Feeling Stuck Lately? These Thought Patterns Might Be the Reason

We all go through patches where life just feels STUCK. You’re not moving forward, not falling back, but hovering somewhere in the middle, like your motivation’s on mute and your thoughts are running in circles. Maybe you’ve tried powering through, distracting yourself, or changing things up, but nothing’s really helping. If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone. And more importantly, you’re not broken.

At times, stuckness has nothing to do with being lazy or lacking motivation. It has to do with the little-noticed, unremarked patterns of thought that operate inside our heads, shaping how we see ourselves, make decisions, and see the world. They can create impenetrable barriers between where we are and where we wish to go.

This is where CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) comes in. It sorts out all the knotty thoughts and restores even more beneficial ones. And if you're in Christchurch and need some assistance, having an experienced CBT therapist Christchurch can supply you with helpful tools to get started again, without weighing you down.

But first, before you ever sit on the couch of the therapist, let's take a peek at some of these common thinking traps which may have you stuck where you are.

1.All-or-Nothing Thinking

This is the internal voice that hears all things as absolute extremes. If you blew it at doing all your work for the day( the sentence doesn’t flow???), the day was lost. If you didn't handle that conversation perfectly, you completely blew it. No shades of gray.

This way of thinking is exhausting. It stops things from progressing because if you can't do something perfectly, then what is the point in doing it at all? Life isn't all black and white, though. Most situations exist somewhere in the middle. You can have faults and still be improving. You can fail and yet develop.

2.Overgeneralising

One bad experience immediately becomes normal/ the norm. You stumble over one speech and start to tell yourself you're horrible at public speaking. One rejection and you start thinking you'll "never" have the perfect partner, job, or opportunity.

You treat this thought process to one incident and blow it out across your whole identity. It's a story you start to convince yourself of, and after that, you live as though it exists.

Having a CBT therapist Christchurch can help you to notice when you're leaping to extreme conclusions on the basis of insufficient evidence and replace them with something more realistic.

3.Mind Reading

How often do you think you know what other humans are thinking, especially when it's negative?

• "She probably thinks I'm annoying."

• "He must think I'm rubbish at my job."

• "They didn't text back, so they're obviously angry with me."

This is mind-reading. And more often than not, it's wrong.

Assuming what others assume causes us to doubt ourselves and keeps us from relating to others in an authentic way. It's a psychological loop that creates self-doubt and avoids honest communication. Instead of checking the facts, we complete gaps with stories that usually aren't very flattering for us.

4.Discounting the Positive

You do something great, and you brush it aside. Someone says something positive about you, and you brush it aside. You get something done, but instead of congratulating yourself, you feel, "That was easy. Doesn't count."

This action of pushing your successes aside generates this underlying feeling of "not good enough," even when you are performing better.

It's hard to make headway or have faith if your brain is continually erasing every triumph from memory. Learning to know and revel in the positives, aye/ are, even the small ones, can revolutionize your whole worldview. CBT exercises quite often start by simply listing out successes every day, no matter how small, just to make your brain stop neglecting them.

5.Catastrophising

This one's a big stress and anxiety gun. It's when your mind automatically jumps to the worst possible scenario.

You make a small mistake at work and immediately convince yourself you'll be fired. You experience a small ache and immediately fear it's serious. You skip one gym trip and think you'll lose all your progress.

This cycle not only puts you on edge, but it paralyses you. For if you believe disaster is around the corner, why take a step forward?

A CBT therapist Christchurch can get you to slow this down. Not with vague reassurance, but with skills to challenge your thoughts, examine the actual evidence, and break the cycle of automatic thinking about fear.

6.Emotional Reasoning

This is the moment when what you feel is used as evidence. You feel worthless, therefore, you are worthless. You feel nervous, therefore something bad will surely occur. You feel stuck, therefore your life must not be leading anywhere.

Feelings are real, but they're not necessarily an accurate reflection of what is. Emotional reasoning causes you to think more about your feelings than the facts, and this will make you decide based on fear, guilt, or shame, rather than what is actually happening.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy is a part of becoming aware of thoughts, feelings, and facts, and the moment you begin to differentiate them with clarity, emotions no longer drive the bus, and you start making decisions that serve your real purposes.

Getting Unstuck: How CBT Helps

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy has nothing to do with positive thinking or refusing to acknowledge that there is anything wrong. It's about being able to identify those patterns that are quietly affecting your choices and being able to counteract them more effectively.

In Christchurch, you can find CBT therapists who are trained to guide you through it. They don't give advice, they help you develop effective strategies that you can use in everyday situations. That might include jotting down certain thoughts, trying small behaviour changes to test out fears, or learning to break and restate before you reply.

If you've been stuck for a while, it's likely not your case. It's the habitual thoughts you're having. And it's by changing those thoughts -- gently, persistently, and with support -- that you start moving again.

Final Thought

Everyone gets stuck now and then. The distinction between remaining stuck and progressing usually hinges on the way we consider the stuckness. Our minds are incredibly strong, and sometimes, they even work against us without our/us realizing it.

But the good news is that thought patterns can be changed. Habits can be lost. And change does not necessarily have to mean massive change; sometimes it can start with noticing your own thoughts and asking yourself, "Is this really true?"

If all that sounds like an avenue you'd like to explore, ringing a decent CBT practitioner in Christchurch might be the best thing you can do, not to improve you, but to better understand and get a handle on and support yourself.

Because you're not broken, you're just stuck. And stuck is something we can work with.