Questions are a powerful and undervalued tool!

Let me give you an example. The other day I wasn’t feeling well and I noticed I kept asking myself, “Why aren’t I feeling well, why aren’t I feeling well?” This question got me no where, nothing changed with this question, I just kept feeling bad, it did nothing for me. However once I changed the question I was asking myself, I was able to take steps to make myself feel better. Once I changed the question from “Why aren’t I feeling well” to “How can I make myself feel better” I was able to take action to make myself feel better. And all I did was change the question.

Questions focus our attention, our attention rests on the questions we ask. Asking myself, “Why aren’t I feeling well” rested my attention on a question I really had no answer for and could do nothing about. However, asking myself, “How can I make myself feel better?” directed my attention to what actions I could take to do something for myself. A simple change of question made a big difference.

When you are feeling bad, when you are upset or bothered, what questions do you ask yourself? At this time it is even more important to be aware of the questions you are asking yourself. Are you asking questions that perpetuate the problem or will help to solve the problem, will your questions improve your life, keep it status quo or make it worse.

The same goes for the questions you ask others (if you even ask questions). For some people asking others questions is no easy task, it feels awkward and intrusive, some people even assume they already know the answer. The irony here is that when researchers from Harvard Business School began studying people’s conversations, they found that most people came away from a conversation feeling like they weren’t asked enough questions. When you find yourself engaged in a conversation with someone you care about ask yourself what you want from the relationship and then ask questions accordingly.

Starting today what can you do differently? First you might want to start by being more aware of the questions you ask. Than you might want to change the questions you ask yourself when you see you aren’t getting the results you want. Truth be told the same goes for the questions you ask of others. Before you ask another person a question ask yourself what do I want from this relationship, how do I want this relationship to go and then ask away.

How do we get along better with our fellow humans? One way is by asking ourselves, “From whereth cometh this person?”

I believe that if I want to be happy in this world and get along, it is in my best interest to understand a person’s context before I make any assumptions. In a few words I believe that understanding from whereth a person cometh allows me to understand the situation better and to react to it accordingly.  And we don’t seem to talk about this enough, let alone do it enough. Understanding a person’s context gives us the opportunity to understand why the person thinks and does what they do.

If I say to you my daughter told me she hated me and there were no context, you might think, “well that wasn’t very nice, what a brat.” If I told you my daughter told me she hated me, after I told her she had to do something she didn’t want to and that she was a teenager, you might think, “well maybe saying I hate you is harsh but I understand.” If I told you my daughter told me she hated me with a mischievous smile on her face, after I told her she had to do something she didn’t want to and she’s a teenager, you might think, “well she was joking around” and I understand and that would be the end of it. 

Context matters. Context gives you perspective and understanding and needless to say, understanding another person is really important. We don’t all think alike, as simplistic and obvious as that sounds I think we navigate through this world knowing we don’t all think alike but thinking that we do and should. But we don’t! When interacting with a person who thinks differently from you, do you ever stop and ask yourself, “why does this person think this way (from whereth cometh this person)?” Probably not. We don’t all think alike, so understanding a person’s context helps us understand the person and how they think and why they say and do what they do. This helps us navigate the world more effectively and harmoniously.

Starting today what can you do differently? Honestly I think the best answer to this question is to take a beat before you react to the other person. Taking a beat gives you the opportunity to respond instead of react. A good way to take a beat is to take a breath. Another way to take a beat is to ask yourself, “where is this person coming from, what does this person mean?”

I consider myself a positive psychologist. Not really sure what that means, but ever since I did a Masters in Applied Positive Psychology I felt like I found my niche. I believe pursuing well-being and happiness and flourishing are a valid goal in life. While alleviating pain and disease is important for a good life, for psychology I’m dubious as to whether alleviating disease is the only route towards increasing well-being and experiencing happiness.

Having said all of this I’m not completely convinced that happiness and well-being as most people conceptualize it is always attainable. First let’s define happiness, I think the most common definition is experiencing positive emotions. According to the Greater Good Science Center Magazine happiness involves feeling positive generally and about life overall. I’ve come to believe that it’s not always possible to feel positive in general or about life overall.

Life happens, suffering happens, ill-being happens, there’s no getting away from it. After many years of teaching about resilience and happiness, I’ve come to embrace the idea that maybe feeling less bad is a goal that is almost as worthy as feeling happy or experiencing well-being, it is a positive psychology concept. I’m not advocating for feeling less bad all the time, but I am advocating for some self-compassion during those times of difficulty and opting to try and feel less bad. I find myself telling students that if you add up feeling less bad over time, it could feel pretty darn good. Many times feeling less bad is easier to achieve than feeling happy.

