MY Personal Story:

A very long time ago during a January Term at Macalester College when we students were studying War Theory (it was a great class, but it was very depressing to only focus on War for a whole month) a friend of mine, Tim Ramer, told me a very long joke about the fact there was nothing to worry about and that only two things can happen.  It was a funny, but a very true joke and it helped us all to refocus on the good after an academically and content-wise depressing winter month.

Focusing on the Good - we must not fall into the trap of Awfulism.

Awfulizing is a term coined by psychologist Albert Ellis. It refers to an irrational and dramatic thought pattern, characterized by the tendency to overestimate the potential seriousness or negative consequences of events, situations, or perceived threats.

Where I have been trained it this kind of thinking called a cognitive error (or bias): 

“Awfulizing – Looking at things in a very negative way. Some types of this error are:

1   Thinking that you can’t tolerate an unpleasant emotion or that you will go crazy or die if you experience it;

2   Thinking that a problem is more severe than it is; exaggerating how bad something is;

3   Thinking that only bad things will certainly happen;

This kind of cognitive bias includes overlooking or ignoring the positive, the advantages, benefits, or good points when you evaluate something (i.e. considering only the negatives, disadvantages, costs, detriments, or bad points.) 

WE MUST Avoid Awfulizing

To avoid this kind of cognitive error you can do many things to help and 

One of the best solutions is to scale a situation: On a scale of one to ten where one is not much at all and ten is it is going to kill you someone else, how bad is this situation or issue?

OR you could call my friend Tim and ask to hear the joke ;-) – or find a joke for yourself

OR you could also start a board on Pintrest to alleviate your awfulizing thoughts.  Mine is called Fun and Funny.  - Or just a folder in your personal photos that makes you happy to look at.

Whatever you decide to do, the solution should be positive! – and you should act positively, too!

POSITIVE ACTION

Another way to deal with this thinking is to change the way you look at life by writing down the positives in your life right now and from the past.  

Another talk I heard from my friend Renate was on how we should take a jar and write our reasons to be thankful down on pieces of paper and put them in that jar.

FOCUS ON THE GOOD THINGS and be grateful for them

Whenever you focus on the good in your life, you raise the level of your gratitude and that, in turn, does you good and keeps you from awfulizing.  Here is a list of some benefits of gratitude:

·       Gratitude gives you hope and therefore, resilience

·       You are more likely to sleep better (three “thankfuls” every night before bed is a great pill to take, rather than prescription or non-prescription medicine)

·       You have hope and most likely a better image of yourself

·       You may focus on the external, rather than the internal (not just me and us) and thus be effective in helping others because you have more EQ (eg, empathy and compassion)- think about what other people are suffering. I cannot this very moment think of some world, local situations, and hard times for friends and family that are worth focusing on, for example.

WHAT you can DO:  Why don’t you get out some paper, a pen (and maybe a jar) and at least once a week write down three things for which you are grateful?  Or better yet at least one, and up to three things each day…  You may have to find yourself a gallon-sized pickle jar soon! A journal is great for this, too, of course.

Some more considerations about our thinking and how we can think more clearly:

It’s never black and white.

There is another issue to consider here and that is one of black and white (or white and wrong) thinking: when we categorize issues in that way we can be missing vital information about the situation;, we can also easily label people as bad and good (which is usually not the case), and put ourselves in a “We (who are right and good) vs They” (who are wrong and bad) categories.  This kind of thinking is to be avoided at all costs as it may lead to very large problems and conflicts. Don’t incite the situation by thinking in this way.

Think BIG, there is always more out there for you:

Finally, you want to realize that the pie is usually bigger than you think and avoid what is called a “scarcity mindset”.  MindTools has a great article (or maybe more) on this. Just know that making a decision in a state of fear (and anger, too, for that matter) is going to head you up a road that will be fraught with problems. This is where being grateful helps, once more.

So, think wisely and clearly, and be grateful in all things.

Have a great week,

Patricia Jehle

patricia@jehle-coaching.com