Limiting thoughts are an undesired by-product of our brains. All of our minds have thinking patterns, and the quality of them determines our lives. Since childhood, we interact with people and what we speak, what we hear, and the impression that we gain all influence our lives. If we interact with people that comfort us, we will establish a peaceful mindset. However, if we interact with toxic people, it would also influence our mindset and make us feel down.
What you believe makes you who you are and influences your life quality. That is why it is important to give importance to your inner journey. That will for sure help you to clear stubborn dysfunctional thoughts and influence your life quality positively. When you manage to eliminate these limiting thoughts, your life is going to get better.
Origin of Limiting Thoughts
There could be many factors in the underlying reason of our limiting beliefs. The most important one is the family values. They play an important role in how someone is raised. They could vary from cultural values, religious and spiritual values, ethical and moral values, and socioeconomic values.
For instance, Jeremyâs parents come from a very rich, however conservative, family. They always imposed the mindset that society is divided into classes, and they are allowed to be friends with people whose socioeconomic status is above a certain level. Jeremy and his siblings got the mindset that they are superior to the rest of the people and behave in this way in schools. They got the dislike of many people in the classroom. However, Jeremy and his siblings do not do it on purpose, and they do not understand why this is the case. They have the impression that this is a natural feeling.
A very interesting experience that I had was during my trip in Italy. When I was traveling in Italy, I realized that people were helping me to carry my luggage to the train because it would be heavy for me to do so. I did not even ask for it; they saw me and immediately helped me. The same day, when I arrived in the Netherlands, I realized that many people who are stronger than me saw me struggling with the luggage and just ignored me. Could we say that the people in the Netherlands are selfish? I would not think so. It is just that they are grown up with a mindset to mind their own business.
Common limiting thoughts
Limiting thought 1: I am not good enough:
Many of us feel insecure from time to time. It could be because of many things, like how people make us feel insecure with their critiques, or we did not assess our skills and jumped to it. In the end, it might make us insecure. Firstly, know that you are not the only one who experiences this.
Limiting thought 2: Everything needs to be perfect:
We live in the era of too many external demands. The society demands, parents demand, work demands. It might give us the message that we need to do everything perfectly. It is so much coded into our mind that we cannot get away from it, and if we are not in the right hands, it might threaten our mental health.
Jason grew up with a mother who was extremely critical. She often said, âYou cannot achieve anything.â This made him extremely ambitious. Jason grew up and became a marketing We are all social beings, and it is purely ok to want to be liked and be accepted by a society. However, having the expectation âPeople need to like me.â might be toxic. Firstly, no one is %100 match with no one. If everyone likes you, that could be an extremely serious problem. If your character is entirely settled, it is impossible for everyone to like you. You would be you, and people who resonate with you will like you. That is purely normal. Not being liked is ok. We need to convince our minds that everyone does not need to like you, and that is purely ok. Click to learn more about having a settled character. Learning about boundaries and codependency can help you become more aware of the topic.
Limiting Thought 3: People need to like me:
From this type of questioning, a client is guided to understand the truth and reach to a more realistic information in this case about their behavior. Maybe it is not about people who donât like him/her, but there were some behaviors that annoyed certain people. Or it could also be the case that the people that you try to gain their approval are actually not people who can get along with others.
Limiting Thought 4: Other people are better than me:
Since our childhood, someone has compared us. In school, we get grades all the time, at home, we have siblings with different skills. The media pushes us to be better, smell better, look better, have shining hair, and be in elegant dresses. At work, we have regular employment performance assessments where someone who has a higher position than us would give a score that will define our promotion and salary. It is not very easy for us to get the message that someone is better than us. Ten years ago, this situation was much worse; there was one kind of profile that was ideal. Like a Barbie doll. Thanks to the modern world, the importance that everyone is unique with different skills is well understood. See the collection of Barbie dolls with different skills. Every animal has different skills. Some can fly, some can walk, some can climb, and some can swim. Try not to fly if you do not have wings. We cannot say that fish is better than a bird. They are equipped to perform different skills.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to Restructure Dysfunctional Thoughts
Cognitive behavioral Therapy (CBT) was developed in 1960. It is one of the revolutions in the field that brought a groundbreaking invention to the field. More than thousands of trials are carried out to prove its scientific effectivity. The range varies from Depression, Anxiety, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), phobias, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and eating disorders.
CBT is a scientifically effective method to overcome many behavioral issues ranging from eating, sleeping, and depression. CBT is a therapeutic process that helps people question their thoughts, feelings and physical sensations. It helps people to deal with problems, identify faulty thinking and increase their awareness of their thoughts. Therefore it can be very effective to eliminate limiting thoughts.
CBT has two sides:
Cognitions: Identify distortion in the thinking, help the clients to be aware that they see thoughts and ideas as they are, take a step back from thinking, and consider situations from a natural point of view.
Behavior: Make a plan, monitor your situation, and compare the outcome of change over time.
Cognitive Restructuring:
It is a method used in CBT therapy to help clients to become aware of their distorted thinking patterns. The strategy is to encourage questioning the validity of a thought.
An example;
âNo one likes me.â
- Can you count the number of people who do not like you?
- Are there people who like you?
- From the experiences, did you do things that people maybe did not like you?
- People who you think do not like youâhow do they get along with people?
Since our childhood, someone has compared us. In school, we get grades all the time, at home, we have siblings with different skills. The media pushes us to be better, smell better, look better, have shining hair, and be in elegant dresses. At work, we have regular employment performance assessments where someone who has a higher position than us would give a score that will define our promotion and salary. It is not very easy for us to get the message that someone is better than us. Ten years ago, this situation was much worse; there was one kind of profile that was ideal. Like a Barbie doll. Thanks to the modern world, the importance that everyone is unique with different skills is well understood. See the collection of Barbie dolls with different skills. Every animal has different skills. Some can fly, some can walk, some can climb, and some can swim. Try not to fly if you do not have wings. We cannot say that fish is better than a bird. They are equipped to perform different skills.
Reforming the sentences in Gratitude is also a method to structure the thoughts. Click for cognitive restructuring.
In Conclusion
Dysfunctional thoughts could create an enormous barrier and could sabotage our lives, our work and our relationships. They could reduce our mood and make us feel inferior. It is important to be aware of them and work on them to reach a peaceful mindset. In this article, I have listed common dysfunctional thinking patterns and described a strategy to eliminate them and turn it into a realistic mindset. If you have issues with chronic low mood, please view this article.
