequences of not worrying. Caring is okay, worrying is not. This couples with the fact that thoughts are only as real as you let them be.
You’re not going to know every thought or cause of emotion that you’re ever going to have. So, don’t feel anxious not-knowing, don’t try to excavate your underlying thoughts if they’re currently buried to deep – being aware is enough.
If you need help to distance yourself from your physicals feelings or thoughts, remember this: It feels. it thinks. You observe.
Now, finally, we’ll move on to one of the methods to synthesize a limitless supply of internal rewards to boost our motivation, and diminish or eliminate most antagonizing stress the moment it arrives.

[002] Tick Counters and their basic uses:
The first category of helpful tools in any self-betterment arsenal are Tick Counters – incredibly versatile, incredibly simple, incredibly effective.

What is a tick counter?
A Tick Counter is generally a Wrist Counter that you tap once every time you want the number to go up by one. I call it a ‘Tick Counter’ since that’s the sound most watches/apps make when you tap, and because it reminds me of the ticking of a clock, indicating symbolically that every tick is progress. That’s a nice gimmicky addition for me, but call them whatever you want.
Either with an App, or with an actual Wrist Counter, or simply by marking each ‘time’ your ‘x’ happens on a notepad or, in case you’re as forgetful as me, your hand – anything that makes your imaginary count go up is a functional Counter.

What will I use them for?
Anything you want, really – their uses are so plentiful that I’m going to have to cut it down to the bare essentials for the most frequent areas of self-betterment, but I’ll briefly list some alternative uses as I go. These three will be your foremost uses:

1) Positivity Counter: Count every instance you have any unfavorable thought or emotion, about anything, using a general count or categorizing at your leisure.
Now, every time you notice a negative thought, emotion or sensation, become aware of what it is you’re feeling or thinking, or where the feeling is located. Then, preferably out loud, state what is happening in the following way: “It [my body/mind] is experiencing x.”
E.g. *”It is feeling anticipatory anxiety,” “It is frustrated with its spouse’s behavior,” etc.
Breathe in deeply and tense all of your muscles, then breathe out and relax.
That’s one count.
If preferable and believable (depends on your skill at rethinking), you can then quickly rephrase it positively, further distancing yourself: “It will be feeling fine, this is just temporary – and either way, it doesn’t affect me.”
(Further advancement in rethinking will allow you to outright redefine the reality of that thought right then and there, but that is beyond the scope of this guide.)
That’s the second count.
Lastly, you should reward yourself for becoming aware and preventing escalation: “I’ve just kicked the ass of yet another troublesome thought. Damn, I’m awesome.” Using a fist pump or victory stance[6] will help strengthen and heighten that dopamine response you’ll be eliciting over and over.
That’s the third count.

What it will do:
a) You’ll become increasingly aware of how often and what type of negative thoughts you have, and their causes.
b) You’ll become increasingly aware of the relatively low or even non-existent value of any individual negative thought and worry.
c) You’ll learn to distance yourself from your thoughts/emotions and regulate yourself better in stressful situations.
d) You’ll learn to appreciate your own efforts, and your own skill and ability to change your own reality.
e) Eventually, most former blocking NC’s will elicit the feelings of achievement and self-encouragement that d) notes.
f) After a start-up period in which you’ll write down more and more negative counts as you become increasingly aware of their existence, they will gradually lower in frequency.

2) Positivity Counter: Conversely, you could (and should) similarly use a Tick Counter for your positive thoughts and emotions.

What it will do:
a) You’ll become increasingly aware of what makes you feel good, and how often, allowing you to focus on those things.
b) You’ll become increasingly aware of the positivity hidden in the smallest things, and over-all will feel a lot more positive as a result. You’re training your brain to feel positive things!
c) You’ll learn to distract yourself from the negative by paying attention to the positive.
d) You’ll learn to appreciate just how awesome you are. Because you are. 🙂