Starting today what can you do differently to accept the idea of feeling less bad as good enough? Well first understand what happiness really is, dismystify the concept, most people feel they should just know what happiness is. Next, during those difficult times practice self-compassion. And lastly, plain and simply give yourself permission not to always need to be happy.

Why is it so important to have realistic expectations?

As challenging as they can be, having realistic expectations makes you happier, the operative word being realistic expectations. All too often I hear people say, “It’s better not to have any expectations, that way I won’t be disappointed.” I believe that’s an unrealistic statement, it’s near impossible to not have expectations, I’d even venture to say that if you think you don’t have expectations you are probably fooling yourself. Why is it so hard to have realistic expectations?

First off, what is reality, well that’s probably a whole book in and of itself! According to the Cambridge Dictionary reality is defined as, “the state of things as they are, rather than as they are imagined to be.” I believe it’s really hard to see a situation for what it is for many reasons.

One reason being there is something called a confirmation bias. The term confirmation bias was first coined by English psychologist Peter Wason and is defined as the tendency to favor information that confirms a person’s beliefs or values. When making a decision, forming an opinion or deciding on an action we tend to hone in on the information that supports the beliefs we already have rather than seeing the whole picture and taking note of information that might challenge what we believe. If we don’t challenge what we already believe how do we get a realistic read on what we are facing. A very simple example of confirmation bias is ignoring news that contradicts your beliefs like watching or listening to one news source.

Another reason it’s so hard to have realistic expectations is because as Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert says we aren’t very good at predicting how we will feel in the future. So if we don’t know what will make us happy or unhappy how can we have realistic expectations?

Starting today what can you do differently in order to have realistic expectations? Well first, learn to be in the present. I’m a big believer in learning to breath. I also think it is really important to question your beliefs – what can you control, how do things HAVE to be done, this SHOULD happen, are important beliefs to be aware of and question. Truth be told just by starting to question your expectations you probably are beginning to set realistic expectations.

I’ve never met a person who doesn’t want to be happy. So what is keeping us from being happy?

Actually the Declaration of Independence tells us what is keeping people from being happy. Most people focus on the happiness part of the pursuit of happiness. They seem to over look the pursuit part, as I see it this is a big problem. As I’ve said many times, contrary to what most people think, we aren’t entitled to be happy just because we think we are, or because we wake up in the morning or because … you name it. Happiness is really hard work.

Why don’t people work as hard to become happy as they do to become physically fit, learn something new or make more money? I think it is because many people have the misconception that happiness is a destination. The belief is, if I (fill this in with anything – marry, make more money, have fun) then I will be happy. Happiness is not a destination, it’s not Miami Beach. Happiness is more like Disneyland. You can visit it, and you can visit more and more often the harder you work at it. The irony here is that, in theory, working hard and achieving something tends to make us happy, except most people don’t know that, so they just feel sorry for themselves for having to work so hard (at something that should just happen). No one leaves this earth having lived happily ever after without having worked hard at it.

Starting today what can you do differently to work hard to make yourself happy. You can set goals, achievable, relevant ones. Ones you can break down into small steps, so that you can actively pursue them. You can join a group, a charity, a religious group or a political group. Being part of something bigger than yourself gives life meaning and it also makes you feel good. You can learn something new, preferably something that will challenge you. According to Michael Csikszentmihalyi the most productive state a person can enter is a state of flow, when the task at hand is challenging but not overly challenging. The bonus here is that learning something new also gives us a sense of achievement and according to Martin Seligman achievement is a pillar of happiness. You can learn some form of mindfulness meditation. Again learning something new tends to make people happy. And needless to say learning to be mindful, being in the present also tends to make us happy.

Starting today what will you choose to do differently?

Who doesn’t want to be happy? As I’ve said before I think it is pretty safe to say most people want to be happy. What keeps them from being happy? I believe the many myths of happiness keep people from being happy.

The biggest myth of happiness is you are who you are, as in you can’t get happier. Granted some people have a sunnier disposition than others and we do have what is called a set point for happiness, however, this does not mean we can’t make ourselves happier. We might not become as jolly as our jolliest friend, nevertheless, with a little effort, we can make ourselves happier, we can move that set point.

