Now that you have started noticing your thoughts, recognising what your negative parrot keeps telling you and identifying your hot thoughts, you might be wondering: “So, how do I actually challenge them?”
We have already learned that just because our parrot, our Negative Automatic Thoughts (NATs), says something, it does not mean it is a fact. When we talk about challenging a thought, we are not asking you to replace every negative thought with a positive one. We are trying to work towards a more balanced and accurate way of thinking.
Once you have identified a thought that feels particularly important, it can be useful to slow down and examine it. The aim is not to prove that the thought is wrong or replace it with a positive thought. Instead, we can look at the evidence and try to reach a more balanced conclusion.
Imagine your thought is on trial
Imagine the thought is being considered in a courtroom. A fair trial would consider all available evidence before reaching a conclusion. We can try to do something similar with our thoughts.
An example
“They’ll realise I’m not good enough at my job.”
Rather than automatically accepting it as fact or pushing it away, you can examine the evidence.
Evidence for the thought
- I stumbled over part of my last presentation.
- I still feel nervous when speaking in front of groups.
- I made a mistake in a report last month.
The aim is to be honest. We are not pretending difficult things have never happened.
Evidence against the thought
- My manager has given me positive feedback.
- I have successfully completed similar work before.
- Colleagues regularly ask for my input.
- One mistake in a report did not mean I was bad at my job.
- I have prepared carefully for this presentation.
Start with the easier cases
If a thought feels extremely believable or brings up a very strong emotion, it can be much harder to step back and examine it. That is okay. Start with thoughts that feel less emotionally charged and practise being the judge.
The more you practise, the more confident you can become at stepping back from your thoughts rather than automatically believing them. Eventually, you can begin to work your way towards the hot thoughts: the ones that feel much more powerful and believable.
Look at the whole case
Looking deliberately for evidence on both sides can help us see a wider picture.
“Taking everything into account, is there another way I could look at this situation?”
Create a more balanced thought
A balanced thought is not simply the opposite of the original thought and is not forced positivity.
“I feel nervous about the presentation and I may make a mistake, but I’ve prepared for it and there is evidence that I am capable at my job. One presentation does not determine whether I am good enough.”
How much do you believe the balanced thought?
Rate how strongly you believe it from 0% to 100%. You do not need to believe it completely; notice whether looking at the wider evidence changes your perspective at all.
Try taking a thought to trial
- Identify the thought you want to examine.
- Write down the evidence for the thought.
- Write down the evidence against the thought.
- Create a more balanced thought that considers all the evidence.
- Rate how strongly you believe the balanced thought.
These are the same steps available in the second stage of the Thought Diary.
This isn’t positive thinking
The aim is not to convince yourself that everything is fine. Balanced thinking means considering the whole picture rather than allowing one automatic thought to become the only explanation.
With practice
The goal is not to stop having difficult thoughts. It is to create a little more space between “I had this thought” and “This thought must be a fact.”
Bringing the pathway together
In this pathway you have explored how thoughts can influence emotions and behaviour, how automatic thoughts can appear quickly, how to identify a hot thought and how to examine the evidence around it. You can return to the Thought Diary whenever you want to practise these skills with situations from your own life.