It happens that we really want something. So much so that they are ready to jump out of their pants at the mere thought of it. And everyone seems to say that true desires should come true, but they all do not come true. What's the problem then? Most likely in the negative beliefs that are in our head. They are firmly lodged inside and pulling back. How to detect these installations? What are they? Read the article to find out the answers to these questions.
This map does not reflect reality as it actually is.
It presents us with only a simplified model of it, which is only as accurate as our beliefs are reasonable. And the reasonableness of our beliefs largely depends on how well we are aware of them.
Think about what exactly your beliefs are based on? What [tested] knowledge, beliefs, experience, values, etc. underlie them? How often do you think about the quality of your beliefs? How well do they help you achieve your goals in life? There can be many such questions. With their help, you can understand how accurate your model of the world is and, therefore, useful to you. It is largely based on your moderately conscious beliefs.
Are our beliefs always conscious, deliberate and useful to us? Of course no. Most of the beliefs that people hold are based on their blind faith in something. We believe in some things not because they are reasonable, adequate to reality and useful for us, but because we are simply accustomed to them and we like them.
Here's a simple example. We want, for example, to believe in life after death, which is arranged in a certain way [life in heaven], and we believe in this life. Because we want to believe in it, we like it, it’s so convenient for us. But at the same time, we believe that we need to adhere to certain behavior in order to gain this life later, after death.
Therefore we believe [some of us] that there is right and wrong behavior, the rightness and wrongness of which does not depend on its effectiveness, but on its compliance with the requirements by which we can gain life in paradise after we die. That is, it turns out that the goal in which we believe determines our behavior in the present. But at the same time, our behavior in the present may not meet our current interests.
So think about how such beliefs, which are expressed in a person’s desire for unclear distant goals, to the detriment of closer and more tangible goals, can be considered conscious and reasonable.
Meanwhile, many people evaluate their behavior this way. They compare it with the standard of behavior in their head, on which, as they believe, the quality of both their current life and possible subsequent life after death depends.
In other words, they determine the correctness or incorrectness of their behavior not by the results that they receive thanks to it here and now, but by what they believe. I have given you only one example of beliefs that are quite dubious in their rationality, probably the most striking, given the number of people who perceive religion in a traditional way.
In reality, there are many more such examples. After all, all people believe in something, know something, have experienced something. And everything they believe, what they know, what they have seen, heard, experienced, forms the basis of their beliefs, which will not necessarily be conscious, thoughtful and useful. But they will be quite durable, because people really value what they consider theirs.
The concept of “irrational attitudes”
The phenomenon of irrational beliefs is considered within the framework of the ideas of the cognitive-behavioral approach, according to which a person’s problems are caused by distortions in his perception of reality, and our reactions depend not on the events of the world around us, but on how we perceive these events: how we interpret and comprehend their.
These distortions are formed during human development, mainly in early childhood, and are based on incorrect ideas about the world around us and oneself. Such beliefs are formed from childhood impressions or adopted from parents and peers.
Irrational attitudes are rigid cognitive-emotional connections. They have the nature of a prescription, a demand, an order, are absolutist in nature and have the form of strict demands on oneself, other people or the world, which have no exceptions.
A number of specific qualities inherent in irrational attitudes:
- absolutist character (categorical, they have absolute words: “always”, “never”, “everyone”, “nobody”, “nothing”, “must”, etc.);
- the potential of suggestion (formed on the basis of ideas that a person does not come to on his own, but adopts from society);
- impracticability (unattainable, it is this quality that leads to the appearance of neurotic reactions).
The presence of irrational attitudes in thinking forces a person to experience constant stress from the discrepancy between his expectations and reality. They lead to the emergence of negative emotions, incommensurate with the significance of events, and dysfunctional behavioral reactions, which reduces the effectiveness of human activity, leads to maladaptation of the individual and a deterioration in the quality of life of the individual.
Irrational attitudes directly influence our reactions (emotional, bodily and behavioral) and are “activated” when some event occurs that contradicts them. The process of our body's reaction to such an event consists of three stages :
- The emergence of automatic thoughts . In response to any event that happens to us, automatic thoughts appear. They “flicker” in the consciousness, are unconscious to a person and arise as a result of a person having certain intermediate beliefs - “rules”, according to which he determines what is “good” and what is “bad”. If a situation that arises in our life corresponds to this “rule,” we classify this event as positive, and if it violates it, we consider it negative and immediately react to it.
