605 - Cognitive Distortions 101
Tiny Leaps, Big Changes
Gregg Clunis
4.3 • 920 Ratings
🗓️ 12 October 2020
⏱️ 14 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode we look at cognitive distortions, how they affect your personal growth, and what to do about them.
VOTE: www.andstillivote.org
The Problem:
I am sure this has happened to you. A disagreement with someone you care about, or one negative comment out of 10 other positive ones, and all of a sudden you’re in a spiral of negative thoughts about yourself, the other person and the event itself.
The problem is that these thoughts are more often than not inaccurate. They aren’t a good representation of what actually happened. Further, they are a completely made up representation of the event from the other person’s perspective.
Digging Deeper
Cognitive distortions are biased perspectives we put on ourselves and the world around us. They are patterns of thinking or believing that are irrational and that we unknowingly reinforce over time. These ways of thinking are harmful because, in general, we tend to act in accordance with our beliefs. So if our beliefs are false or inaccurate, naturally our actions will suffer as a consequence. Then those negative actions get reinforced as habits and all of a sudden we spend each day taking the wrong actions and making the wrong choices all because of a simple cognitive distortion.
In 1976, psychologist Aaron Beck first proposed the theory behind cognitive distortions and in the 1980s; David Burns was responsible for popularizing it with common names and examples for the distortions.
The Solution
How can you stop these cognitive distortions?
One way is to reframe the situation. "Reframing is the habit of consciously changing how you feel when you are experiencing an irrational or false thought or belief.” You can ask yourself these questions:
- Is this thought realistic?
- Am I basing my thoughts on facts or on feelings?
- What is the evidence for this thought?
- Could I be misinterpreting the evidence?
- Am I having this thought out of habit?
Let’s take the example above using the cognitive distortion of a mental filter, remember that’s when you filter out all the positive stuff and focus on the negative. In that situation you could stop and think for a moment. Is this really true? Is this comment based in reality at all?
Examine the evidence: Is there anything to back up this person’s comment as fact or is it just one person’s opinion?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In this episode, we look at cognitive distortions, how they affect your personal growth and what to do about them. |
| 0:08.5 | Get excited because this is Tiny Leaps. |
| 0:13.0 | Big Chaming. Welcome to another episode of Tiny Leaps. Big changes where I share simple strategies you can use to get more out of your life. |
| 0:38.4 | My name is Greg Clooney's and in this episode we are looking at the idea of cognitive distortions. |
| 0:46.1 | We want to do an entry-level dive into what these are, how they affect us on a day-to-day |
| 0:52.2 | basis, how they drive decision-making, how they affect us on a day-to-day basis, how they drive decision-making, how they |
| 0:54.8 | affect our reactions to things, and what we can do about them, what we can do to |
| 1:00.2 | reduce their effects, to remove them completely, and to actually start moving forward from some of these things that are plaguing us in our day-to-day lives. |
| 1:10.3 | Now before we get into that voting has always been important to me because well |
| 1:16.6 | honestly I wasn't always able to I've talked about this on the podcast before but |
| 1:20.9 | I didn't become a US citizen until I was maybe 21 or 22. |
| 1:25.6 | While that may not seem like a huge deal, it meant that up until the 2016 election, I didn't |
| 1:32.3 | feel personally connected to the role that politics and policy |
| 1:36.2 | played in my life. |
| 1:38.2 | Sure, I was here in this country paying taxes, living under policies determined by the government, and trying my hardest |
| 1:45.4 | to create a life for myself. But I couldn't do anything about what was going on, so |
| 1:49.7 | why focus on it? Then when I finally took the oath, quite honestly everything changed. |
| 1:55.4 | All of a sudden I had this tiny little bit of power to do something. I could help elect |
| 2:00.1 | local government who are responsible for fixing all of the issues in my |
| 2:03.8 | neighborhood like that pothole at the end of the street. I could help elect |
| 2:07.7 | state government who determined things like school funding |
| 2:14.0 | and I could even help elect national government who determined major things like |
... |
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