Identifying Thinking Errors

I was looking at an old anxiety workbook last night and came across a piece of paper which I had wrote a long list of questions down which you might ask yourself to identify thinking errors. I decided I'd type them up here, they might help you, they might not. So the questions were:

Am I jumping to the worst possible conclusion? (Catastrophising)


Am I thinking in extreme - all or nothing - terms? (Black and white thinking)


Am I using words like 'always' and 'never' to draw generalised conclusions from a specific event? (Overgeneralising)


Am I predicting the future instead of waiting to see what happens? (fortune-telling?)


Am I jumping to conclusions about what other people are thinking of me? (Mind-reading)


Am I focusing on the negative and overlooking the positive? (Mental Filtering)


Am I discounting positive information or twisting a positive into a negative? (Disqualifying the positive)


Am I globally putting myself down as a failure, useless or worthless? (labelling)


Am I listening too much to my negative gut feelings instead of looking at the objective facts? (Emotional Reasoning)


Am I taking an event or someone's behaviour too personally or blaming myself and overlooking other factors? (Personalising)


Am I using words like 'should', 'must', 'ought' and 'have' in order to make rigid rules about myself, the world or other  people? (Demanding)


Am I telling myself that something is too difficult or unbearable or that 'I can't stand it', when actually it's hard to bear but it is bearable and worth tolerating? (Low Frustration Tolerance)

I don't have a clue where I got these questions from, I wish I did because they're reaffirming that I am suffering from anxiety (not anything more sinister!). Out of the 12 questions, I am guilty of 10 of them...that's a lot and far too negative! The good thing is I'm now able to recognise this and work on addressing it.