Here’s How to Avoid Thinking Traps at Work

It is easy to get into negative thought patterns when you make a mistake at work. We are frequently our worst critic, and those thoughts spiral during tough times. Our brains have a negativity bias where it takes three positive thoughts or experiences to outweigh a single negative one. This tendency is called cognitive distortion, and the thinking traps it leads to manifest in various ways, including:

• Overgeneralization: Extrapolating one mistake to mean you are mistake-prone
• Me/Them Trap: Either blaming yourself or someone else entirely for a problem
• Mind Reading: Assuming someone is thinking negatively about you without evidence

On today’s episode of Find Your Niche: A Career Podcast, host Lori Cole discusses the strategizes for avoiding thinking traps with Jacob Goldstein, Executive Director for Leadership and Organizational Development at the Leadership Laboratory. Goldstein speaks to Fortune 500 companies about creating positive mental health outcomes and how leaders can create a culture of psychological safety for their employees.

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