3) Achievement Counter: Count every instance you’ve done anything remotely worth mentioning, in any way, shape or form, using a general count or categorizing at your leisure.
For this, we are going to describe ‘remotely worth mentioning’ as ‘something you didn’t need to do.’ And something you didn’t need to do is, well, everything.
I won’t go into detail and write out all possible things you could reward yourself for, but drinking that glass of water (tick), brushing your teeth (tick), smiling to that stranger or the street (tick) and noticing his eye-color (tick). You get the gist of it. In fact, be as over-the-top as you want! Creating and amplifying enthusiasm is key to motivation!
In fact, enthusiasm is an extra count! And smiling at yourself for rewarding your own enthusiasm deserves another reward! Counts all around!
Rewarding yourself higher for some things over others is not something I’ll discuss until the section on creating your own reward system, but whatever you do ratio-wise, be sure to reward everything. Learn to appreciate yourself and what you’re doing, however small. If you’re only going to be doing three things on your leisure day, might as well feel like a champion for doing them.

What it will do:
a) You’ll become increasingly aware of what just how many things you already do, allowing you to see yourself as more competent and worthwhile. Additionally, increased self-efficacy.
b) You’ll become increasingly aware of just how much reward you can get from the simplest things, teaching you to be more concerned with what you’re presently doing, and the process, rather than what is in the future, and the eventual goal.
c) You’ll learn to not lament your failings, but instead celebrate your successes, however small. You’ll learn to appreciate just how awesome you are. Because, as I said, you are. 🙂
d) Together with the other two counts, they will help you reach your Critical Positivity Ratio, which is a theorized ratio between good and bad thoughts and feelings that contributes immensely to your happiness and mental health. Aim for at least 3 positive thoughts for every 1 negative thought. Forgive yourself if that’s not feasible at this time.

[002.1] Additional advice

PROTIP 1: Doubt kills motivation. Whatever you want to do: Do or do not, but decide, and support your own decision!
PROTIP 2: It might feel odd rewarding yourself so generously, or learning to love and accept yourself unconditionally. Don’t worry about that – reward yourself for your unease and love yourself for not being able to love yourself.
PROTIP 3: Reward yourself for every n-th counter by writing yourself a small note, explaining just how awesome you are and why, and put it somewhere for you to later find. Alternatively, hug yourself once in a while, and just tell yourself how much you appreciate being you.
People who are content with themselves and accepts are not often lacking in motivation, because they have no reason to discourage themselves. Learn to love yourself and accept yourself fully and unconditionally, or at the very least give yourself an earnest compliment now and then.

[002.2] Possible categories and alternative uses:

For the Negativity Counter, consider separating the worries and fears into distinct categories according to these ‘Domains,’ counting them multiple times if needed:

1) (Personal) Safety, e.g. ‘I am in danger (of punishment or harm).’
2) (Personal) Worth, e.g. ‘I am worthless/incompetent/cowardly.’
3) (Personal) Responsibility, e.g. ‘I am responsible (for our dysfunctional relationship).’
4) Control, e.g. ‘I am powerless (to change this).’

For the Positivity Counter and the Achievement Counter, consider separating all counts into the following categories, counting them multiple times if needed:

1) Mental, counting things that made you correct your thinking, or positive cognitions/reappraisals, etc.
2) Mindfulness, counting meditation/breathing exercises, awareness, appreciation of the Now, seeking out nature, gratitude exercises, etc.
2) Emotional, counting things that made you feel good, things that made you more resilient to future emotional downturns, like gratitude exercises and awareness, physical-emotional things like hugs, etc.
3) Physical, counting physical things, including exercises, walks in nature, dancing sessions, jumping for joy, etc.
4) Social, counting any interaction, like greeting a stranger, answering your e-mails, smiling while greeting a stranger, having small-talk, using social physicality (shaking hands, hugs, touching shoulder, etc.), etc.
5) Personal acceptance, counting every time you’ve made yourself aware of how awesome you are, or have complimented yourself, written yourself a motivational note, thanking yourself for your own effort, hugging yourself, etc.

