What Went Right

Reframe Your Thinking for a Happier Now

Eileen Bailey, Michael G. Wetter

• Publisher: Hazelden Publishing
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781616496562
• eBook ISBN: 9781616496579
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Learn to change the self-critical stories in your mind and rewire your brain so that you gain the self-confidence to build more fulfilling relationships, careers, and social life. Since childhood, our experiences and interactions have shaped the running narrative of who we are and how we view ourselves. When those interactions are painful, many of us have a tendency to internalize the negativity, translating mean or selfish messages given to us by family, friends, or teachers during our youth into truths about who we are—our flaws, failures, and shortcomings.Through practical and easy-to-understand principles and techniques, What Went Right teaches you to recognize and intervene on self-defeating thought processes and uncover your core beliefs about who you really are. Through these exercises, you will learn how your thoughts drive feelings that influence your behaviors. By changing your thinking, you can unlock self-affirming feelings and actions needed to create your new life story and become the person you want to be.

1

Understanding Self-Esteem

The journey to a better life begins with a mirror. You might not think that your self-image—how you see yourself—has anything to do with who you are, whom you love, how you love, what you do for a living, or how you spend each day, but it does. Your self-image determines the path of your journey through life. The bad news is that many of us suffer from what we refer to as low self-esteem and therefore spend our life thinking we aren’t good enough and don’t deserve a better life. The good news is that each of us holds the power to change our self-image and therefore bring happiness and contentment into our lives. We have the power to rewrite our story by rewriting how we think about ourselves.

Self-image is the reflection of yourself—not the one in the mirror but the one in your mind. It is created over years and is an ever-evolving culmination of all the stories, pictures, and moments of your life that you see as important or that you believe define you as a person. When these reflections are positive, you feel self-assured and believe in your capabilities. When filled with negativity, you have self-doubt. The stories we tell ourselves and the pictures we create can come from other people’s opinions rather than our own. When we allow this to happen, we allow others to define who we are and what we think.

Some of you may remember when your parents, teachers, or other adults in your life told you that no one else could make you happy—that happiness comes from within. It turns out they were right. Popularity, power, money, and social status have little to do with happiness. The most important factor in having a happy life is a positive self-image. The information and exercises throughout this book can help you change your self-image. By following along, you can rewrite the stories and edit the images to create a more balanced and positive image of yourself.

Throughout this book, we will refer to a number of terms related to self-image. To help you better understand our ideas, we’ve provided brief descriptions of each term.

• Self-image or self-concept. The mental image you have of yourself. It’s a combination of physical characteristics (I’m tall with brown hair and brown eyes), social roles (I’m a wife, mother, sister, daughter, friend), personality traits (I’m friendly and kind), and existential statements (I am a spiritual being).

• Self-esteem. How you see yourself in terms of your importance and competence. This is often based on external events and can change based on the situation.

• Self-worth. How much intrinsic value you place in yourself. This is more internally generated and enduring than self-esteem, although with work, low self-worth can be improved over time.

• Self-efficacy. How effective you feel in completing a task. When you feel you are very good at something, you have a high self-efficacy for that task.

• Ideal-self. What you wish you were (and what you wish for other people to see).

• Self-confidence. A feeling of trust in your abilities, qualities, and judgment. Low self-confidence is generally equated with low self-esteem; likewise, high self-confidence and high self-esteem go hand in hand.

DO YOU HAVE HEALTHY SELF-ESTEEM?

Our self-image takes into account internal factors like our unique abilities and attributes. However, because we are social beings, it’s also based on external feedback, including the opinions of others—or our perception of what others think. Despite our belief that the entire world sees us exactly as we see ourselves, our self-image often has little to do with that. In fact, our self-image can be very different from how others see us. For example, on the inside, you might be insecure, feeling as if everything you do turns out poorly, while others see you as a competent person.

Read the following statements and check those you agree with.

___ I often apologize for my behaviors and thoughts.

___ I see the glass as “half empty,” usually seeing the negative in a situation first.

___ I find it difficult to forgive and forget.

___ I frequently criticize myself.

___ I’m usually a people-pleaser.

___ I constantly worry about what other people think about me.

___ I worry about my performance until someone tells me I did a good job.

___ I often berate myself and tell myself what I should be doing.

___ I think people in my life are disappointed in me.

___ I worry about any mistakes I make and constantly review them in my mind.

___ I believe if I can’t do something perfectly, I shouldn’t bother doing it at all.

___ I compare myself to others, and if I don’t perform as well, I believe they are better than I am.

___ If I fail at part of a task or activity, I feel like I have failed completely.

___ I worry that every relationship I have will end up failing.

Count how many statements you agree with. If you agree with eight or more statements, you’re probably very critical of yourself and your self-esteem could use improvement. If you agree with five to seven statements, you probably have some negative emotions but also try to be positive. If you agree with four or fewer statements, you probably have a healthy self-image.

WHERE DOES OUR SELF-IMAGE COME FROM?

In our early years, we view ourselves more as an extension of our parents than an individual person. Therefore, our parents’ view of us helps shape our own view. It is easy to imagine how a child who is abused or constantly belittled with statements that she is stupid, never going to amount to anything, or not trying hard enough can end up thinking she is worthless. Or what about the child who grew up in a home with a distant parent? Or whose parents were so busy trying to survive that they didn’t have time to give emotionally to their child? What about the child who grew up with a special needs sibling who always took time and energy from the family without leaving much for anyone else?

These children might grow up with the belief that “I am not important; I am not worth anyone’s time.” During your early years, you start to create stories about yourself that reflect your situation, and you carry these stories with you, allowing them to shape your life. The opinions you form about yourself in early childhood are like clay—easy to mold and shape. Like clay, with age these opinions harden and become difficult to change. It takes commitment, dedication, and work, but you can change your opinion of yourself.

How others treat us, whether we feel loved, and how others react to our early successes and failures all contribute to our self-esteem. When you’re loved, listened to, and respected, you develop healthy self-esteem. When others acknowledge your mistakes and failures, and love you despite them, you develop a healthy self-esteem. When others constantly criticize, abuse, neglect, or ridicule you, low self-esteem often develops. When those around you in authority roles, especially parents and teachers, expect only p...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: The Benefits of a Healthy Self-Esteem
• Chapter 1: Understanding Self-Esteem
• Chapter 2: The Basics of Cognitive Restructuring
• Chapter 3: Catastrophizing
• Chapter 4: All-or-Nothing Thinking
• Chapter 5: Should-and-Must Statements
• Chapter 6: Fortune Telling and Mind Reading
• Chapter 7: Emotional Reasoning
• Chapter 8: Overgeneralization
• Chapter 9: Labeling
• Chapter 10: Mental Filtering and Disqualifying the Positive
• Chapter 11: Personalization and Blame
• Chapter 12: Taking Personal Responsibility
• Chapter 13: Redefining Yourself
• Chapter 14: Lifestyle Changes
• Chapter 15: Living the Confident Life
• Chapter 16: Prepare for Setbacks
• Chapter 17: Working with a Therapist
• Epilogue
• Appendix A: Ten Websites to Better Understand Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy
• Appendix B: Ten Websites to Help Grow Your Self-Esteem
• Appendix C: What Would You Do (or Think)? Quiz
• Bibliography
• About the Authors