The second biggest myth of happiness is believing when I get that raise, promotion, married, children I will be so happy. Happiness isn’t a state we can achieve, it isn’t an end product, it’s a by product. Happiness isn’t a place you can arrive to and stay permanently if you work hard enough. Happiness is a place you can go to more and more frequently, but not a place you can hope to stay permanently. The irony here is if you can accept this fact you can visit happyland more often and for longer. Extrinsic goals don’t bring us happiness.

Another myth of happiness is believing that when you become happy you only experience positive emotions. This is very far from the truth. Happiness is about experiencing the whole range of emotions equally. Granted the optimum is experiencing more positive emotions than negative, but not experiencing any negative emotions does not equate to greater happiness. Experiencing only positive emotions doesn’t bring us happiness

Another myth of happiness is believing that material goods bring happiness. Because of hedonic adaptation this notion is very far from true. We adapt easily to both the good and the bad, when we get that raise, that big house, the shinny car or whatever, truth be told we will adapt to it, the joy will wear off and we will move on to wanting the next thing. Material goods don’t bring us happiness.

Starting today what can you do differently? You can start by being more realistic about being happy. When you feel bad, instead of trying to push the bad feelings away, invite them in. I’m not suggesting to wallow in anger, self-pity, jealousy etc, etc, I’m suggesting to acknowledge the feeling, feel the feeling, it will make it easier to move on. You can remember that material goods don’t bring happiness, however, how you use those material goods does. Remember doing for others and being with others brings happiness.

Starting today what will you do differently?

Yes/no or maybe. Which is it, or is it? Thinking in terms of either/or can be very useful. Binary thinking is a great way to compress information, it allows us to respond quickly to a dangerous situation. Compressing information helps us survive. It helps us to make quick decisions. Putting our thoughts into categories helps us begin to process our thoughts, it’s an important starting point. The operative words being starting point.

When we leave our thoughts in categories we are doing ourself and others a disservice, we are failing to see the entirety of the interaction. Cognitive distortions are good examples of binary thinking, should/should not, fair/unfair. Cognitive distortions are a great example of compressing information albeit a dysfunctional form of thinking. When we think in terms of good/bad, pretty/ugly, right/wrong, my way or the highway, etc, etc we are missing the nuance of life. This type of thinking does not allow us to think flexibly and makes our lives more difficult.

Flexible thinking is important because it allows you to calibrate your response to the situation at hand by seeing all the colors of the story. This in turn allows you to choose your response as opposed to reacting. So instead of basing your response on feelings or thoughts that might not be rooted in the moment flexible thinking allows you to see all your options and choose the most appropriate response. Flexible thinking makes life better because by allowing you to respond appropriately to the situation at hand you are also enhancing your relationships. You are enhancing your relationships because you are responding from a place of current experience.

How do you become a flexible thinker? I believe the best way is begin is to be curious. Why is this the way it is, why did that person say that, what does that mean? Being curious motivates you to understand the other person’s perspective. And seeing something from someone else’s perspective is the essence of flexible thinking and empathy. Make a list of as many other alternatives as you can think of. Another way to become a flexible thinker is to practice mindfulness. Taking a moment to react will give you the opportunity to respond effectively. There is something to be said for counting to ten.

We all experience hardship and difficulty in life, what keeps some people upbeat and optimistic while others get down and pessimistic, is their explanatory style.

According to Dr. Martin Seligman, father of positive psychology and leading authority on optimism/pessimism, a person’s explanatory style can lead to optimism or pessimism. A person’s explanatory style refers to how a person explains to themselves the causes of events. A person’s explanatory style lies along three dimensions – permanent/temporary, pervasiveness/localized and personal/external. Pessimists explain negative events as permanent, pervasive and personal. Optimists explain negative events as temporary, localized and external. Let’s break this down.

Permanent refers to how reversible a negative event will be. Will the negative event last forever and/or happen over and over. Or is the negative event time bound and/or be a one shot deal. Let me give you an example. Let’s say you don’t get a promotion. You say to yourself, “I’ll never get promoted” (permanent) vs “I didn’t get promoted this time, thank heavens there’s another review in a few months” (temporary). Whereas the second explanation was temporary, I will have another chance, the first explanation is permanent, I will never get promoted. You went from not getting this promotion to never getting another promotion.

