  

**IF SO, READING &amp; UNDERSTANDING THIS WILL FREE YOUR SOUL.** 

Today, I’ll talk about another disempowering (a.k.a. shitty ) way of thinking. And this one is called “Polarized Thinking”

1. What is “polarized thinking”?

Polarized thinking. You lump things into absolute, black-and-white categories, with no middle ground. You have to be perfect or you’re worthless.

You judge yourself as either a saint or a sinner, a good guy or a bad guy, a success or a failure, a hero or a villain.

And this sucks cuz No one can be perfect all the time, so at the first mistake, you must conclude that you are all bad.

2. How to know if you’re doing it?

You can catch yourself doing polarized thinking by listening for “either-or” messages from your inner critic. “I’m either going to win the scholarship or completely blow my future.” “If you can’t be funny and ‘on,’ then you’re a bore.” “If I can’t be calm, I’m hysterical.”

Sometimes only one half of the dichotomy is stated and the other half is implied:

“There’s only one right way to live (and all the others are wrong).”

“This is my big chance for a good relationship (and if I blow it, I’ll be alone).

3. How to end it?

A helpful technique in writing rebuttals of polarized thinking is to use percentages.

The car show wasn’t a total disaster; your Packard got 80 out of 100 points.

The meal you cooked wasn’t garbage; rather, the entree was 50 percent okay, the salad was 80 percent, and the dessert was 40 percent.

Your party wasn’t a complete bore—60 percent of your guests had a good time, 30 percent were bored, and the remaining 10 percent never admit to having fun no matter where they are.

&amp; you can also keep saying these statements against polarized thinking:

• Wrong!

• Nothing is totally anything.

• Let me be more precise.

• Remember the gray zone.

• No more absolutes.

• What are the percentages?

• There are infinite gradations of good and bad in all I do.

Alright, so as always pick one or 2 of these statements and commit to saying them out-loud to your inner critic. 

And as always again, let me know how this works for you.  
 Btw, I have a free training coming up soon, click this link to learn more about it 

[MasterMind.com](https://ayoub-alharchal.mastermind.com/opt_in/1308)

And I'll see you in the next post!