How to Overcome Anything

The last few years have turned our world upside down, and many see dark clouds on the horizon. It’s tempting to let regret, grief, or fear consume us. But if we are not in control of what happens, we are also far from helpless. Here are four ways to conquer crisis when it comes your way.

BREAKING THE FEAR CIRCUIT

Too often, our thoughts spiral into the gap between our anxieties about the future and the reality of our circumstances. As a therapist, here's how I help clients stop their fears from becoming self-fulfilling prophecies.

By Jennifer Guttman

I'm so distracted at work," Jesse lamented one day. He was slumped on my couch, looking utterly defeated. "I can't focus on anything."

"Why?" I asked.

"We're in a recession!

Have you heard about all the layoffs at startups and tech companies lately?"

"You're worried that will happen to your company?" I asked.

"In the last recession I had to lay off 25% of my workforce, and the business never recovered profitability. This is absolutely happening to me all over again."

As a psychologist, I often watch my clients grapple with fear. In cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), we teach that thinking errors happen in the gaps between a fear-driven thought about a situation and the reality of the situation itself. These thoughts project a negative, inaccurate account that the person believes is true. The core of CBT is a set of techniques-reality checks, if you will-to correct these thinking errors as they arise. Here are two major types of thinking errors to look out for.