In general, use these counters to become as aware of what is on any given day as possible, and see what it does for you – then come back and share with me your experiences. I’m curious to see what it’ll do for you!
Be generous, emphasize your successes, mitigate your failures, and gradually build up the stress-tolerance and self-confidence to tackle your larger goals!
Next time, we’ll be taking it a few steps further, and Gamifying life into the way it was always meant to be played.
Good luck, signed with love,
Joven

___Planned chapter:
[003]: Gaming the System – Creating your own reward system!___

For social hacks and mastery, check out my Google Doc: Encyclopedia of Social Engineering[7]
For “THIS ONE WEIRD TRICK TO RELIEVE GRUDGES – PSYCHOLOGISTS HATE ME,” check out my Reddit Post: Grudge Letter[8] (Outdated but still effective)
Join the sub! 😀 /r/mindundercontrol[9]
Like my Facebook page to get updates more quickly, and make me more happy. :)[10]

Terminology

Acceptance: Surrender to the reality of a situation, recognizing a thought, emotion, behavior, situation, etc., without attempting to change or protest it.
Internal reward: Feelings of contentment, joy, pride, or any other favorable emotions felt internally toward oneself, as a reward for own perceived achievement.
Cognitive causation: The idea that all emotions stem from cognitive processes, being either conscious or unconscious thoughts.
Ironic Processing a.k.a White bears/Synthetic obsessions: Whenever a thought a repressed, that is to say consciously or subconsciously blocked, it will tend to ‘intrude’ at a later time, when your mind accidentally comes across it. The fear reaction will amplify and it will be blocked again, perpetuating a cycle where a simple thought, however innocent, can become immensely detrimental and destructive. These unwanted thoughts are the root of pretty much all perpetual stress and negative emotion.
Personalization: A cognitive distortion whereby a person assumes responsibility for a negative experience even when there is no basis for doing so. They erroneously conclude that what happened was their fault, or reflects an inadequacy on their part. It is a distortion because only circumstances or behaviors can be problematic, never a person. More generally, personalization implies believing yourself to be a burden on others.
Presence: One of three fundamental behaviors of a charismatic person. Being present means having a moment-to-moment awareness of what’s happening around you, and paying attention to what’s going on around you, and paying attention to other people, rather than being caught up in your own thoughts. Like other charismatic behaviors, it is a learnable skill.
Warmth: One of three fundamental behaviors of a charismatic person. Warmth means showing goodwill towards others. It tells others whether or not you will want to use your power in their favor. Being seen as warm means being perceived as being one or more of the following: benevolent, altruistic, caring, and more generally willing to impact the world in a positive way. Like other charismatic behaviors, it is a learnable skill.
Power: One of three fundamental behaviors of a charismatic person. Being seen as powerful means being perceived as able to affect the world around us, through influence on and authority over others, by having lots of wealth, by having expertise, by being intelligent, by having large physical strength, or by having high social status. Like other charismatic behaviors, it is a learnable skill.
Mood: Your mood is the result of balancing of all your negative and positive thoughts, emotions, memories. It has either a positive or negative valence, i.e. a good mood or a bad mood, respectively. Your mood acts as a defense mechanisms against incongruent thoughts, meaning a good mood will actively suppress and reject negative thoughts, and vice versa. A mood is a complex and highly dynamic Thought Web.
Incongruity: One of five key components of effective persuasion. Incongruity more broadly refers to anything that doesn’t agree with what precedes it. A negative thought is incongruent with a positive mood, and Flipnosis relies on building expectations and then breaking them to cause an exaggerated positive response.
Flipnosis: Also known as split-second persuasion, this is a persuasion technique that utilizes the five major axis of persuasion, S.P.I.C.E., to allow for on the spot, instant persuasion and rapid rapport building.
S.P.I.C.E.: S.P.I.C.E. is an acryonym for the five most important axis of persuasion: Simplicity, Perceived Self-interest, Incongruity, Confidence, and Empathy. They are and the key components of successful Flipnosis.
Simplicity: One of five key components of effective persuasion. Persuasion is most effective when what is said can be easily understood by the Target. Simple words, metaphors, and short sentences all help promote ease of understanding.

