12 Thought Distortions You Might Play On Repeat in Your Head

Imagine you found an old mixed tape in your attic at your parents’ house. Intrigued by your findings, you put it on and heard old songs you used to hate.

Ugh. You felt a flash of irritation.

But instead of turning it off, you just adjusted the volume to lower. The horrible old songs kept playing.

What ambiance do you think that tape would create in the room? And how would you feel if you had to stay in the room for 24 hours?

We don’t tend to think about our thoughts as the background music in a room, but what if we consider it for a second?

As background music creates an ambiance in the room, our thoughts impact the way we feel. If we play the same negative, unhelpful and disturbed thoughts in our head all the time, what feelings will they create?

Experts estimate that we think about 60,000 to 80,000 thoughts per day.

And you know what’s more mind-boggling?

95% of them are the same. And 80% of them are negative.

So if we think about 50,000–60,000 negative thoughts per day, no wonder we tend to feel irritated, frustrated and overwhelmed.

The reason it doesn’t feel real or true is that most of the thoughts are automatic. They are playing on repeat in our unconscious mind and like background music creates the ambiance, even if we can’t make up the exact words.

If we start paying attention to those thoughts, we can uncover that the majority of them are unhelpful and limiting. And most of them are coming from the past. Just like those bad old songs we used to hate.

Imagine instead of having those thoughts on autopilot, you start noticing them. What are they really about?

To help you out, here are 12 most common cognitive thought distortions.

1. Black and White Thinking. Things are rather right or wrong, bad or good, all or nothing. There is no middle ground, no gray colors, no space for complexities of people and situations. “If I don’t do it right, I am a failure.”

2. Filtering. Focus is first and foremost is made on what’s wrong. Thoughts are dwelling on problems, shortcoming, faults, and flaws. Rarely opportunities, advantages, and positive sides are taken into account. “The trip was horrible because it was raining all the time.”

3. Jumping to Conclusions. Without having a complete picture or understanding, assumptions are made what the other person must have felt or thought. Right away we know why the other person behaved the way they did, without asking or clarifying. It’s playing a mind reader in our head. “My friend is offended but my words that’s why he doesn’t text me 2 days in the row.”

4. Emotional Reasoning. Assuming something is true based on how we feel. When strong emotions override our rational thinking, and we reason based on them, then the reality. “I feel this way, therefore it must be true.”

5. Generalization. Taking one instance, situation, incident and applying a blank statement across a wide range of other situations. “This guy cheated on me. All men are dogs.”

6. Catastrophizing. Making an elephant out of a fly. Imagining a disaster and absolute the worst in any situation. This thinking creates a lot of stress when a situation is blown out of proportions. “My friend didn’t text me back, something terrible happened to her.”

7. Personalization. When whatever others say or do means something about me. Taking everything personally. This mental distortion breeds comparison to determine who is better, smarter, and prettier. “Look, she got promoted for a new role. I am a loser.”

8. Demanding. Placing expectation on other people and us how we must behave. It comes as a list of inflexible rules that people must oblige. Breaking these rules invokes angry. “People in the subway should never push me.”

9. Labeling. When one or two negative qualities are globally generalized and a label is applied to other people or ourselves. “All Italians are very talkative and impulsive.”

10. Blaming. Finding the cause of the trouble in other people. Everything is turned outwards and responsibility is put on others for the way we feel or the things are. Even though our feelings are always our own responsibility. “You made me upset when you came home late last night.”

11. Control Fallacies. Two fallacies here at play. The first one assumes we are externally controlled. The circumstances and people around us control how things are affecting us. And we are just victims of it. “The politicians of this country ruin the lives of everyone.” The other fallacy is about assuming internal control and responsibility for other’s people feelings and emotions. “Did I make you upset?”

12. Fairness Fallacies. The world is viewed through “fairness” lenses, and every situation is measured with “fairness” stick. And if a person or situation doesn’t measure up to it, then a person reacts with anger and resentment. “It’s not fair that she got promoted before I did.”

If you become aware of some of the cognitive distortions in your own thinking, congratulate yourself. Seriously!

Awareness is the first step for a change. We can’t change what we don’t know needs change.

After you recognize and admit that you fall into a trap of this false thinking patterns, continue observing yourself further. Notice at what particular situations which cognitive distortion start playing in your head. Notice what you feel at that moment.

Starting a thought diary can be a good way to both observe and process unhelpful thought patterns. When we write things down they help to see our thoughts in a different light.

Usually, what happens when we become more self-aware about our thoughts, we might start feeling guilt and shame. “What’s wrong with me? Is my thinking broken?” But our thoughts are not facts and they don’t define us.

Our thinking patterns are usually conditioned in early childhood and are modeled by our parents, friends, society in general. Without awareness, we have been habitually repeating them in our head for the majority of our lives. The moment we notice they don’t belong to us and are not helping us to live the life we want, we can change them.

Viktor Frankl in his famous book “Man’s Search for Meaning” wrote, “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space, there is a power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Once we are aware, we have a choice to react or to respond. Once we notice that we start blaming someone for our misfortune, we can stop and ask ourselves, “Who is really responsible for the way I feel?”

But of course, the change takes time and practice. Only when we constantly notice our thought patterns and consciously choose differently, we will gradually see the change.

It won’t come easy. We have those thought patterns for many years. So the change will also take time. But more persistent we are, sooner we will become more flexible in our thinking.

The main reason to consider changing our thoughts is that they impact the way we feel.

If we think that some disaster happened to our friend because she didn’t call back, we will feel terrified. Or if we only focus on negative, we will feel angry, and sad.

But when we shift our focus and analyze our thoughts, we might see the change in our feelings as well.

If we think that our friend didn’t call us back because she might be busy, we won’t feel any stress. Or if we notice that there are always positive sides to any story and situation, we might shift from feeling angry or sad to feeling grateful and excited.

Once we become aware of our cognitive distortions, observe ourselves more and slowly start choosing different thoughts, our feelings and emotions will shift too. And from feeling irritated, frustrated and overwhelmed we might slowly arrive at feeling grateful, joyful, and content.

But the first step is always self-awareness.