- Emotional response . In response to automatic thoughts, an emotional response occurs. If a person's beliefs are rational and positive, then automatic thoughts and emotions will be healthy and positive. But if a person’s beliefs are irrational and negative, then automatic thoughts and emotions will be negative, neurotic and destructive.
- Behavioral and bodily reactions . An emotional response gives rise to two types of reactions - behavioral and bodily. The behavioral response manifests itself in the form of three main strategies: retreat (distorting reality to confirm the belief), escape (repressing feelings and thoughts from one’s consciousness through distraction or avoiding situations in which the belief may arise) and counterattack (overcompensation by taking actions strictly opposite to the belief). ). The body instantly reacts to any neurotic emotions with symptoms such as sweating, rapid heartbeat and breathing, muscle tension, etc.
Now you better understand the negative impact that irrational attitudes have on our reactions. You can get rid of them by identifying cognitive errors in thinking and creating rational beliefs in it.
There is another point - our Ego.
We somehow don’t really like to admit that we were mistaken about something, didn’t understand something, didn’t know something. This lowers our self-esteem, undermines our authority in our own eyes, and feeds our uncertainty when making decisions in the future.
This is especially difficult for people with a depressed psyche, because they already have so much negativity inside them that needs to be balanced with good thoughts about themselves in order not to become depressed.
Therefore, admitting your mistakes and delusions in such a state is very difficult. And that is why many people resist everything that does not fit into their supposedly ideal picture of the world, in which they see themselves as very smart, good, correct, adequate and error-free people.
Now imagine how difficult it is for the same psychologist to encourage a person [client, patient] to think about his beliefs, understand how they are related to his problems that he wants to solve and begin to make the necessary volitional efforts to change incorrect beliefs to more constructive ones.
Sometimes it feels like trying to break through a concrete wall with your forehead. But psychologists manage to do this when they show persistence and ingenuity. In such cases, it is not always possible to work from a textbook; you have to improvise a lot to find a way to the client’s mind.
So you see how much his beliefs mean to a person. These are not just things that we know and believe in - they are an essential part of our personality and our lives.
The meaning of belief
The point of any belief is to make our lives easier. You and I can philosophize for a long time about any basic statement that exists in this world; we can turn everything upside down, question, distort, refute, prove otherwise, thanks to our thinking. But we don’t have time, and some people don’t really want to do this.
Therefore, you have to take a lot on faith and agree with those truths that only look like the truth, but in fact are not it. This makes life simpler and clearer. And this simplicity has its own practical benefits. The fact is that in our world, sometimes you need to react very quickly to certain events, without really thinking about them.
To do this, you need to be able to correctly assess these events and select the most appropriate behavior pattern for them. This must be done quickly. This is where our beliefs help us, thanks to which we, within a short time, put everything in its place and make the necessary decisions. At the same time, we convince ourselves that we understand everything and are in control of everything, because we know exactly what is happening and what to do about it. Sometimes, of course, we are wrong, but in most cases our beliefs help us survive and achieve certain successes, so we value them.
There is another meaning in our beliefs - this is psychological comfort. We feel much more confident and smarter when we think that we know, well, if not everything, then a lot, or at least what we need for a normal life. In reality this is not the case. For not just an individual person, but all of humanity in general still does not know a lot about this world. But thinking that we know a lot, we believe that we can control a lot and can influence a lot.
And thanks to this opinion, we are calm and sometimes even overly self-confident. Also, our psychological comfort is affected by the convenience of our beliefs. For example, if a person considers himself good, smart, talented, and so on, then he feels good about such an opinion about himself, right?
Other people may see him as a completely different person and have a completely different opinion about him. But he doesn't need to know about it. He lives in his own fictional world, in which he likes what he sees in the mirror several times every day, both literally and figuratively. And another important point due to which our beliefs help us feel comfortable is associated with the laziness of the human mind.
People don’t really like to think about something for a long time and gruelingly, to reason and reflect on something - for real, asking difficult questions and building complex structures out of them, and not just chasing other people’s thoughts over their heads or arguing about something with foam at the mouth.
