GO Month: Mental Clutter - C

Let's celebrate Get Organized (GO) Month by ridding ourselves of mental clutter from A to Z!

To celebrate Get Organized (GO) Month I'm doing a series of posts on the mental clutter that can be just as pervasive as physical clutter. For each letter, I'll talk about a mental stumbling block that often impacts our well-being.

Let's focus on C ... Catastrophizing

Catastrophizing is a distorted type of thinking that leads people to dread or assume the worst when faced with the unknown. It's also known as magnifying - one makes a situation seem worse/dire than it really is. Ie; If I can't clean this room then I'm doomed to be a lazy, messy person for the rest of my life.

This faulty mindset can lead to depression and is often the result of or cause of anxiety. Catastrophizing is often unpleasant as it involves severe worry over *what might* happen in the future. Having these thoughts is like always seeing the glass as half empty and being so pessimistic often means one misses out on taking meaningful risks and forever keeping one in their limiting comfort zone.

Ways to combat this thinking include:

• understand that unpleasant things happen but that a bad day doesn't lead to a bad life

• literally, say "Stop" to halt the loop of this negative thinking and to signal you to turn around your thoughts

• work to envision a positive outcome rather than the worst-case scenario

• use a positive affirmation or mantra to believe that you can overcome dire fears

"Stop being afraid of what could go wrong,

and start being excited of what could go right."

Tony Robbins

Here's to freeing ourselves from the mental clutter of catastrophizing!

Please share with someone who needs a clearer mindset.

featured image by Free-Photos from Pixabay