![\"All](\"https:\/\/gozen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/trucker_extremewords_032715-639x1024.jpg\")
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Growing up, I believed that being good at something was solely a function of raw talent. I was also the queen of extremes. Here’s what that deadly combination looked like:<\/p>\n
My first time playing miniature golf, I went 50 over par. I would’ve been close to 100 over, but I threw my golf club across the course in frustration while screaming,\u00a0“I quit! I’m\u00a0never<\/strong>\u00a0going to be good at this.”<\/em><\/p>\n The first board game I ever played was Monopoly–introduced to me by my older brother. After a few rounds, he’d taken over almost every property and began levying hefty taxes. I lost it and announced,\u00a0“This game stinks! I’m\u00a0always<\/strong>\u00a0going to lose.”<\/em>\u00a0(Then I flung the board along with the little green houses and red hotels at my unsuspecting sibling\u2026 this was my signature move, if you haven’t guessed.)<\/p>\n As I grew, I learned to regulate my physical reactions (thank goodness!), yet a solid imprint of black-and-white thinking lingered behind. What is black-and-white thinking?<\/p>\n Black-and-white thinking–also known as all-or-nothing thinking–is when one views the world in absolutes. It’s a reductionist mindset where situations are often boiled down to two options: I’m good at this or bad at this; This will be a success or failure; This is awesome or this is terrible.<\/p>\n Black-and-white thinking is a typical cognitive distortion (inaccurate thoughts that reinforce negative emotions or thinking), a hallmark of anxious or depressed individuals, and a platform for perfectionism. Sounds fun, huh? It gets worse.<\/p>\n Black-and-white thinking is often followed by \u201cshould\u201d statements and self-blame: \u201cI should be better than I am\u201d <\/em>or \u201cI am to blame for my shortcomings<\/em>.\u201d \u00a0In sum, thinking in absolutes instead of shades of grey contributes to stress, worry, and overall lack of well-being.<\/p>\n If your child or student exhibits black-and-white thinking, what can you do? Try these 4\u00a0techniques:<\/p>\n 1. Start using the word “and,” instead of “or.”<\/strong><\/p>\n Original: “This class is terrible or amazing.”<\/em><\/p>\n Replacement: “This class has some interesting parts and some more challenging parts.<\/em><\/p>\n 2. Speak in shades of grey by reducing absolute words\u00a0(e.g. everything, always).<\/strong><\/p>\n Original: “I’ll never be good \u00a0at this.”<\/em><\/p>\n Replacement: “I’m not good at this now, but with practice I could get better.”<\/em><\/p>\n 3. Use a sliding scale of probability from 0 to 100.<\/strong><\/p>\n Original: “I’m never going to get into college.”<\/em><\/p>\n Replacement: “The probability I’m going to get into college is X%”<\/em><\/p>\n 4. Change your \u201cshould\u201d language.<\/strong><\/p>\n Original:\u00a0“I should be studying more.”<\/em><\/p>\n Replacement: “Studying more would be helpful for me.”<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Growing up, I believed that being good at something was solely a function of raw talent. I was also the queen of extremes. Here’s what that deadly combination looked like: My first time playing miniature golf, I went 50 over par. I would’ve been close to 100 over, but I threw my golf club across … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18980,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[130,135,531],"tags":[339,340],"class_list":["post-18979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-generalized-anxiety-disorder","category-gozen-anxiety-relief","category-parents","tag-cognitive-distortions","tag-thoughtbusters","no-featured-image-padding"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gozen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gozen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gozen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gozen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gozen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gozen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gozen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gozen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gozen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gozen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}