Overgeneralizing is dangerous and this is why

It’s easy to fall into the generalized thinking trap, but too much overgeneralization can undermine your happiness.

by: E.B. Johnson

No matter how hard we try to avoid them, negative thoughts are everywhere, just waiting to lead us off track and distract us. Negative thinking can bog us down, and make it hard for us to operate in day-to-day life or make the big decisions that really matter. If you want to find your way back to happiness again, you have to learn how to challenge and replace your negative thoughts and emotions, but that’s a challenge that takes time and a lot of hard work on the inside.

Contstant negative thinking is one of the most common forms of negative thinking, and it isn’t healthy. Overcoming it is a process that takes a conscious awareness and a committed effort. Thinking in overgeneralized terms acn undermine your self confidence and leave you plagued with insecurities. Rather than allowing yourself to be distracted by what isn’t, you have to learn to focus on what is — and learn how to live a happier life by understanding your overgeneralized tendenccies and how you can reframe them.

What is overgeneralization?

Overgeneralization is a common cognitive distortion, and one in which a person comes to a general conclusion based on a single incident or a single pieces of evidence. It doesn’t matter to this person if the evidence is flimsy or lacking in validity, when a bad thing happens once, they expect it to happen over and over again.

A single event becomes a never-ending pattern of self-defeat. Their insecurities cause them to throw in the towel before they’ve ever really given themselves a chance to begin. Overgeneralization is a cycle that has to be broken, lest it overcome us and skew the way we view ourselves and the world and people around us.

The downside of pushing generalization too far.

Leaning on overgeneralizations can create scary or intimidating thoughts, but they can be tackled and redirected with a little understanding and know-how. Once you’ve learned how to identify your manner and patterns of negative thinking, you can start to reframe those thoughts by challenging them and the beliefs that reinforce them.

Ineffective decision making

Overgeneralizing leads us to some strange, absolute conclusions that can serious skew our ability to make effective decisions. When you engage in blanket-thinking, it can lead to basing your choices around faulty ideas. Decisions both big and small come into play then, leading to further heartbreak and a number of missed opportunities that work together to undermine our longterm happiness and wellbeing.

Limited ability to see outside the box

When we overgeneralize, we revert our thinking and keep it limited. These limitations leak into our beliefs and pervert how we see ourselves and the real world. Over time, these beliefs lead us to believe that things cannot be done, or even that they should not be done; closing down our reality and making it impossible for us to see outside the box.

Creating barriers

Limiting our beliefs and thought processes limits the opportunities we find in the world around us. When we lean on overgeneralizations, it makes us see the world in black-and-white and causes us to shut down and shut out any potential doorways to growth. Thinking in definitive and polarized terms will cause you to turn away and dig yourself into a rut that further undermines your happiness and wellbeing. It’s like a trap. One that’s nigh on impossible to escape without the right self-realization.

Keeping you chained to mental illness

Overgeneralized thinking can often occur on the back of untreated mental illness like depression or anxiety, and manifests most frequently as that negative inner critic that tells us “we can’t”. This thinking also works to exasperate mental illness, exaggerating its symptoms and leaving us feeling defeated before we ever give ourselves the chance to fight back.

Perpetuating toxic stereotypes

While overgeneralizing can cause many personal problems, it can also leave us at odds with our environment by fostering the perfect conditions for discrimination and hateful behavior and beliefs. Overgeneralized thinking can leak out of our internalization, and cause us to blanket-judge entire groups of people — a symptom which leads to sexism, racism and even homophobia and transphobic beliefs that are harmful both to us and those we interact with on a daily basis.

How to stop overgeneralizing.

Once you’ve made contact with your thought patterns and identified the generalizations that are holding you back, you can start to rebuild the framework of your thinking and make small, incremental changes that lead to big improvements and major happiness in your day-to-day life.

1. Learn how to identify your thought patterns

In order to overcome thought patterns that hold us back or keep us scared, we have to learn to identify those thought patterns as they happen, and then develop the counter-skills we need to combat them. Learning how to identify our negative thought patterns is one of the most transformative skills we can master, but it takes time and practice to cultivate.

When you notice an overgeneralized thought coming on, take a step back and notice it. Try too to identify what it was that triggered the thought, or what it was that sent you into the thought look that led to the overgeneralized thought. Be honest, and don’t shy away from your worst reactions — they can be important identifiers in learning how to mark your downward thought-spiral.

If you can, eliminate the factors in your environment that lead to your negative thoughts, and try to replace them with more productive beliefs that allow to unlock the rational positivity you need to thrive. Channel those thoughts into something more productive. You’re the only one who controls what you think or feel. Take charge of your own thoughts if you really want to unlock an authentic sense of fulfillment in your life.