They don’t like it because mental work is very hard work, much harder than physical work. And people don’t want to do it unless absolutely necessary. It is much easier to turn to your beliefs when assessing this or that event and making this or that decision. Beliefs do not require external and internal dialogue from a person, unless he is going to rethink them. They simply exist and can be applied to different events and different people. You don’t need to think about it, at least not much.
This is the meaning of a person’s beliefs. Thanks to our beliefs, our life is relatively simple and comfortable for us. Although beliefs are different and some of them poison people’s lives. Therefore, you need to work with such harmful beliefs, independently or with the help of a specialist, in order to replace them with more useful ones.
Beliefs about money
It’s not bad when beliefs limit us in drinking alcohol: “drinking a lot is harmful.” It’s worse when beliefs limit the amount of money you have, which you constantly lack: “money is evil.”
Those who grew up in the Soviet Union remember the lines of the poem: “no matter how much a rich lazy man smells, he smells very bad, guys.” No one wanted to be a rich quitter back then. Then, of course, many were able to cope with this belief... And some still believe in it.
Everyone has heard the expression “money doesn’t buy happiness” since childhood. If you take it on faith and make it your conviction, then it will be difficult to get rich. It is also difficult to be happy knowing that “only fools are happy.”
In general, if you constantly lack money, it is worth working on your limiting beliefs regarding money and material things in general. But first, of course, you need to discover them in yourself.
The essence of belief
Now let's touch on a more interesting issue and talk about the essence of beliefs. The essence is the most important and essential thing in something. So, the essence of any belief is a person’s desire to live in an understandable and explainable world. This is the most important thing that our beliefs give us. Thanks to them, we have a stable model of the world in our heads.
Without convictions, we would be forced to rediscover this world every time, studying its features as if we had just been born. At the same time, as I wrote above, beliefs make our lives easier.
And the simpler the belief itself, the easier it is to accept. People love to paint everything black and white - seeing only good in some things, and only bad in others. And therefore they need beliefs that allow them to concrete their picture of the world with the help of eternal and indestructible truths.
People don’t need such philosophical points of view as knowing that you don’t know anything. People want to know obvious things, the obviousness of which should not be questioned under any circumstances. In this sense, our beliefs make us visible in the darkness of ignorance and give us confidence in our own abilities.
Positive and negative beliefs
Positive beliefs include all beliefs that give true joy and a state of happiness, strength, confidence and energy. Belief in success, high efficiency and positive results. Positive beliefs are always supported by a person’s feelings and the response is gratitude and love from other people, spiritual and material rewards. Internally a person grows and he is Happy. Positive beliefs are strong, complete and adequate answers to life’s most important questions. These beliefs cause Joy and a surge of vitality, remove restrictions, suffering, pain, and maximize the potential of the person himself.
Negative beliefs are inadequate ideas and attitudes. These attitudes and inadequate ideas lead to loss of joy in the heart, to pain and suffering, to loss of strength and energy. Negative beliefs and emotions ultimately lead to the destruction of a person’s life. Negative beliefs can be internal and inherited, but most often they are brought in from the outside. Contagious negative beliefs constantly accompany our information background. Unfortunately, this negativity and attitudes are contagious. A simple example is the signs that people constantly reproduce in their ears and try to recall them. These beliefs and folk superstitions greatly influence and harm our lives. All bad subconscious attitudes must be identified and replaced with positive ones.
How are beliefs formed?
Now we will consider an even more interesting and important question regarding human beliefs. This is a question of how they are formed, our beliefs. We must understand where what we consider to be ours came and comes from.
This is easy to understand if you understand the essence and meaning of the beliefs that I wrote about above. Therefore, knowing what beliefs are for and what is most important in them, we can see and understand the pattern of their formation.
Beliefs are formed thanks to a person’s personal experience, his knowledge, upbringing, some significant events in his life that made a strong impression on him and made him believe in something, as well as thanks to social stereotypes and authoritative personalities whom a person believed and believes .
All these sources of beliefs, to one degree or another, once influenced and continue to influence each of us. I don’t know if you believe that anyone, even the most brilliant person, brings into this world no more than ten percent of something truly of their own, but it is quite obvious that much of what we know and what we believe in has come to us from other people. This means that any information from the outside world, to one degree or another, shapes our beliefs.