Perceived Self-interest: One of five key components of effective persuasion. Refers to the appearance of a course of action, a behavior, or a situation as beneficial to a Target.
Confidence: One of five key components of effective persuasion. Refers to the sense of self-efficacy, self-esteem and expertise a person exerts.
Empathy: One of five key components of effective persuasion. More than warmth and emotionality, it refers to a persons ability to understand and relate to others and their interests.
Target: A person you are interacting with and trying to influence in any social engineering effort or general social setting.
Sincerity: An of honesty and openness, as conveyed to and perceived by your Target. Sincerity is hard to fake, so genuinely aspire to be a good conversational partner, whatever your intention may be.
Sincere Interest: Sincere interest refers to your demonstrated interest in another person, their interests and their well-being. It gives them a sense of being understood and worthwhile. It is developed and trained by consciously training and applying Empathy.
Stress: Refers to any unwanted emotion, feeling, cognition, or physical sensation, irrespective of whether its origin is positive or negative.
Aspects of Motivation: Anything that promotes a desire to act, e.g. a sense of self-efficacy, perceived self-interest, (expected) external reward, and (expected) internal reward.
Aspects of Stress: The counterpart to Aspects of Motivation. Anything that reduces the desire to act, e.g. lowered sense of self-efficacy, (expected) internal punishment, (expected) external punishment, a sense of powerlessness, a sense of hopelessness.
Top-Down Reasoning: A method of discovering the Fundamental Negative Cognition. Utilizes questions that force a person to dig down lower into their Thought Web, e.g. ‘Why does that matter to me?’ and “Why is that a problem to me?”
Fundamental Negative Cognition: The underlying thought at the root of any Thought Web. Can belong to any of four Cognitive Domains: Responsibility/Guilt, Control, Self-worth, or Safety.
Thought Web: The collection of Positive Cognitions and Negative Cognitions belonging to a specific mental abstraction, such as an experience or person. Has at its root a Fundamental Positive Cognition or Fundamental Negative Cognition, depending on its valence.
Cognitive Domains: Each Positive Cognition or Negative Cognition belongs in one of four cognitive domains: Responsibility/Guilt, Control, Self-worth, or Safety. Examples of Fundamental Positive Cognitions for each domain are “I am not at fault,” “I am in control,” “I am a worthwhile person,” and “I am safe,” respectively. Examples of Fundamental Negative Cognitions for each domain are “I am at fault,” “I am powerless,” “I am worthless,” and “I am in danger,” respectively.
Absolute Worth: The assumed truth that your value as a human being, and as a person, can never change or be lost.
Acceptance: The awareness of the reality of things, and your conscious allowing of things to be as they are. Realizing that all is necessarily as it is, and thus how it should be, and that though it can change, it should never be expected or hoped for it to change, cause you to have more Presence, and nurture more Synthetic Happiness. It is a fundamental component of Mindfulness, necessary for being able to live in the Now, and helps neutralize all forms of stress, since nothing can both be simultaneous unwanted and accepted.
Equifinality: The assumed truth that everything ends up with the same valence in the end, so that it becomes irrational to worry. All losses and pain are neutralized and accepted in the end, and all successes and pleasure are as well, unless intentionally revisited. This implies nothing matters enough in the end to warrant worry, stress or discomfort in the Now.
Forgiveness: The same as Acceptance in all but a semantic sense. When forgiving others, forgiving circumstances and experiences, and most importantly forgiving yourself, you are really just accepting the reality of a situation and releasing the hold of all negativity. After all, forgiveness is not for others, it’s for you.
Futural Perspective: The realization that what doesn’t matter in three years, doesn’t matter at all. See also: Equifinality.
Fearlessness: Absence of doubt or reservation; absence of consideration for possible dangers, failings, or misfortunes; and absence of inhibition.
Futility of Doubt: See Futility of Negativity and the Certainty Principle.
Futility of Negativity: The realization that any negative emotion or cognition, such as doubt or worry, cannot help you under any circumstances, and there is no advantage to having or defending them. When something has a negative or unhelpful impact on you by causing stress in any way, you have a conscious choice to rid yourself of negativity and remove that stress from your life.
Futility of Worry: See Futility of Negativity. Remember: “If you can do something about it, there’s no need to worry. If you can’t do anything about it, there’s no need to worry.”
Uncertainty Principle: Humans have a fundamental aversion to uncertainty, and experience stress when indecisive or being unsure of what to do.
Certainty Principle: To rid yourself of the stress that comes from uncertainty, doubt and worry, it is better to “Do or do not, but decide.”
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