Today we’re going to talk about the control fallacy, another cognitive distortion. The Fallacy of Control is where you assume an inaccurate amount of control in a situation or in life. You either believe you can control everything or believe you can control nothing.
When you believe you control everything, you are assuming responsibility for both the pain and happiness of everyone around you. If a friend is in a bad mood 😒, you may wonder what you did to make them feel that way. If your workplace receives a good review or award, you may feel like it’s all your doing.
When you believe you control nothing, you see yourself as a helpless bystander to your situation. You may feel like there’s nothing you can do to make your life better, to improve your happiness, or to change your situation. 😞 This feeling is a big contributor to “stuckness” and resistance to change- if we don’t believe we have any control in our lives, what would we get out of changing?
What we should strive for instead is to more accurately identify the amount of control we have in any given situation or in life’s circumstances. Regardless of how high or low functioning we are, we never have NO CONTROL or FULL CONTROL of our lives.
Where do you land between these two fallacies?
Two more cognitive fallacies for your Thursday! 📚
-Catastrophizing- you might inflate the meaning of certain events and create a catastrophe or crisis that doesn’t exist. For example, you’re worried you will fail an exam. ✏️ You jump to the conclusion that failing an exam would be the worst thing to happen, that failing the exam, would mean you would never get the job you want, the life you want, etc. The reality is that many people who have failed an exam before get the jobs they want, succeed in life... myself included. 😅
-Personalization- This is where you believe that everything others do or say is some kind of direct, personal reaction to you. A person engaging in personalization may see themselves as the cause of some external event that they were not responsible for. For example, if a friend gets a ticket for speeding on the way to see you 🚔, you might feel as though your friend getting the ticket was your fault- although it was your friend’s choice to speed.
Anyone experience these two? I can think of lots of examples from my own life- I think I am especially guilty of catastrophizing!!
Two more cognitive distortions for today 🎉!
-Overgeneralization- This is where we come to a big conclusion based on a single piece of evidence. Something bad may only happen once, but we expect it to happen over and over again. An example of this might be if someone were to go on a bad online date 💕- maybe they believe alllll online dating is bad and avoid ever using a dating app again.
-Mind reading- 🔮This one is common with people experiencing social anxiety and other fears too! This is where we feel like we know or can predict what others might be thinking, feeling, or why they’re behaving in a certain way with no evidence to suggest that this is true. I hear this all the time with statements like “my friends are avoiding me” or “everyone thinks I’m weird”.
Are you guilty of any of these distortions? I know I am! Please share!
Awesome anxiety art by #annaborges