In poker, a tell is when a player moves a certain way that shows something about their hand. For instance, someone might clear their throat or lean back in their chair every time they’re dealt an Ace, or someone could look visibly disappointed when the turn comes.
With thought literacy, we apply that same idea to thoughts so you can identify potentially unhelpful thoughts and pattern
Thought tells are words or phrases that signal a thought might be unhelpful. They’re grouped into 6 categories.
This doesn’t mean that every time you use a specific word your thought is unhealthy, but it gives you a place to start, and it helps you get used to identifying patterns and working with your thoughts.
Thought Tells
The goal isn’t to memorize the words, but to get familiar. For now, read through the list and consider if you use any of these words or phrases regularly.
To help you remember the six tells, use the mnemonic: Absolute Judgments Turn Simple Life Catastrophic.
Absolute language can be a sign of all-or-nothing or extreme thinking. This line of thought can feel good in the moment because it brings a sense of certainty, but it also strips life of nuance and makes situations seem more permanent than they are.
Examples:
- Always
- Never
- Everyone
- Anymore
- Nobody
- No one
- Everything
- Nothing
- Every time
- Either/or
Thought Swaps:
Self
Unhelpful: I always mess everything up. I can never make a decision.
Neutral: I sometimes have trouble making decisions.
Environment
Unhelpful: Nothing ever works the way it should.
Neutral: Things don’t always work the way I expect.
Others
Unhelpful: Everyone thinks differently than I do.
Neutral: Some people think differently than I do.
Judgmental “I” statements turn a mistake, feeling, or experience into a judgment about who you are. Instead of recognizing what happened as one mistake, circumstance, or experience, you turn it into a statement about yourself.
- I’m (insert negative label or assessment)
- I can’t (insert negative label or assessment)
Examples:
- I’m worthless.
- I’m pathetic.
- I’m broken.
- I’m stupid.
- I’m weak.
- I’m lazy.
- I can’t do anything right.
- I can’t be as good as others.
Thought Swaps:
Self
Unhelpful: I’m selfish.
Neutral: I put my needs first in that situation.
Environment
Unhelpful: I can’t do anything right at work.
Neutral: I’ve made several mistakes at work lately.
Others
Unhelpful: I can’t trust anyone.
Neutral: I’ve had some experiences that made it harder to trust people.
“To me” statements frame events as happening to you rather than simply happening. They can make situations feel more personal, intentional, or targeted than they are (or the available information supports).
Examples:
- They were mean to me.
- This always happens to me.
- Why does this happen to me?
- Everyone is against me.
Thought Swaps:
Self
Unhelpful: Why does everything happen to me?
Neutral: I’m having a difficult time with several things right now.
Environment
Unhelpful: The universe is working against me.
Neutral: Several things haven’t gone the way I wanted.
Others
Unhelpful: They’re doing this to me on purpose.
Neutral: I don’t know why they’re doing this.
Using the words “should” or “shouldn’t” can be a sign that you’re viewing situations, people, or your life through rigid rules imposed by society, other people, or yourself.
Thought Swaps:
Self
Unhelpful: I should have my life figured out by now.
Neutral: I need to figure out what I want so I have direction.
Environment
Unhelpful: Life shouldn’t be this hard.
Neutral: Life is difficult right now.
Others
Unhelpful: They should know better.
Neutral: They made a different choice than I would have.
Labeling reduces yourself, your environment, or others to a single characteristic or instance instead of recognizing that people and situations are more complex.
Examples:
- Lazy
- Stupid
- Selfish
- Toxic
- Evil
- Weak
- Loser
- Failure
Thought Swaps:
Self
Unhelpful: “’m a bad person.
Neutral: I regret what I did.
Environment
Unhelpful: This is a toxic workplace.
Neutral: This workplace has several unhealthy dynamics.
Others
Unhelpful: He’s irresponsible.
Neutral: He missed an important deadline.
Catastrophizing uses extreme or disaster-oriented language to interpret a situation as much worse, more dangerous, or more permanent than it may actually be. It can make a difficult situation feel like a disaster, make uncertainty feel like certainty, or turn a problem into something that seems impossible to recover from.
Examples
- Disaster
- Ruined
- Hopeless
- Impossible
- Terrible
- Awful
- Devastating
- Worst
- Doomed
- Destroyed
Thought Swaps:
Self
Unhelpful: My life is ruined.
Neutral: I’m going through a difficult time.
Environment
Unhelpful: The economy is collapsing.
Neutral: The economy is facing significant challenges.
Others
Unhelpful: They’re going to destroy the company.
Neutral: I’m concerned their decisions could hurt the company.
How to Use the Tells
To use the tells, first become familiar with them. You can do this by putting each tell into a sentence using your own words or by thinking of times you’ve heard it in your environment.
For example, American news often uses catastrophic and extreme language, as do many songs, especially songs about love and relationships. Try noticing the tells in the media you already consume.
Once you familiarize yourself with the tells, you can also look at old journal entries or think about past experiences with a high emotional charge and consider whether any of the tells were present in your thoughts at the time.
The more familiar you become with the tells, the easier it becomes to notice them in your own thoughts. Once you notice a tell, you can use that as a starting point to evaluate and reframe the thought.
For help identifying absolute language, check out this article for examples of extreme all-or-nothing thinking in common culture.
Thought tells help you build thought pattern recognition, which is a key part of thought awareness.
Thoughts?