Some students inadvertently acquire habits that distort the way they think about academics and their potential for academic success. The results of these thinking patterns are low self-esteem, poor self-confidence, loss of direction, and academic performance below potential. Do you have any of these distorted thinking patterns?
| Thinking Pattern | Explanation | |
| 1 | Minimize Positives | Minimize your academic achievements and good qualities. |
| 2 | "Catastrophize" | Exaggerate importance of your mistakes or imperfections. |
| 3 | Mental Filter | Select a single negative detail and dwell on it so exclusively that it colors your whole vision of reality, like one drop of ink colors a whole glass of water. |
| 4 | All-Or-Nothing Thinking | See things in absolute categories. For example, if your grades aren't perfect, you believe you are a total failure. |
| 5 | Mind Reading | Assume that people are reacting negatively to you. |
| 6 | Emotional Reasoning | Assume that your emotions necessarily reflect reality. An example is, “I feel stupid, so I must be stupid.” |
| 7 | Labeling | After a bad test, calling youself a poor student instead of a student who performed poorly on a specific test. |
| 8 | Overgeneralization | View a single negative event as a predictive pattern of future, never-ending, negative events. |
| 9 | Negative Self-Fulfiling Prophecy | Anticipate that things will turn out badly and unconsciously act to make the prediction come true. |
| 10 | Personalization | See yourself as causing a negative outcome even when you are not responsible. |
CREDIT
Adapted from original materials created by Dennis H. Congos, 116 Phillips Hall, University of Central Florida, Orlando
