Common Thinking Traps & How to Challenge Them

Thinking traps, also known as Cognitive Distortions, are the way your brain functions to keep you safe. Yes, believe it or not, thinking traps are a survival mechanism. When your mind perceives something dangerous or threatening—like a situation similar to something you’ve come across before that might have ended badly—an internal alarm bell goes off, triggering your brain to let you know to beware and watch out! Your mind will then produce an onslaught of negative thoughts or assumptions—the infamous thinking traps.

Sometimes, you will come across situations that really are dangerous or threatening where you should use caution. However, the brain isn’t very good at distinguishing between a real danger versus a completely harmless situation. Oftentimes, your brain will set off false alarms. For people who struggle with depression or anxiety, those false alarms can go off all the time. For example, for a person with anxiety, entering a room full of people could definitely trigger the internal alarm even if it’s a completely harmless social situation. However, the brain remembers way back to when you were, say, 5-years old and you ran out of your Kindergarten class in tears after a room full of kids made fun of you and called you a doo-doo head. So, from that point forward, anytime you go into a similar social situation—even if it’s remotely similar and even if it’s three decades later—that familiar anxiety and fear will kick in full force. This is just one example. We can develop negative thoughts and beliefs due to a variety of situations and experiences we face throughout the life span. The brain is designed to remember negative experiences even more than positive ones making it a perfect platform for thinking traps. Below we will go over some common ones and how to challenge them.

Thinking Trap 1: When you’re convinced you can read other people’s minds.

This thinking trap is also known as mind reading. It happens when you assume that other people are thinking the worst of you or have some ill intention towards you. You may be so confident of your mind-reading abilities that you may respond and act as if another person does not like you or has a negative opinion of you. This will likely result in eliciting that very reaction in the other person prompting you to believe you were right!

Challenge: Work on catching yourself any time you’re making an assumption about another person or situation. Ask yourself whether you might be thinking and believing things without any real evidence. If someone makes a rude remark, consider the possibility that they might just be having a bad day. If someone gives you a dirty look, consider that their frown might be due to their own struggles and personal problems. Avoid assuming that people’s behaviors and reactions have to do with you. More often than not, people are much more focused on themselves.

Thinking Trap 2: When you’re certain you can see into the future.

We all have moments when we’re certain that we can predict what will happen later, tomorrow, next week, or 10 years from now. Also known as fortune-telling, this thinking trap can fool you into believing that you know something bad will happen in the near or distant future. You may be so convinced of your predictive abilities that you behave as if that future possibility is already a reality.

Challenge: You can challenge this thinking trap by, firstly, considering whether you tend to anticipate the future because of your own fears and self-doubt. By expecting the worst, you might feel that you save yourself from disappointment later on. However, the problem with fortune-telling is that as you mentally prepare for the worst, you also act like the negative outcome is going to happen. It’s kind of like quitting before you even start. When you find yourself thinking the worst-case scenario is sure to happen, encourage yourself to consider options and possibilities. Place yourself in a mindset of acceptance, where you commit to doing your best, but then letting go and allowing events to take their course.

Thinking Trap 3: When you think in extremes: 0 to 100 and no in-between.

Commonly known as “black and white” thinking, this thinking trap causes you to perceive and process information in extremes. You perceive other people, situations, or things that happen to you as being are either all good or all bad, and you struggle to see anything in between. This way of thinking also transfers over to how you see yourself. For instance, you may believe you’re a successful person when things are going well for you, but if the inevitable roadblock or challenge occurs, you then believe you’re a total failure. You might even go back and forth from these two extremes within one day! If you think about it, it’s impossible for you to be a smart, competent, and successful person one minute, but then an hour later, you’re a worthless failure because you made a mistake or something went wrong. However, if you allow black and white thinking to take over the way you see yourself and the world, your interpretation of events could very well go up and down in a rather volatile way.

Challenge: Observe yourself particularly during stressful times and analyze the way you think about the situation or what you say to yourself (or out loud) about it. Recognize any use of words (or thoughts) that reflect black and white thinking. Some examples include saying (or thinking) things like:

• “I will never…”

• “He/She always…”

• “I can’t ever…”

• “I’m always…”

• “They will never…”

When you catch yourself speaking in extremes, think again and try to challenge the thought. Ask yourself if it’s truly a “never” or “always” situation. Consider if you can find a middle ground. For instance, rather than believing that you “always mess up” you can replace this thought with: “I mess up sometimes, but it’s okay. The best way to learn is from my mistakes. Plus, it’s human to mess up sometimes.”

Thinking Trap 4: When you only see the negatives, the dark side, and the catastrophes.

This thinking trap is also called filtering because your thinking is very similar to a filter; only it’s a negative filter. When you fall into this thinking trap of only seeing the downside, you also only focus your attention on all-things-negative. Something positive could result from a situation, but you could miss it entirely when you’re hard-wired to only seeing what’s wrong.

Challenge: To challenge the filtering thinking trap, you don’t have to try to look at the bright side only, either, because then you might fall into the black and white thinking trap. Instead, try to strike a balance where you carefully and fairly assess situations. This is a much more realistic way to shift your mindset from seeing the catastrophes and negatives of situations to instead seeing things in a more neutral manner. Trying to perceive the world as all rainbows and flowers will likely feel fake to you; however, if you open yourself up to options and possibilities, you’ll gradually be able to see things in a more positive, realistic, and balanced perspective. For instance, if you don’t get hired for a job that you really wanted, rather than thinking that you’re incompetent and you’ll never get hired anywhere, shift your mindset to considering that maybe the company hired internally, giving existing employees more of an edge. Or, you can consider that the job was simply not meant for you and you’ll soon find a job that will be a much better match!

Thinking Trap 5: When you believe other people are thinking of you.

A very common thinking trap is personalization—when you believe that everything people say or do is somehow related to you, something you’re doing, or something you’ve said. This trap is called personalization because if you fall into this way of thinking, you tend to take everything personally. The reality is that more often than not, the comments and actions of others have more to do with people’s own internal issues, struggles, and stressors and have nothing to do with you. A great example of this is giving a speech or a presentation and thinking everyone is looking at and judging you. If someone yawns or looks away, you may automatically assume that it is because you’re boring or a poor presenter. You might be surprised to know that most members of the audience may only give you a split second of attention before going back to daydreaming or considering what they’ll have for lunch later on, once your presentation is over. A yawn or starring into space most likely has nothing to do with your presentation and much more to do with whatever that person has on their mind. In a nutshell: Human beings tend to be more preoccupied with themselves and their own issues. Keep this in mind the next time you think that anyone is focused on you.

Challenge: When you find yourself jumping to a conclusion or making an assumption that causes you to take something personally, consider what other possibilities could be present. Ask yourself what else that other person could have meant by their comment or behavior. By opening up your mind to these options, you will be able to see how you might be erroneously attributing people’s actions and behaviors to yourself. It’s actually pretty liberating when you come to discover that the world doesn’t revolve around you!