Pervasiveness refers to how many areas of a person’s life the negative event will bleed into or permeate. An example of pervasiveness is when the cake you are baking doesn’t turn out you say to yourself, “I give up I just can’t cook, I’m done” vs “This was a hard recipe, it didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to, but dinner sure was good.” Do you let the failed caked take all the joy out of every part of your cooking or do you realize that the failed cake means that this one time this one cake didn’t turn out well and has nothing to do with anything else in regard to your cooking.

Personalization refers to how much blame (not responsibility, blame, there’s a difference) a person takes for the negative event. In the failed cake examples above do you say, “I can’t do anything right!” vs “That was a hard recipe, it was a very confusing recipe.” Do you blame yourself or do you realistically acknowledge how hard the recipe was.

Being aware of what you say to yourself, your explanatory style, in the face of adversity is the first step towards becoming a more optimistic person.

In all of my years working with parents I’ve never met a parent who doesn’t want their child to be happy and have good self-esteem. What I find curious about this is how parents go about making it happen. I believe most people have many misconceptions about what happiness is and isn’t and how to achieve it. Needless to say self-esteem is an even bigger mystery.

Self-esteem is defined as the regard a person has for themselves. It’s an overall feeling of one’s self-worth. Self-efficacy is defined as a person’s belief in their ability to accomplish a task, in their ability to get things done. Needless to say we don’t expect people to believe they are self-efficacious across all domains. However, the more domains in which a person feels self-efficacious, the more positive an outcome. The theory of self-efficacy was originally proposed by psychologist Albert Bandura in the 1970’s. Self-efficacy predicts self-esteem. I believe if you want your child to have good self-esteem one way to do this is by fostering self-efficacy.

How does self-efficacy relate to self-esteem? Well think about it, if you know or feel pretty confident that you can get things done, I would say it’s pretty safe to say you are going to have high regard for yourself. When you don’t question your ability, when you are open to trying even if you could fail, you most likely will experience high self-esteem.

How do you instill a sense of self-efficacy in your children? If self-efficacy is defined as a person’s belief in their ability to achieve a task then it would seem to make sense that the best way to instill a sense of self-efficacy would be to put a child in as many situations of mastery as possible. And… when a child fails, to send the message that failure is no excuse for giving up. When a child fails it’s an opportunity to say, “Great, what did you learn and what will you do differently next time?” Modeling self-efficacy is also a good way to instill self-efficacy. When a child observes their primary caregivers successfully completing tasks the child tends to learn to believe they too can master the challenges they face.

The questions we ask create the world we live in. The questions we ask determine our actions. Not only do questions determine our actions, they also determine our interactions.

The answer we give to the questions we ask pave the road we walk on. They pave the road we walk on by determining where we place our focus. Most people tend not to give too much thought to their questions. However, if questions create the world we live in, it might be a good idea to pose the type of question that creates the type of world we’d like to inhabit. And the thing about questions is we ask a lot of them, all day long.

For example you get up in the morning and ask yourself, “What shall I have for breakfast?” This question determines your subsequent behavior, the road you shall walk down. The answer you give to this question can take you in many directions and create a variety of outcomes, it can create all kinds of worlds. If you answer, “Well I’ll just have something quick,” you might grab the cold pizza left over from last night. If you answer, “I’d really like to have something healthy and nutritious,” you might consider whipping up a bowl of oatmeal. The answer to your original question plants the first paver on the road to a type of life. So maybe, instead of asking yourself, “What shall I have for breakfast?” consider changing the question by asking yourself, “What is the healthiest thing I can have for breakfast?” If you want to loose weight. Or if you are in a hurry but still want to eat healthy, “What’s the quickest, healthiest thing I can have for breakfast?” Remember the questions you ask create the world you live in.

Questions also determine our interactions. Your child/spouse/roommate comes home from school/work and you ask, “How was your day?” The answer you get will determine the ensuing interaction. Do you get a grunt, a roll of the eyes, a “Fine!” or a long complaint of what went wrong? So maybe instead of asking “How was your day?” How about changing up your question and asking the kind of question that will create the kind of world you’d like to live in? If you want a pleasant light interaction, maybe “What was the best part of your day?” would be better. If you want an in depth conversation, maybe “What was the most interesting part of your day?” would be better.

Remember, most people don’t pay too much attention to the questions they ask. Also remember, however, that questions create the world we live in. What kind of world do you want to live in? What kind of questions do you need to ask to have that world? Starting today begin to ask the kinds of questions that create the kind of world you want to inhabit.

