Cognitive distortions & how to overcome them

Invisible distortions are the hardest to see

We’ve all heard of the person who looks at the world “through rose-colored glasses.” But what about glasses that are too dark, too blurry, or have a cracked right lens?

The truth is that almost all of us grow up looking at the world through a unique set of “glasses” that affects our view of reality. And unfortunately, most of us aren’t rocking those stylish, translucent frames.

Instead, most of us are looking at the world clouded by “cognitive distortions” in which our perceptions and/or emotional reactions to situations bias our thinking away from the truth.  These may be a result of our upbringing, societal conditioning, an event in our lives, or something else. But no matter the cause, they lead us astray from the truth.

There are many types of distortions, but a few common ones include:

• Personalization: you blame yourself for some event or reaction that had nothing to do with you

• Discounting the positive: you only accept evidence that affirms a negative belief you hold

• Fortune-telling: you accept a negative outcome as a foregone conclusion before any outcome actually occurs

• Magnification: you catastrophize, by exaggerating the importance of things

• Dichotomous thinking: much like O-Town, you partake in “all or nothing at all” thinking where you view things in only positive or negative extremes as opposed to on a spectrum 

When you’re unaware of the distortions at play in your own thinking, they can produce unhelpful thoughts that affect your self-esteem, your relationships, and your decision-making. Worse yet, they can send you on a wild goose chase trying to solve problems that don’t exist instead of the real problems you need to be dealing with.

Take the last bullet above, “dichotomous thinking.”  This is very typical among high achievers, who might hold extreme beliefs such as:

“If I’m not promoted as fast as possible, it means I’m terrible at my job.”

or

“My last two dates going poorly means that nobody will ever love me.”

These are clearly examples of unhelpful “all or nothing” thoughts, but what is one to do about them? Or any other cognitive distortion?

Three levers to pull

There are essentially three levers you have to choose from to combat cognitive distortions, depending on the situation at hand. And these levers aren’t just useful when you’re dealing with major cognitive distortions. They can also be employed to deal with any unhelpful thoughts or beliefs that are keeping you from achieving your full potential.

1. Challenge the thought: look at the thought logically, and consider alternative thoughts that might be better explanations for the situation at hand (actually writing the thoughts and alternatives down can be super helpful here)

“Does ‘nobody love me’ or did I just not click with the people on those last two dates? After all, dating is a numbers game and I really just have to keep going on dates until I find the right person.”

2. Accept the thought: recognize the distortion for what it is and let it pass you by, as you wait for a more helpful thought to come into your consciousness

“Thinking ‘Nobody will ever love me’ seems a bit dramatic, but that’s okay, my brain makes silly distortions sometimes, I’ll just let that thought float on by”

3. Act in spite of the thought: proactively take action that contradicts the thought (also known as "behavior modification")

If you simply force yourself to continue going on dates, even without addressing the distortion at hand, your subconscious will eventually realize that you don’t actually believe nobody will ever love you or else you wouldn’t keep going on dates. 

Lots of advice fails because it tries to puts forward one of these levers as the solution to all of your belief problems. But in reality, you will find that you need different levers for different situations. And sometimes, you need all of them.

Remaking your mind

Importantly, these practices are all derived from various branches of cognitive behavioral science, where they’ve been empirically proven to affect peoples’ decision-making and emotional state.

But more recently, neuroscience is starting to show that these practices also create physical changes in the brain as well. They do this by regrowing damaged cells in your brain (through neurogenesis) and by rewiring neural networks in your brain (taking advantage of neuroplasticity). 

So by starting to employ these levers in the course of your own life, not only will you have improved clarity to make better decisions and feel better about events in your life, but you will literally reshape the contours of your own brain. 

While there’s no rush to remake your mind overnight, even slowly implementing some of these practices can have a massive change over time, so give them a shot. I’ve found them to be super helpful myself and I hope you find the same!