There is no point in classifying it somehow, although this is exactly what I did above to show you where we get what then becomes our beliefs. The main thing, in my opinion, is different here. We need to understand how our beliefs affect our lives.
To do this, you can do the opposite - think, looking at your life, what led you to it. Our life has formed certain beliefs in us. And now they affect our lives, making it what it is.
Each person has his own experience of acquiring certain beliefs. Some people basically succumbed to public opinion and formed their beliefs based on it. For some, the main source of his beliefs were authoritative figures, for example, parents, teachers, mentors and simply people who were successful in something. And some people formed their beliefs mainly thanks to the books they read.
Well, your life experience should not be discounted. He teaches us a lot too. For some, this experience underlies all of their beliefs, when a person believes mainly in what he himself once saw, heard, touched, felt, and so on.
People are usually well persuaded by things that make a very strong impression on them. I mean something that evokes strong emotions and feelings. Logic and reason contribute much less frequently and to a lesser extent to the formation of beliefs. So that you understand this better, let's now talk about methods of persuasion.
Limiting beliefs - what are they?
The purpose of limiting beliefs is to keep us away from everything new, unknown and excessive. If in childhood the parents said to the child: “Why did you choose such a big verse for yourself? You won't be able to learn it! Choose a smaller poem!”, then the child will most likely form the belief: “you shouldn’t take on something new and difficult - nothing will work out.”
Such a belief will limit this person in life, will not allow him to reveal all his abilities and realize himself to the fullest. He will refuse an interesting but difficult project proposed to him. He will not try to implement his idea if it seems to him that it is not easy to do.
The belief “the best is the enemy of the good” can prevent you from realizing the desire to do something even better. “Better a bird in the hand than a pie in the sky” helps some women endure harmful and humiliating relationships.
Methods of persuasion
How to convince a person or people of something? There are many different methods to do this. I will tell you about some of them, which, in my opinion, are the most powerful and frequently used. First of all, it should be said that any methods of persuasion have one common basis - they are addressed to the needs and desires of people.
It is easy to convince a person of something that, to one degree or another, meets his interests, desires, and needs. This means that a person can be convinced of anything, because any ideas can be associated with his interests, desires and needs. A simple example is the flat Earth. Why would a person have such a belief, especially if he knows that she is round?
If he lives in a society in which it is important to adhere to the point of view of the majority in order to at least survive, and at most to gain someone’s support, then what difference does it make to him what the Earth really is? Let it be flat if others want it.
The point is not in the truth, but in what it gives to a person. Therefore, it is much easier for people to start believing in what is beneficial for them to believe or even vitally necessary to believe. For this reason, people always try to adhere to beliefs that are beneficial and convenient for them, rather than true ones.
Simplicity, certainty, and clarity are another very important criterion for most persuasion methods. People do not want to carry too complex mental constructs, theories, concepts in their heads.
They don't need beliefs with variable truths, relative statements, variations of all sorts. It is easier for them to accept clear and precise statements that specifically talk about specific things. These people are good and these people are bad, this is right and this is wrong, this is true and this is false.
And that's it, no options. These are the kinds of beliefs that can sit in the heads of many people their entire lives. Beliefs should be simple and easy, understandable and definite, and one might even say interesting, so that it is easy for people to remember and adopt them.
The next important point in methods of persuasion is, as I already said, the colorfulness, brightness of an event or some kind of statement. It is easy to convince people of something if you make a strong emotional impression on them. People need emotions, feelings, energy in which to clothe the truths conveyed to them. It is not for nothing that people believe more in the one who speaks, shouts, and swears the loudest.
Sometimes it makes sense to even mention such qualities as courage, audacity and assertiveness, and even impudence, thanks to which many speakers convinced people of their views. There must be a sense of strength in convictions for most people to accept them, since strength in this world is a very powerful argument.
The next method of persuasion is based on the ability to lead a person to the necessary thoughts, attitudes, conclusions, without hurting his self-esteem, pride and Ego. You need to help a person in every possible way to save face, convincing him of something so that he does not consider himself stupider and weaker than you.
This, in my opinion, is the most useful method of persuasion with which you can teach people something and help them solve their problems. This is exactly the approach I use in my consultations, because I have long been convinced that no matter what useful advice a specialist gives to his clients, most often they do not follow them, including due to their reluctance to follow other people’s advice and recommendations, to the detriment of their own own opinion and desires.
This approach allows you to bypass many of a person’s psychological defenses and convey important thoughts to his consciousness. But it also has a drawback. It cannot be used if a person, a client, a student, a patient, does not want to think, reason, think. Or, even worse, he doesn’t know how to do it. Then no matter how much you push a person to useful thoughts, he still will not draw independent conclusions. Therefore, this method of persuasion is sometimes useless.
Logic is also often used to convince people of something, but it is not always well received. I can use ironclad logic to prove to a smoker that his habit is harmful. And he may agree with me on everything, but he still won’t quit smoking.
Because my belief about the dangers of smoking will not become his belief, since he can understand everything with his head, but his body will push him to further harm his health. Logic helps to explain, chew, prove, but it is not capable of helping the mind of another person cope with his animal essence. In fact, all arguments addressed to reason in the process of persuading a person will be as effective as the person is reasonable.
If he does not perceive logic well, if he is not used to thinking through his own or other people’s thoughts, then convincing him with the help of logic alone is pointless. Nevertheless, logic should always be present in the process of persuasion, at least the most elementary one. The human brain is designed in such a way that it always looks for connections between different statements.
Thinking, of course, can be upset, as sometimes happens in religious sects, where a person can be instilled with such absurd, illogical beliefs that contradict all common sense that he simply forgets how to think correctly. In these cases, pseudologic and some other methods of persuasion are used.
But in most other cases, normal logic is needed. Moreover, the simpler it is [consists of fewer links], the better. If A, then B - this is the easiest scheme for people to understand and accept. But the more complex the logical structure, the more suspicion it causes. For everything complex often turns out to be false. Most of us have been convinced of this more than once in our lives.
Repeating information over and over again is a relatively simple and very effective method of persuasion. If some idea is constantly being hammered into you, then sooner or later you will accept it, well, most likely you will accept it, because you will begin to consider it very important, since it is repeated so often. And since it is important, it means it is true. In any case, it must be remembered.
And having remembered something, we then consider this information to be ours, and it becomes part of our beliefs. This is exactly how primitive advertising works, which convinces people a hundred times a day that this particular washing powder is the best on the market, so they need to buy it.
Many people say that advertising does not affect them. And if you look, you will see that they are surrounded by advertised things everywhere. So, no matter what anyone says about this method of persuasion, it has always been and remains very effective.
Basic irrational attitudes
Albert Ellis, an American psychologist and psychotherapist, identified several basic irrational attitudes and identified marker words by which they can be recognized.
Ought
Based on the idea of duty towards oneself (I owe), others (others owe) or the world around (the world owes a person).
Marker words: must/must not, must/must not, should/must not, necessarily, at all costs, etc.
Examples: “I must be good at everything,” “all people must respect me,” “men must provide for women,” “the world must provide me with all possible benefits.”
When you believe that you yourself owe something (to yourself, to others, to the world), you inevitably doom yourself to suffering, because you will constantly find yourself in a dead end: you need to do something, but you will not have the opportunity to fulfill this requirement, and it will not depend on you in any way. When you believe that other people owe something, you will again and again be faced with the fact that others do not act as you consider necessary. When you believe that the world (nature) owes you something, you are also trying to influence something that does not depend on you and over which you have no control.
It is impossible to prove that someone owes someone something. The concept of debt excludes the existence of any physical alternatives. For example, a person really “must” eat because otherwise he will die. In all other cases, such an assessment of reality is nothing more than your personal requirement that reality correspond to your desires, i.e. satisfied them.
To get rid of the should attitude, you need to consciously replace the absolute requirement with a wish, use the concept “I would like” instead of “should” in your thinking. This way you will think about how to achieve what you want, but will not feel stressed if your desires do not come true.
For example, by replacing the attitude “I should always be the best” with “I would like to be among the best,” you create motivation for yourself to achieve, but do not expect that this will definitely happen, which means that if you fail, you will feel much more less stress.
Catastrophization
It is an exaggeration of the negative component of a situation or phenomenon; any negative event is perceived by a person as the “end of the world.”
