How to challenge your negative thoughts and change your thinking – ‘Thoughts are not facts’

When a thought is seen as something tangible, solid, real it can almost be viewed as an ‘object’. When this happens it takes on virtual size and weight, dimensions etc. It can feel very difficult to challenge if it’s a negative or limiting thought.

You give yourself back personal power when you give yourself the option of choice! You can choose to have an opinion about this thought and consider how true it really is before you decide to believe it or not.

It is a matter of believability. When someone tells you something, do you always automatically accept they are a trustworthy source, or of do you seek some form of evidence or information to convince you they are speaking truthfully. Challenging your thoughts is just the same. Simply put, some thoughts may be more ‘trustworthy’ than other.

The brain is a very complex part of you, and it has ways of distorting what is real and true; making connections between bits of information that may not always be appropriate or justified; generalising based on limited information; filling in gaps where information wasn’t available at the time; and omitting and deleting information it thinks is irrelevant or unnecessary when processing it for you.

There are also negative consequences to holding onto certain beliefs about yourself if they are not true and don’t serve you. Such that you need to be able to challenge and alter your perceptions of those thoughts so you can believe something better, more helpful, and truthful.

When you have a negative thought or negative self-belief

Try this!

Consider when you have a negative thought, a self-doubt or something that bothers you.
Rate on a scale of 1-10 how much you believe your negative thoughts is true.

Where 1 is completely True and 10 is completely False.

First consider if how you rate your thought is based on any convincing evidence. Ie how do you know what you are telling yourself is true?
What has caused you to think it is true and is that warranted?
Then consider if you could identify at least 3, and as many 5 bits of evidence to dispute it. The more evidence the more likely it is to be false and will shift you towards a big ‘10’ on the scale.

Often just the act of exploring whether a negative thought or self-belief is true enables you to find counterevidence to argue against its validity. Looking at it from a different perspective will help you see that thoughts are not facts, not solid and immovable and you can choose to believe something different and change your belief.

You may find that negative belief about yourself isn’t actually true at all!

From this place you can start to believe something better for yourself and be much more positive about how great you really are and how believing positively about yourself can bring a real change in who you are and what you can accomplish.