Self-Defeating Thoughts 101

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Every day thousands of thoughts go through our minds, many of which are insignificant, and they go unnoticed. However, hidden in this blur of thoughts are unimportant negative ideologies eating away at us. We often do not notice them, but they have a cumulative effect in creating our self-defeating behavior. (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/unlock-your-true-motivation/202003/what-are-your-self-sabotage-triggers).

Negative thoughts are invasive and sneaky; they hide in our minds waiting around and holding us back. Even when we gloss over negative thinking and avoid addressing it, the idea still permeates our mood. For example, if we let constant thoughts of failure flash throughout daily thoughts without countering them with positive thoughts about ourselves, our confidence will be affected. The same applies to feelings of anger, sadness, and any other negative thought tied to emotion.

Your Perception of Reality

Our minds tend to believe things that are not true, especially about ourselves. As a result, we have a negative story that we hold on to and tell ourselves and others. We create our negativity by casting ourselves as victims in our own life stories. This happens because our thought processes allow us to distort the negative thoughts we don't think about. For example, we may only see a situation as black or white and fail to consider the gray area in between.

The reality of a situation is often blurred, whether by a tendency to blame ourselves, choosing to focus on the negative, or assuming the worst will always happen. We don't stop and assess the negative thoughts and challenge them. If we assess these thoughts critically, we will likely find them unfairly negative towards ourselves.

The Feeling of Aloneness

Self-defeating thoughts can build up and leave us feeling unworthy of happiness when we do not believe in ourselves or view ourselves as less than we will sometimes pull away from the people around us. This often leaves us feeling alone and as if no one cares about us, but the irony is that our thoughts keep us separated from others.

We assume people do not like us or have reason to hate us for being weak, a failure, or just plain bad. We have already convinced ourselves to hate us, so how can anyone else possibly want to spend time with us? We have to fight those self-defeating thoughts and learn to love ourselves or risk being separated from those around us.

The Negative Thoughts

The negative thoughts are varied, but many surround beliefs about not being able to do certain things. We may think of all the things we can't do or find challenging, telling ourselves we are lesser than because of that. We should instead be reminding ourselves of what we can do rather than what we can not.

When we self-defeat, we are already surrendering before the battle has begun. As a result, we fail to challenge the attacks we point at ourselves. To beat these self-defeating thoughts, we need to challenge every one.

These can even be the seemingly unimportant thought about a mistyped word. So, for example, instead of saying, "I'm an idiot, I mistyped that," we should say, "Glad I caught that."

Self-defeating thoughts can lead to a massive dip in the quality of our lives. They not only leave us feeling bad about ourselves, but they also leave us unmotivated. We miss out on the positive things surrounding us when we only allow the negatives to possess our emotions. There is no such thing as a worthless person. We just need to remind ourselves of that sometimes.

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About the Author

Greetings, and thank you for visiting my blog! I am Angie Mitchell AKA "The Mindset Maven”. I am a mental health advocate, author, blogger, speaker, master life coach, and the founder and CEO of Back to Her.

After having experienced my own challenges with mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression that affected my personal and business relationships. I decided to use my experiences to educate and advocate for other women who may be fighting similar battles.

I assist women with removing mindset barriers through personal and professional development programs that empower them to change the narrative of their story and become the highest most truthful expression of themselves.