15 Common Cognitive Distortions: Tips for Overcoming Unhelpful Thoughts

Cognitive distortions are irrational patterns of thought that can lead to negative emotions and unhealthy behaviours. These thinking errors often distort reality, making situations seem worse than they are, and contribute to stress, anxiety, and depression.

By recognizing and challenging these distortions, you can improve your mental health and adopt a more balanced, realistic view of the world.

Here are 15 common cognitive distortions, along with examples and tips for overcoming them:

1. All-or-Nothing Thinking

This distortion involves seeing things in extremes, with no middle ground. If something isn’t perfect, you perceive it as a complete failure.

• Example: “If I don’t get an A on this test, I’ve failed.”

• How to Challenge: Look for the gray areas. Most situations aren’t all bad or all good—there’s a spectrum of outcomes in between.

2. Overgeneralization

In overgeneralization, a single negative event is seen as a never-ending pattern of defeat or failure.

• Example: “I didn’t get this job, so I’ll never get a good job.”

• How to Challenge: Recognize that one isolated event doesn’t define future outcomes. Each situation is unique.

3. Mental Filtering

With mental filtering, you focus exclusively on the negative aspects of a situation, filtering out the positives.

• Example: “I only got one negative comment on my presentation, so it must have been terrible.”

• How to Challenge: Balance your perspective by acknowledging both the positive and negative aspects of the situation.

4. Discounting the Positive

In this distortion, you dismiss positive experiences or achievements by telling yourself they don’t count for various reasons.

• Example: “Anyone could have done what I did—it wasn’t a big deal.”

• How to Challenge: Accept compliments and acknowledge your accomplishments as real and meaningful.

5. Jumping to Conclusions

This distortion occurs when you assume something negative will happen, even when there’s no evidence to support it.

• Example: “They didn’t text back right away, so they must be mad at me.”

• How to Challenge: Gather evidence before making assumptions. Avoid mind-reading or predicting the future.

6. Catastrophizing

Catastrophizing involves imagining the worst-case scenario, no matter how unlikely it is to happen.

• Example: “If I make a mistake during my presentation, everyone will think I’m incompetent, and I’ll lose my job.”

• How to Challenge: Ask yourself how realistic your worst-case scenario is. Consider more balanced outcomes.

7. Emotional Reasoning

In emotional reasoning, you assume that because you feel something, it must be true.

• Example: “I feel anxious, so this must be a dangerous situation.”

• How to Challenge: Emotions aren’t facts. Separate feelings from reality, and base your conclusions on evidence, not emotions.

8. Should Statements

This distortion involves imposing rigid rules on yourself and others, leading to frustration when these “shoulds” or “musts” aren’t met.

• Example: “I should always be successful at everything I do.”

• How to Challenge: Replace “should” with more flexible language, such as “I’d prefer” or “I’d like to.”

9. Labeling and Mislabeling

In labeling, you assign an extreme label to yourself or others based on one event or behaviour, rather than viewing the whole picture.

• Example: “I made a mistake, so I’m a total failure.”

• How to Challenge: Focus on specific behaviours or situations rather than global labels. Everyone makes mistakes.

10. Personalization

This distortion occurs when you take responsibility for things outside of your control, blaming yourself for negative outcomes that aren’t entirely your fault.

• Example: “It’s my fault my friend is upset, even though they didn’t say why.”

• How to Challenge: Recognize what you can and cannot control. Ask yourself whether the situation really revolves around you.

11. Magnification and Minimization

In magnification, you exaggerate the importance of mistakes or problems. In minimization, you downplay your strengths or achievements.

• Example (Magnification): “This small error is going to ruin everything.”

• Example (Minimization): “Sure, I finished the project early, but that’s not a big deal.”

• How to Challenge: Try to view situations in proportion. Avoid making mountains out of molehills or downplaying your successes.

12. Blaming

Blaming involves placing responsibility for your problems entirely on others, avoiding accountability for your own actions.

• Example: “It’s all my partner’s fault that I’m unhappy.”

• How to Challenge: Accept responsibility for your part in a situation. While others may play a role, your reactions are within your control.

13. Fallacy of Fairness

This distortion involves believing that life should be fair, and if it isn’t, it’s unacceptable.

• Example: “It’s not fair that they got the promotion and I didn’t.”

• How to Challenge: Life isn’t always fair, but that doesn’t mean it’s unmanageable. Focus on how you can move forward despite the unfairness.

14. Mind Reading

Mind reading occurs when you assume you know what others are thinking without any real evidence.

• Example: “They didn’t say anything, but I know they don’t like me.”

• How to Challenge: Ask yourself if you have real evidence to support your assumptions. Open up communication to clarify any misunderstandings.

15. Control Fallacies

This distortion involves two extremes: either feeling completely helpless and controlled by external factors (external control fallacy) or feeling overly responsible for everything that happens (internal control fallacy).

• Example (External): “There’s nothing I can do; my circumstances control my life.”

• Example (Internal): “If only I had done more, none of this would have happened.”

• How to Challenge: Recognize that while you can’t control everything, you do have influence over your reactions and choices.

How to Overcome

Cognitive Distortions:

Cognitive distortions are a normal part of human thinking, but they don’t have to control your life. Here are 4 steps to overcome them: