Avoid self-defeating beliefs

Contrary to what we often believe, it's not always other people or things that make us unhappy. We usually make ourselves unhappy by what we tell ourselves.

To avoid becoming unhappy, we need to train ourselves to avoid negative or destructive self-talk and particularly to avoid thoughts which are based on self-defeating beliefs. We can often create expectations of ourselves, of other people, or of the world, which are unrealistic and invite disappointment.

Self-defeating beliefs lead to most of the feelings of worry, anger, fear, jealousy, depression and guilt that people experience. If we believe them, we begin to think in terms of 'Things should be...' or 'People ought to be...' and we get angry or disappointed when those events or people do not live up to our expectations.

What can we do to avoid self-defeating thoughts?
If we can begin to accept that there are no 'shoulds' and 'oughts' and instead think in terms of 'It would be preferable if...', or 'I may need to work to bring that about', we will be more likely to act to make things more as we want them to be.

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