Cognitive Restructuring Quotes

The question is the propriety of how we go about influencing and changing behavior.

Change your thoughts and you change your world.

You become what you think about all day long and those days eventually become your lifetime.

Anger is a choice, as well as a habit. It is a learned reaction to frustration, in which you behave in ways that you would rather not. In fact, severe anger is a form of insanity. You are insane whenever you are not in control of your behavior. Therefore, when you are angry and out of control, you are temporarily insane.

The basis of leadership is the capacity of the leader to change the mindset, the framework of the other person.

Every experience in life changes the brain's anatomy.

You become what you believe - not what you wish or want but what you truly believe. Wherever you are in life, look at your beliefs. They put you there.

You have to CHANGE the way you THINK in order to CHANGE the way you FEEL

All mental hygiene is based on the core practice of doing nothing. Most of us are good at wasting time, staring at the wall while telling ourselves we should be working. We call this doing nothing, but our brains are furiously active. We think constantly, and our thinking is often rife with distress.

It's unfortunate, you know, that you can't change people's - habits, their personal habits.

Uncomfortable thoughts must be got rid of by good intentions for the future.

To change ourselves effectively, we first had to change our perceptions.

I wanted to really just understand... how could a whole generation of children who were just children at the time - boys riding their bikes, flying kites, and doing all kinds of things they normally do - how could they suddenly be taught a completely different curriculum?

Habits are changed by practicing new behaviors, and this is true for mental habits as well.

To change a habit, make a conscious decision, then act out the new behavior.

Your brain does not manufacture thoughts. Your thoughts shape neural networks.

Habits of pessimism lead to depression, wither achievement, and undermine physical health. The good news is that pessimism can be unlearned, and that with its removal depression, underachievement, and poor health can be alleviated.

But feelings, no matter how strong or “ugly,” are not a part of who you are. They are the radio stations your mind listens to if you don’t give it something better to do. Feelings are fluid and dynamic; they change frequently. Feelings are something you HAVE, not something you ARE. Like physical beauty, a cold sore, or an opinion. Admitting you feel rage or terrible pain or regret or some old, rotten blame does not mean these feelings are part of who you are as a person. What these feelings mean is, you have to change your thinking to be free of them.

It's not easy to change world views. Faith has its own momentum and belief is comfortable. To restructure reality is traumatic and scary. That is why many intelligent people continue to believe: unbelief is an unknown.

One of the things I did during my 17 years as a psychiatric social worker was go around and find people with mental crutches, and every time I found one, I kicked those goddamn crutches until they flew. You know what happened? Every single one of those people has been able to walk without the crutches better, in fact. Were they giving up anything intrinsically valuable? Just their irrational reliance upon superstitions and supernatural nonsense. Perhaps this sort of claptrap was good for the Stone Age, when people actually believed that if they prayed for rain they would get it.

If you're in somebody's head for 12 hours a day for four weeks, it's like your brain actually wires itself to start thinking that way.

Changing behaviours begins with evolving beliefs.

My goal is to create a therapy of ideas, to try to bring in new ideas so that we can see the same old problems differently.

We cannot unthink unless we are insane.

Sometimes you are physically tired at night, but your brain is functioning too much to go to sleep. If you can have software that helps you understand how you can shift from such a tense situation to being more relaxed, then that would help.