Marker words: disaster, horror, nightmare, end of the world, this is the end, etc.
Examples: “it’s terrible if she doesn’t like me,” “it’s terrible if I can’t get this job,” “if my girlfriend leaves me, it will be a disaster.”
If we logically analyze the impact of “negative” events on our lives, we can understand that there is nothing “terrible” in the world, and every situation, even the most unfavorable at first glance, has two sides: not only negative, but also positive. It is important to learn to see opportunities in obstacles and to sensibly assess the reality in which we live.
For example, if you are fired, you will have more time for self-education and family, in addition, this is an excellent chance to find a job that will suit you much better: after all, if you were fired, it means there was some kind of discrepancy between you and this job .
The irrational attitude “this will lead to something terrible” must be replaced with a positive attitude like “yes, this situation is unpleasant, but there is always a way out, I have enough strength to overcome this and benefit from it.”
Predicting a negative future
The tendency to think that everything will be bad, regardless of the presence of objective reasons for this, i.e. believe your far-fetched negative assumptions and expectations.
Marker words: it will be so, it will certainly happen/happen, it cannot be otherwise, etc.
Examples: “if I tell her that I don’t like her behavior, she will certainly stop communicating with me” or “if I eat a piece of cake, I will definitely gain weight.”
Adhering to the attitude of predicting a negative future, a person, without knowing it, does everything to ensure that his fears come true. By expecting negativity, we become stressed and lose the ability to think rationally.
Instead of predicting the outcome of a situation based on your past negative experiences, think about what the options actually are. Is there really only one possible thing that has ever happened to you? Remember if something different, completely opposite, happened in your life or in the lives of other people?
Replace the attitude “everything will be exactly like this” with the thought “anything can happen, I cannot predict the future: if something good happens, I will be happy about it, and if something bad happens, I can cope with it.”
Maximalism (extreme form - perfectionism)
It manifests itself in the fact that a person evaluates himself, the people around him and the world as a whole according to the highest standards of all hypothetically possible.
Marker words: all or nothing, to the maximum, 100%, only the best, etc.
Example: “I will do everything perfectly, or I will do nothing.”
The choice of such guidelines when assessing reality leads to the fact that a person loses the ability to enjoy intermediate results and appreciate them. If you constantly expect “only the best” from yourself, from other people and from the world, you will constantly be in a state of frustration, which will invariably lead to a decrease in life satisfaction.
Learn to appreciate what you have, objectively evaluate your own and others’ abilities and capabilities, and do not chase after the unattainable. Of course, striving for the ideal is commendable, but this does not mean that you should devalue what you or others have already achieved.
For example, the attitude “I want to do everything perfectly” can be replaced by the belief “I will do everything possible to maximize my potential in every task.”
Dichotomous thinking
The concept of “dichotomy” translated into Russian means “cut into two parts.” Dichotomous thinking is the tendency to place everything into one of two mutually exclusive categories (also called “black and white” or “thinking in extremes”).
Marker words: this way or that, there is no third option, yes or no, etc.
Examples: "good or bad", "good or evil", "beautiful or ugly", "saint or sinner", "smart or stupid", "winner or loser".
Everything in the world is relative, and no one can say what really is “bad”, “good”, “beautiful”, “ugly”, etc. Perceiving everything in the world in “black and white”, where there are no shades or halftones, a person loses the opportunity to see and enjoy the variety of options, which leads to disappointment and devastation.
Learn to see things as they really are, and notice that everything has its advantages and disadvantages.
Use the attitude “everything in the world is relative” instead of trying to classify all objects in the surrounding world into one of two antagonistic categories.
Personalization
The tendency to interpret events in terms of personal meanings, i.e. connect everything that happens around you with your personality without any reason.
Marker words: first person singular pronouns (I, me, me, me).
Examples: “if someone laughs, then they laugh at me,” “it’s all because of me.”
Constant focus on oneself and one’s shortcomings forms a destructive form of introspection - self-examination, a person invents something that actually does not exist.
To most people, we are ourselves, our actions, our appearance, etc. absolutely indifferent. If it seems to you that your every move is constantly being evaluated, then this is a sign of a neurotic disorder that you need to work with in order to change your own attitude towards yourself.