By some accounts we spend half of our awake time talking to ourselves. This self-talk can be very helpful – when we practice a speech, work out a problem or memorize something, our self-talk is very valuable. Our self-talk becomes less valuable, even detrimental when it turns negative, when it becomes rumination – anxiety ridden images of the future or a compulsive rehashing of an incident, that doesn’t serve our best interest. When this type of self-talk takes over, when we become so wrapped up in our thoughts we lose perspective and begin to believe our thoughts are universal truths and we start to feel bad, it’s a sign we need to put some distance between our thoughts and our behavior.

Psychological distancing gives us the ability to see things from a different perspective. It gives us the ability to be in the moment, be flexible and see our thoughts for what they are – beliefs we make real. Psychological distancing is the ability to see our thoughts as constructs of reality as opposed to reality itself. It’s the ability to distinguish between feeling bad and being bad, for example. Let’s say you bombed a presentation and you feel bad about it. When you are able to distance yourself from your thoughts you are able to say to yourself, “I feel badly about doing so poorly on that presentation, next time I will prepare more” you give yourself some time to feel bad and you are able to move on. The ability to place distance between your thoughts and your actions, to be able to see your thoughts for what they are, makes it easier to deal with difficult situations.

How do you get psychological distance? There are several ways, but first you must hear what you are saying to yourself. Once you can hear your self-talk you can say your name. Shifting from the first person, I, to the third person, Jane, automatically puts distance between you and your thoughts. It might sound awkward but it is a very quick and simple way to put distance. Another way is to ask yourself, “What would I say to a friend about this situation?” If a friend did poorly giving a presentation would you tell them to feel badly or would you encourage them to put it into perspective? These are just a few of the many ways there are to gain psychological distance and to become more resilient.

A person with a growth mindset believes they can grow their skills, intelligence and abilities with effort. A person with a fixed mindset believes they are who they are, their skills, intelligence and abilities are fixed. When you have a growth mindset constructive feedback is seen as an opportunity to grow and get better results, it is welcomed. When you have a fixed mindset however, you believe that no effort achievement proves how smart you are, feedback would imply effort. When you have a fixed mindset challenges, mistakes and corresponding feedback is perceived as a threat to the ego instead of as an opportunity to grow and improve.

What is constructive feedback? It is information about how a person is doing and what they can do to achieve a better outcome. Constructive feedback is not criticism because it is never about the person, it is about what the person is doing and how they can do better.

How can you offer constructive feedback? Constructive feedback first focuses on what the person did well, then on what can be improved and how they can improve. Much like effective praise constructive feedback needs to be process oriented, specific, timely (when possible) and kind. Remember, the goal of feedback is to help the person learn and improve, not to hurt their feelings. Constructive feedback entails offering small, constructive, specific steps that will improve performance.

An example of constructive feedback is, “You are on the right track, this is a really good beginning, you aren’t quite there yet. You need more information about the main character. How about reading more about the subject.” Remember constructive feedback is supportive, process oriented and specific.

I think it is pretty fair to say that when people fail they feel bad. Put plain and simply failure doesn’t feel good. Starting today I would like to propose a reconceptualization of failure!

First, failure is inevitable if you are going to stretch yourself, try new things, learn more, it is to be expected you won’t do everything well the first time around, you might fail. When you started to walk you probably fell down a bunch of times, it didn’t stop you from learning to walk, you had a growth mindset, you kept going and learned to walk. Can you imagine if you hadn’t had a growth mindset, you’d still be crawling around. What I’m getting at is that failure is inherent in learning anything new.

Starting today I’m encouraging parents to applaud their child’s EFFORTFUL failure. Effortful is in capital letters because I’m not suggesting children just go around failing, what I am suggesting is if your child tried something new, difficult, or challenging and failed, he/she should be celebrated. Actually if your child tried anything really hard that was new or not and failed, I’m suggesting that you applaud them. And then of course ask, “What did you learn?,” “Going forward what will you do differently?” Remember failure is information. It’s information about what we can do differently and better next time, it’s the only way to learn.

If we feel bad when our children fail and then make our children feel bad when they fail, we are sending the message that either 1) they should never try anything new or out of their comfort zone, they should only stick to doing things in their comfort zone and easy or 2) they are expected to be perfect no matter what they do, they are put in a box labeled talented and shouldn’t do anything to dispel that.

A growth mindset means that you believe you can grow your intelligence, your abilities, or skills. It means you will make mistakes and know you will learn from those mistakes. So next time your child fails congratulate him/her and without judgment talk about the failure.

