Uncover Your Patterns

As you now know, uncovering your negative thought patterns would help you combat the detrimental effects of self-criticism. After all, you can’t change something if you don’t understand what it is.

What to Focus on

In order to uncover your negative thought patterns, you already know that you need to keep a thought journal. However, it would be even more beneficial if you were to pay especially close attention to the following areas:

The date and time when each thought occurs.

It will help you seen an overall pattern, as in how often a particular self-critical thought occurs and with which frequency. Is there an association between a self-critical thought and the time of the day?

The situation that triggered the thought.

What were you criticizing yourself about? Were other people involved in the situation? What role did their presence play for the thought to occur? Was the self-criticism related to your thoughts, feelings, urges or behavior?

The self-critical thought.

What exactly was the thought that came to your mind? List certain common expressions you tell yourself, such as ‘I am stupid’, ‘I did it again’, ‘I am a bad person’. And try to define what they mean. For instance, what is your definition for “being a bad person”?

What followed after?

After the self-criticism, what were your thoughts, emotions, physical sensations and urges? How did it affect your behavior? Did it lead to any self-defeating behavior?