One fine July morning, a young man at the age of 21 left the house. He had to walk a kilometer and a half along a busy avenue to get to the collection point and pick up his clothes from the dry cleaner. However, after just a few minutes of his hike, the young man began to feel uneasy. It seemed to him that people who met him on the street saw him and thought badly of him. Anxiety appeared, then fear, tension in the body. And having walked a quarter of the way, the young man began to sweat from tension. A large, round stain appeared on the back of his shirt. When he realized that none of the passers-by had similar spots, but only him, then he felt completely ill, and he, unable to bear it, turned around and at a brisk pace, practically did not walk, but ran to his home. The young man rarely left the house. Only for a very good reason. Constant thoughts that people thought badly of him led to the fact that he had to quit studying at a prestigious university and go to serve in the army. After completing his service, he would enroll in a less prestigious university and a correspondence course, in order to have as little contact as possible with people... You guessed it, the young man had what is called social phobia. But we are not talking about social phobia (this is just an example), but about where people have serious problems in adapting to the reality around us and making the right choices. They say that what is happening to us today is the result of all our choices that we made in the past. I don’t know if this is true. This is difficult to verify. Moreover, it needs to be tested on a large number of people. But the role of our elections cannot be overestimated. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon to regret our elections. But the right to choose, given to us, as they say, from the Lord God himself, is something that no one can take away from us. And therefore, the power of choice is our greatest strength. How to make sure that our choices always please us? How to minimize election errors? Look at the following sequence of numbers: 1,3,4, 5, 8,10, 11, 12...What will be the next member of the sequence? What formula is given for this series of numbers? You can rack your brain before finding next member of the sequence. The main thing is that you will break your head, but you will not find a pattern. Don't strain yourself. The next member of the sequence will be the number 13. Because you are presented with a natural series of numbers. But this series has missing observations - numbers 2, 6,7, 9. In life, as a rule, you have to make decisions, make choices under conditions of uncertainty. The accuracy and completeness of information determines the quality of the decision. As they say, when all the information is presented in full, the fool will make the right decision. A very interesting conclusion arises - the power of choice is determined by the accuracy of the assessment and the completeness of the information. How are the accuracy of the assessment and the completeness of the information achieved? Everything that happens to each of us every day throughout our lives is verbalized. In other words, throughout his life a person continuously thinks, evaluates, and comments on what is happening to him. And if these mental assessments do not distort reality and do not contain missed observations, then a person’s choices become unmistakable. It turns out that the power of thought is stronger than the power of choice. The power of correct, error-free thinking. Many of us do not pay attention to the reliability of those thoughts and assessments that constantly come to our minds. In other words, if this thought comes to mind, then for many people, this means that this thought is correct, corresponds to reality. As in the above example, it seems to the young man that people on the street think badly about him, and he does not check this thought. He trusts this thought 100%. The practice of cognitive psychology shows that every day people make a huge number of errors in thinking, so-called cognitive distortions. Which, in fact, determines the quality of the decisions made and, as a consequence, the quality of thelife. What to do? Pay attention to your thoughts and learn to detect errors in thinking and quickly correct them, even before making a decision. How can this be done? Among the errors of thinking, there are those that are classified as common, typical. They are common among many people. Knowing these errors will help you quickly learn how to detect and correct them. And thus eliminate their influence on your subsequent choices and decisions. The list of the most common thinking errors itself is no secret. Thinking errors were first identified by cognitive behavioral therapy pioneer Albert Ellis. Then Aaron Beck came up with a similar list. It was further adapted by Judith Beck. In Robert Leahy we find Aaron Beck's expanded list. My own practice of cognitive behavioral therapy for more than ten years allowed me to supplement the list with two more commonly encountered thinking errors. And thus, this list of typical thinking errors in my arsenal today contains 20 items. The publication of a list of the main thinking errors itself does not give much, and this list can be found on the Internet. Now let’s return to the above example. What error in thinking is constantly does a young man make when he encounters a society of people? This is one of the typical thinking errors, which is called “Mind Reading.” Let us dwell on this typical thinking error in more detail. Thinking error No. 1: “Mind Reading.” The essence of the error: Distortion in which you , without having sufficient grounds for this, you think that you know what people think. Correct assessment of the situation: I do not have sufficient grounds to assert what people think about me, about any of my qualities or abilities. Here is another example . A person who is interested in trading came to the stock exchange. There he meets with a large number of traders. An example of an error: “They think that I don’t understand trading at all.” The correct assessment of the situation for the above example: In fact, I cannot know what people think about my abilities, knowledge and skills to understand trading issues. For a specific example, this is the so-called adaptive response to an automatic thought. Someone, having joined a company of traders, as in the above example, may not even “care” about what they think about him , not depending on his knowledge and skills. And someone will experience very unpleasant feelings in the same situation, although his knowledge and skills may significantly exceed the knowledge and skills of the first. Why does this happen? Because for the first case, a person in general Thoughts may not appear that someone may evaluate his trading abilities poorly. Or if they do, he does not trust these thoughts. He is confident in his abilities and knowledge of trading. In the second case, everything is just the opposite. A person has a thought: “They think that I don’t understand trading issues at all.” And he trusts this thought, if not 100%, then close to it. What does it depend on - such evaluative thoughts will appear or not? When working on thinking errors, one should take into account that thinking errors are generated by intermediate irrational beliefs. And intermediate irrational beliefs are generated by deep beliefs. That is. the presence of such erroneous “mind reading” judgments and a high degree of trust in them is determined by the presence or absence of irrational beliefs in a person, which give rise to the thoughts themselves and determine a high degree of trust in them. That is. There are deeper levels of working on thinking errors that lead to their complete disappearance. The figure below shows the relationship between automatic thoughts, beliefs and a person’s reactions to a situation. In the next article in the series, I will talk about common thinking mistake #2: “Predicting the future.” Dear readers, thank you for your attention to my articles! If you liked the article, put “thank you” and leave your feedback. Subscribe to my articles Treat me like family!