2. Be accurate in your speech (and thoughts)

One of the biggest dangers of overgeneralized thinking is the deeply held beliefs and viewpoints it can help instill. Overgeneralized thinking is all about going from 0–100, and in that acceleration we often lose sight of the reality of the situation. Getting past our overgeneralized thoughts requires us to be accurate in our speech and grounded in reality at all times.

Whenever you sense your thoughts slipping toward absolute words like “always or “never” stop, and ask yourself if you’re honestly assessing the situation or your place in it. Do you really never get what you want? Does your partner actually disrespect your feelings always? This kind of absolute language is the primary sign of overgeneralized thinking, and the easiest identifier when looking for thoughts that need to be stopped.

Replace those thoughts or statements with more realistic ones. Drop the broad language and replace it with accurate language, encouraging the same realistic language in those who surround you. Even a subtle shift has the power to dramatically transform the way you see yourself in the world around you. Be accurate in your speech — and your thoughts — in order too truly overcome your overgeneralized thoughts.

3. Replace negative thoughts

Replacement is one of the better techniques to utilize when it comes to retraining our thoughts. Negative thoughts are uncomfortable and so is overgeneralized thinking. Rather than turning away from those thoughts, it’s best to embrace them and then switch them off by replacing them with their more positive alternatives.

Rather than thinking about what you aren’t, try thinking about what you are. Negative thoughts are often irrational and based in distortions of reality. When we replace those thoughts with positive ones (which are based on real, verifiable strengths or virtues that we have) we can combat the negative thoughts in a way that is more productive.

Instead of thinking, “I always look so ugly,” look through flattering pictures or focus on the parts of your body that you adore. Those are things that exist right here, right now. They are real things that we can celebrate, but we have to have the courage to see them.

4. Embrace adversity

As humans, we have complex thoughts, emotions and reactions which are evolutionarily designed to keep us safe from danger and heartache. When we face an unpleasant situation, these dynamic systems kick into gear and often cause us to turn and flee — thus protecting ourselves. The same goes for our uncomfortable thoughts and unpleasant feelings. Whenever we feel an ugly thought or feeling coming on, we often bury it beneath other repressed baggage. We have to learn to embrace adversity and the ugly side of our humanity if we want to learn how to thrive.

Take a few minutes each day to look bravely into your own darkness. Embrace your feelings for what they are, and begin trying to confront unpleasant thoughts and situations head on. Rather than waiting for things to break down and blow up, pull back and practice a little compassion and acceptance. Everything in this life is temporary and nothing can be outrun forever. Open up your arms and accept your thoughts for what they are so you can start putting together a plan for a happier future.

Don’t minimize the thought patterns you identify, and don’t shy away from the uglier aspects of your nature. Overgeneralizing happens to the best of us, so take it for what it is and know that there is a better way to think and to feel. Know what’s reasonable and what’s beyond the line. You’re the only one who can set boundaries for yourself, so stick to them. They’re the foundation to your happiness and you’re their only protector.

5. Accept the journey

Life is a journey filled with ups and downs, triumphs and defeats. We’re imperfect creatures, who struggle with not only our external worlds, but our internal ones as well — making who we are a continuous process of becoming and self-discovery that takes a lot of patience and a lot of radical self-acceptance.

Accept the journey and accept that changing your thinking is not an overnight process. You will slip up and fall back into old habits. That’s okay. Take those setbacks as another piece of invaluable knowledge that can teach you more about what to do and what to avoid in future. Everything has a silver lining if you know where to look.

Face your imperfections for what they are, and embrace them. Know that a backslide is just another part of becoming who you are and keep practicing the techniques that help you reframe your thinking. Once you’ve cultivated some radical self-acceptance, you’ll be able to stop the overgeneralizations and accept real life for what it is.

Putting it all together…

It’s hard to reframe our negative thoughts and emotions, but it’s not impossible. Overgeneralizing is a toxic thought loop to get stuck in, but it’s one that can be overcome when we get in touch with reality. By getting real about who we are and what we want from life, we can unlock the skills that we need to redirect our negative thoughts and channel them into positive energies.

Learn how to identify the negative triggers and thought loops that lead you into the arms of your self-critic, or limiting beliefs that cause you to shut out important relationships or opportunities. Start being more accurate in your speech and your thoughts, and encourage those around you to do the same. Hyperbole might be fun, but absolutism leads to major problems. Replace your negative thoughts with positive ones, and learn how to embrace challenging thoughts and the adversity that causes you to question who you are and where you’re at. We only grow when we accept our humanity and accept that difficulties are a beautiful part of the journey and an opportunity to learn more about ourselves and what we want from life. Accept your journey, and accept the mistakes you make along the way. None of us is perfect. The slip-ups are what make the learning useful.