I think one the most pernicious bad habit I have had in my thinking is limiting my own options and letting others limit them for me. I now call this ONLY WAY thinking.
Typical examples might be the ONLY WAY I can get a good job is if I go to college.
The ONLY WAY the country will be ok is if I vote for this/that candidate.
The ONLY WAY you will get to heaven is to follow this religion.
The ONLY WAY you will get better is to take your medication.
The ONLY WAY I can lose weight is by changing meds.
The ONLY WAY I could be a millionaire is by winning the lottery.
etcâŚ
Unfortunately there usually is no way of knowing if something is the ONLY WAY but cutting out alternative paths to a goal does not sound like an adaptive way of living.
Thatâs not to say that some peopleâs suggestions may or may not be the most efficient, easiest or even effective way, but now if anyone says to me or suggests to me something is the âONLY WAYâ a red flag now goes up in my head.
Even in trivial goals and problems I have a tendency of not brainstorming alternatives enough. If I need groceries I might think I am too tired to go out. But I could ask my nephew to get them for me (he needs the money anyway and the happier he is the better off he will be able to help me in the future) or I could even find a neighborhood kid, call a delivery company or even just order take out from the pizza place (which I never do⌠but hey, I just realized it was an option!)
Our vacuum cleaner broke so I thought of taking it to the repair shop⌠but wait! Ebay has the belts cheap. If I canât fix it myself then maybe my brother in law can help. And of course I can always buy another vacuum cleaner, or maybe return this one if its under warranty, borrow someone elseâs cleaner, rent one, hire someone to vacuumâŚ
ONLY WAY thinking seems to be a root cause of suicide. The ONLY WAY I can end my suffering is to end my life. Almost certainly not true and even if it is true I am not qualified to say my suffering will last the rest of my life. If someone says you will be mentally ill for the rest of your life DON"T BELIEVE THEM (if they are a mental health professional they should also probably lose their jobs if they say this to you.)
Thanks⌠yeah I felt a lot of pressure of Convergent thinking when I was doing undergrad physics at a public university. There really wasnât much support for getting wrong answers in very cool ways. Sometimes if the problem was too hard for me to figure out or I wasnât particularly interested in it I would do something off the wall (and a lot more work) like write a computer program to model it if I couldnât solve something explicitly. My college notes had a lot of stupid derivations but not much real meat.
Big lesson learned though⌠Physics is cool so long as you donât have to earn a living doing it.
One of the most tightly wound bipolar pts I have ever seen is a gorgeous little physicist whoâs got 700 âfriendsâ on FB, most of them men, most of them chasing her. IQ over 180. Forced speech at 200 words per minute. Rated 9,997/10,000 among her peers when she graduated from HS. Recruited by every major physics school in this country and several others. Honors grad now in her masters program. Split into one part thatâs so in touch with what is itâs astonishing⌠and another that seems determined to drive herself into a wall at 200 mph. Will not take meds. (This disease.)