Author Seth J. Gillihan, PhD of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Made Simple offers many everyday easy tactics to help us break down using cognitive behavioral therapy in our everyday lives. His ten strategies in his book include topics from goal setting, activating behavior, identifying and breaking negative thought patterns, maintaining mindfulness, and plenty other useful ways to help reprogram our thoughts using cognitive behavioral therapy.
One of the most helpful and simple guides to using CBT is a five step plan he uses to help break negative thought patterns. These steps are
- Look for evidence that supports your thought
- Look for evidence that does not support your thought
- Look for possible errors in your thinking
- Identify a more accurate and helpful way of seeing the situation
- Notice and record any effects of the new thought on your feelings and behaviors
Here is an example of how to put this five step plan into action. Let’s say a negative thought arises such as the statement of “I don’t think I’m good enough to get this job.” Step one would be finding three pieces of evidence that support this thought. Step two would now contradict these pieces of evidence by finding three valid strong reasons as to why you would get the job. Step three is a bit more difficult. Step three really challenges your thoughts to ask yourself why this thought exists and if there is truly enough evidence to support this negative thought. Wrestling with this thought can become easier by seeing the three reasons of evidence that do and don’t support this thought side by side. Step four would be taking a step back from this negative thought and viewing this thought with compassion and clarity. The thought of “I don’t think I’m good enough to get this job” could be turned into “I am anxious about getting this job I really want but I am confident that I have the assets to get the offer.” This new thought holds the emotion of anxiety that is being experienced but has changed the negative thought of not getting the job based upon worth into identifying and realizing your own self worth and what positive aspects and qualities you could bring to the position. Step five is the most rewarding step as you are able to see how this new thought changes and possible calms your nerves about getting a new jobs. This new thought could reduce overall anxiety and increase feelings and behaviors of higher self-esteem after creating a new positive thought towards the situation.