Change the attitude “everyone is looking at me and judging me” to the attitude “people are busy with their own affairs, they have no time and reason to evaluate and judge me.”
Overgeneralization
It is characterized by the derivation of a categorical judgment on a particular basis regarding the totality. In other words, a person uses selective information (one or more criteria), on the basis of which he makes an unjustified general conclusion regarding some situation or object.
Marker words: no one, everyone, nowhere, always, forever, constantly, etc.
Examples: “if I couldn’t succeed once, then I will never be able to do it” or “all people are selfish.”
This attitude forms the principle by which everything comes down to a single outcome. By transferring his negative experience from the past to his present, a person thereby “blocks” the opportunity to have a different future, because determined the outcome of events in advance.
If you stop reducing everything to one thing and generalizing, you will notice that each specific case is universal. You will be able to make an objective assessment of events and phenomena, which will allow you to use your chances of success and avoid wasting your efforts.
Replace the attitude “all people lie” with the attitude “some people lie and other people tell the truth, I need to learn to distinguish between these two types of people.”
Mind Reading
Attributing to people opinions, judgments and thoughts that they did not express (made, voiced).
Marker words: “he thinks so,” “she thinks so,” “they think so,” etc.
Example: “They definitely think I’m stupid.”
When you attribute to people what you think, you deprive yourself of the opportunity to find out their real opinion on a particular issue. This leads to misunderstandings, conflicts and an inability to build productive relationships. It also makes you feel stressed about non-existent grades.
A person does not have the ability to read other people's thoughts. If it is important for you to know what people think about you or some events or phenomena, ask them about it. This is the only way you can objectively assess reality and interact with it.
Instead of attributing certain opinions, judgments and thoughts to people, think like this: “I don’t know what this person thinks, because I’m not him, and he didn’t say anything about it.”
Evaluative Thinking
It is an assessment of the personality as a whole, and not of its specific manifestations (qualities, properties, actions).
Marker words: good, smart, stupid, rude, kind, evil, etc.
Example: “Vanya is a good person because he loves cats, and Petya is a bad person because he doesn’t like cats.”
When you evaluate yourself or other people, as well as events and phenomena in the world around you, based on one or more criteria, you make an incorrect judgment.
Complex concepts and entities cannot be reduced to certain general characteristics. There is always something we know and something we don't know. It is necessary to evaluate the specific qualities of people, but not their essence. Nothing can be absolutely bad or good, no one can be absolutely evil or good. Moreover, it is impossible to draw a conclusion based on one or more characteristics; this contradicts the laws of logic.
Think about specific manifestations, for example, instead of the attitude “I’m a loser (because I don’t earn 1 million rubles a month),” use the attitude “I don’t earn 1 million rubles. a month, but I have a lot of friends and I’m great at telling jokes.”
Fear is a very effective way of persuasion.
When people experience fear, they are ready to believe anything in order to get rid of it. They also remember well what is associated with the feeling of fear and try not to encounter those that cause it.
For example, parents often use feelings of fear to convince a child not to do something that, in their opinion, he should not do.
Myths and legends that appeal to people’s feelings of fear are also quite stable - they are believed in, referred to, when explaining strange and terrible phenomena, they scare. So this feeling, perhaps the most powerful of all, is used in many persuasion techniques.
Myths and legends are what most people's beliefs are based on. Even many historical facts often turn out to be nothing more than myths. And these myths form the basis of the beliefs of a huge number of people, who then make important life decisions based on these beliefs. So you can live your whole life blindly, never realizing that you were moving along a non-existent path towards an unattainable goal.
The essence of this method is to turn to the past, to myths and legends, convincing another person, other people, of something. People willingly believe in something that has a very long history, something that many generations before them believed in. Well, the colorfulness and unusualness of the myth and legend, as I wrote above, gives it additional weight.
These are the methods of persuasion that I can present to your attention. In fact, there are many more of them. But these are enough to convince most people of almost anything.
How to get rid of irrational attitudes
Irrational attitudes cause people to fall into thinking traps and act in dysfunctional, maladaptive, and even destructive ways. By changing your attitudes and your thinking, you change your attitude towards the situation, thereby adjusting your reaction to events and phenomena in the world around you.
