Mental traps devour our time and our strength, make our actions meaningless, prevent us from moving forward and thinking in a new way every time. Over the course of for we fall into their web many times. What solution do psychologists offer?
Every now and then, most of us fall into psychological traps, because of which we waste strength, energy and time, but do not realize it. That is why we find ourselves in them with frightening regularity.
According to University of Toronto psychologist Andre Kukla, the average XNUMXst century urban adult is unlikely to be free of them for more than a few minutes at a time! By the end of the day, the cumulative effect of such episodes is to leave us feeling downright exhausted.
We are talking about habitual unproductive patterns of our thinking. Why do we get stuck in them all the time? André Kukla gives three reasons:
- We are often not aware of what we are thinking; sometimes we are immersed in a turbulent stream of thoughts, not noticing any of them.
- Even if we are aware of the content of our thoughts, we do not understand their harmful nature.
- Even if we are aware of their harm, we still cannot stop out of habit.
Accordingly, you can get rid of the power of mental traps by learning to recognize these schemes, realizing their meaninglessness and changing your habits. Here are five common mental traps.
1. Perseverance
This is a continuation of work on something that has already lost its value. We just lose the off button on our internal remote. For example, we started reading a book and soon realized that we were not interested in it, but we stubbornly continue to read it, yawning from boredom or cursing in irritation.
In the same way, we maintain relationships that have long outlived their usefulness, doing routine things that only overload or limit our lives. Why is it difficult for us to give up even an obviously meaningless activity halfway?
Our inner need to continue or finish what we started is meaningless
Perhaps it is a matter of upbringing: after all, our culture considers any perseverance as a virtue. And also in the power of habit, forcing us to maintain the status quo.
However, in these cases, our inner need to continue or finish what we started is meaningless. We are just wasting precious hours of our lives. But if we stopped and asked ourselves if we wanted to continue on this course, the answer would be obvious: no.
2. Amplification
We find ourselves in this trap when we put in more effort than necessary to achieve the goal: we rehearse a speech so many times that our own words begin to seem boring and meaningless to us; when preparing a report, we look through so many sources that they no longer add anything new to us, but we cannot stop; when making a decision, we consult with ten people. Figuratively speaking, we kill a fly with a sledgehammer.
No matter how much we do to achieve the goal, we feel that we can do a little more. But there is a law of diminishing returns. At some point, each additional effort advances us a little less towards the goal than the previous one.
3. Fixing
When fixing, our progress towards the goal is blocked. Suppose we already have a table set for receiving guests, but there are still two hours left before their arrival. And we continue to do what no longer requires our attention, checking for the second and third time whether everything is ready for the reception.
Or we imagine how the guests arrive, we tensely follow the hands of the clock, measuring out the time by the minute when we can run in and fuss again. That is, we are unable to do something else, because we are busy waiting.
Any meaningful action is better than committing
Being in this trap, we are just killing time: whether we are standing in line, stuck in a traffic jam, or waiting for the end of the work / school day in order to finally break free. There is no point in peering at the dial, twisting the ring on our finger, staring out the window, not showing interest in what we see.
And sometimes we just sit – senselessly, numbly, in a state of mental paralysis. Sometimes fixation stretches for days, months of lost time.
When there is nothing useful that can be done to advance your goal, it is best to forget about it and do something else, even if this goal is incredibly important and the alternative is a trifle. Any meaningful action is better than fixation.
4. Reversion
We failed, we made a mistake, we lost. And we begin to endlessly return in thought to our defeat, sorting through the smallest details of insults and disappointments in our memory, trying to imagine that everything could have turned out differently. Reversion is a disease of “would…” and “I should have…”.
It is quite another matter if we analyze the situation in the past in order to learn from it. But reversion does not involve analysis, in fact, it is lamentations, that is, empty, useless regrets about what cannot be changed. Its most agonizing varieties are guilt (a return to our moral failure) and shame (the realization that we have hit our face in the dirt).
But if we do not stop thinking in terms of the subjunctive mood, then sooner or later we will be swallowed up by endless regrets. The mountain of irreparable failures will only grow. And when we grow old, it will turn out that we have been completely absorbed by thoughts about how “could be” and “should have been.”
5. Leading the way
It’s probably not worth talking about the procrastination trap, a lot has been said and written about this. But few people realize that getting ahead of ourselves, when we start things too early, is also a trap that makes us overwork or work in vain.
For example, we are waiting for a response to our business proposal, realizing that it will not come quickly. But we prepare in advance (or at least think over) options for our answers, both in case the proposal is accepted, and in case it is rejected. It is clear that one of the two options will be useless, which means that we were wasting time on it. This is recycling.
Just because something needs to be done doesn’t mean it needs to be done right now.
In addition, by acting too early, we cannot foresee unexpected circumstances that can change our plans or completely cancel our work. And sometimes, over time, it turns out that the same result could be achieved at the cost of less effort – if we waited for favorable conditions.
Leading is also bad because it often sets the stage for fixation. We have done everything in advance, but the goal is still far away, and there is a temptation to just sit down and wait. If we packed our bags a few days before the trip, then we risk spending this time in meaningless dreams about the trip.
Just because something needs to be done doesn’t mean it needs to be done right now. The right time may come very soon, maybe in five minutes. But until it arrives, there is only this night sky to admire and this coffee cup to wash. Everything else is a trap.