Studies show approximately 8% of the people who set goals achieve them. If setting goals and growth mindset are related then the next question becomes how do we effectively achieve our goals. It would seem that the ability to exert self-control would be beneficial when it comes to setting and achieving goals. Actually research shows that the ability to exert self-control is correlated to a variety of positive outcomes, ranging from academic success to better relationships.

Self-control is defined as the ability to regulate one’s emotions, thoughts and behaviors in the face of temptations and impulses. Basically self-control is about regulating a short-term impulse for a long term gain. Self-control is the ability to make decisions that will move us toward our long-term goals, even when those decisions don’t feel as good as short term temptations.

Research suggests that we spend a lot of time during our day exerting self-control, resisting desires – that second piece of cake, the next youtube video, those new shoes. Research also suggests that self-control is a limited resource, that can get used up. In other words, if you perform a task that requires a large amount of self-control, you will have less self-control available to perform subsequent tasks.

How do we develop self-control? There are many ways. I believe one of the best ways is learning to breathe. Learning to breathe offers you the ability to put space between the impulse and the action. Another way to put that distance is by focusing on something else, a book you just read, the meal you will eat, anything that will take your attention off the object of temptation. Imagining the object of temptation as something toxic is another option. Another way to foster self-control is by rewarding yourself or punishing yourself. Reward yourself for exerting self-control and punish yourself for not exerting self-control.

It bears repeating, the ability to exert self-control is correlated to a variety of positive outcomes.

How do goal setting and growth mindset relate. When you have a growth mindset you believe that you can grow your intelligence, your abilities or skills. Fundamentally goal setting is a declaration of a belief in a growth mindset. Goal setting is defined as the process of identifying something you want to achieve and establishing measurable steps and timeframes. In essence goal setting is the concretization of the process of change. Therefore another way to foster a growth mindset is to learn to set effective goals. How do you set effective goals?

The most common way to effectively goal set is by establishing SMART goals. The acronym SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound. When you set a goal using the SMART framework you are setting yourself up for success. By being as specific as possible you are not leaving anything to chance, as such you are increasing the likelihood of reaching your goals and in this way reenforcing your growth mindset.

Another approach to setting goals is called WOOP. WOOP stands for wish, outcome, obstacle and plan. WOOP is a practical way to take good intentions from wishes to goals. When you WOOP you figure out what you want, why you want it – the outcome, what will get in the way of getting what you want and then how you will get to what you want bearing in mind potential obstacles. Personally I like WOOP because it helps you foresee obstacles and plan for them.

Whatever approach you choose, effectively setting goals is the epitome of a growth mindset.

Awareness of our self-talk is a key resilience skill. Being aware of what we are telling ourselves when we experience difficulty offers us the opportunity to take the unproductive, unrealistic, inaccurate thoughts that are causing us to feel and behave in self-defeating ways and challenge them. Like someone standing up to a bully, when we challenge our thoughts that are destructive, we can stop the damage they inflict on our well-being and happiness.

Unfortunately most of us are sorely unaware of what we are telling ourselves. If we aren’t aware of what we are saying to ourselves, it’s hard to change our thoughts. When this happens, when we can’t hear our self-talk, we can at least try to be aware of the cognitive distortions we are using. While cognitive distortions can be automatic, we can usually listen for certain words we are using – shoulds, terrible, always, never, etc, which signal a cognitive distortion. Once we notice these words we can begin to challenge the thoughts which encase these distortions. 

There are many ways to challenge cognitive distortions, the goal of challenging our cognitive distortions is to find a more realistic, balanced way to explain to ourselves why something happened. It’s like being the judge of your own thoughts – are these thoughts facts or opinions. If our thoughts are just beliefs that we make real then they are opinions not facts, therefore we can replace one belief for another one. We can look for a more accurate, balanced belief to replace it with. When we challenge our cognitive distortions we are making our thinking more accurate. When we think more accurately we tend to feel less bad. Please note – we are not going for thinking positively, we are going for thinking more accurately and feeling less bad. This is a very important distinction, the objective is a more balanced and helpful way of thinking. It’s important to emphasize that we will not eliminate all difficult emotions when we challenge our cognitive distortions, that’s not what well-being is about.

Again, what we are going for when we challenge our thoughts is accurate, realistic thinking, the kind of thinking that is in your own best interest. We are NOT looking to eliminate negative feelings. Knowing how to cope with the whole spectrum of feelings is part of being resilient. We are looking to eliminate inaccurate, unrealistic negative feelings.