It is possible to get rid of irrational attitudes and replace them with more adaptive and positive ones, but this is a complex and lengthy process, during which it is necessary :
- Identify the negative emotion you are experiencing (sadness, anger, anger, jealousy, depression, shame, guilt, etc.)
- Determine what event caused this emotion.
- Understand what thoughts you had in connection with the event.
- Identify what specific irrational belief led you to these thoughts.
- Recognize the presence of irrational attitudes through self-observation.
- Understand that these attitudes are not only irrational, but also destructive, through rethinking and rationalization (cognitive introspection).
- Replace irrational attitudes with alternative rational attitudes.
To work on irrational attitudes, it is necessary to find out what, in principle, cognitive distortions exist.
Power of persuasion
Now let's talk about the power of beliefs. This power should not be underestimated. She is much more powerful than she seems. Most people are not driven by common sense, but by what they believe. And people can believe in anything, even the most absurd things. As I said above, I am absolutely confident that almost any person can be convinced of anything.
Why do I think this? Because it is impossible to synchronize objective reality with the reality that is in a person’s head. We all live in imaginary worlds that are only partially a reflection of the outside world.
Therefore, in any case, a person will adhere to some beliefs, regardless of who their author turns out to be. For we all need some kind of model of the world in our heads in order to navigate our environment. So beliefs are strong primarily because we simply cannot do without them. But what these beliefs will be is another question.
I repeat, people can believe in whatever they want. Therefore, if someone convinces a person that black is white, and white is black, then one should not be surprised that he will begin to consider this to be the truth. Never be surprised by the absurdity of someone's beliefs and do not go against a person if you see that he is not ready to give them up. Your picture of the world is true only for you, and other people may look at life differently and understand it in their own way.
You need to be able to accept their views in order to find a common language with them. This is why I advise you to agree with people on various issues more often, if possible, rather than argue or convince them otherwise, in order to be able to come to an agreement with them.
The strength of a particular belief is often embodied in the form of violence. In this form, this power is easiest to see and feel. As soon as some authoritative personality instills destructive ideas in the masses, people will begin to do evil to bring these crazy ideas to life. This has happened more than once in history. Beliefs in such cases become social viruses that pass from one person to another and ultimately infect the minds and hearts of most people.
Moreover, what is interesting is that even if these beliefs are absurd, the very fact that the majority of people believe in them helps to strengthen and spread them. It is easier for a person to join the majority, no matter what this majority believes, than to draw his own conclusions, and even more so, to try to convince this majority of something.
Most often, strong destructive beliefs are picked up by weak people who want to feel strong with their help. In addition, violence against someone else is often a way of protecting against this violence. A weak person understands, or feels, that as long as the majority to which he belongs hates someone else, he is in no danger. Aggression and violence have always been a part of our society. But few people want to become their target.
Types of Persuasion
So, we decided to influence a person without bypassing his consciousness. How to convince? Start from types of persuasion. This is the “base”, after studying which you can apply techniques and methods to achieve your goal as quickly as possible.
Informing. The addressee is provided with complete information about the object or phenomenon. If there are advantages, they are talked about first. This is how a salesperson in a household appliance store tells the buyer about the capabilities of a vacuum cleaner or hair dryer that interests him. Explanation. This type of persuasion is used when certain points need to be clarified. The same seller will decipher the technical characteristics of the power of the selected model for the buyer and translate the numbers into the advantages that this vacuum cleaner has over other similar ones. Proof. It is referred to when data is asked to be accompanied by a visual representation or real facts. This is how a chemistry teacher shows children the “Iodine Clock”, demonstrating reversible reactions. The liquid in the flask turns black, and when stirred, clear “water” is obtained. Refutation. If the opinion of the person being persuaded differs from the one he should have as a result of influence, this type of persuasion is used. In other cases, people themselves want to receive a refutation of the information. So Game of Thrones fans are waiting for a refutation of the death of Jon Snow in their favorite series. But neither the actors nor the creators of the project give it.
This “framework” of persuasive influence is the base on which situational conditions are built. If there is an ideal match between the skills of the persuader and the environment and the readiness of the addressee to perceive information, the influence is doomed to success. Relaxed people and individuals who feel similarities between themselves and the person persuading are easier to process.
