Key questions to help you find alternatives to self-critical thoughts
- What is the evidence?
- Am I confusing a thought with a fact?
- What is the evidence in favour of what I think about myself?
- What alternative perspectives are there?
- Am I assuming my perspective is the only one possible?
- What evidence do I have to support alternative perspectives?
- What is the effect of thinking that way I do about myself?
- Are these self-critical thoughts helpul to me, or are they getting in my way?
- What perspective might be more helpful to me?
- What are the biases in my thinking about myself?
- Am I jumping to conclusions?
- Am I using a double standard?
- Am I thinking in all-or-nothing terms?
- Am I condemning myself as a total person on the basis of a single event?
- Am I concentrating on my weaknesses and forgetting my strengths?
- Am I blaming myself for things which are not really my fault?
- Am I expecting myself to be perfect?
- What can I do?
- How can I put a new, kinder perspective into practice?
- Is there anything I need to do to change the situation? Even if not, what can I do to change my own thinking about it in the future?
- How can I experiment with acting in a less self-defeating way?
Questions to help you to identify your good points
1. What do you like about yourself even small and fleeting?
2. What positive qualities do you possess?
3. What have you achieved in your life, however small?
4. What challenges have you faced?
5. What gifts or talents do you have, however modest?
6. What skills have you acquired?
7. What do other peoplpe like about you?
8. What qualities and actions that you value in others do you share?
9. What aspects of yourself would you appreciate if they were aspects of another person?
10. What small positives are you discounting?
11. How might another person who cared about you describe you?
and remember review the evidence and look for the bigger picture, don't assume -check it out!!!!
Action planning
- How did my low self-esteem develop?
- What kept it going?
- What were my most important unhelpful thoughts, rules and beliefs? What alternatives did I find to them?
- How can I build on what I have learned?
- What might lead to a setback, what will I do about it?
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