Tips to Overcome Magical Thinking
You have to attend an important meeting or interview and unfortunately you miss the train or flight narrowly due to traffic block. You see this as a bad omen and get disheartened. Or a black cat crosses in front of you as you go out of the house for an important event, or someone calls you back just as you start from home. In all these cases, you think you may not achieve your desired goal or objective thinking the unfortunate events to be the cause of misery.
Most often, these thoughts are irrational and illogical. They are called magical thinking or simply superstitions. Irrespective of cultural, educational and religious backgrounds, you can find people nurturing magical thoughts everywhere.
Here are a few tips to overcome magical thinking
1 .Remove Fear of Failure and Uncertainty
If you expect a negative outcome to a meeting or an interview, or you are doubtful of clinching a deal, your mind will think up various obstacles. If you remove self-doubt and uncertainties from your mind and remain confident, you’re no longer a slave of magical thinking.
2. Overcome Perfectionism
If you are too much concerned to be perfect, even small mistakes or unexpected events can make you scary of the results. When you go out of the office or from home, you expect positive outcome every time you do something. Realize that no one in the world is perfect, everyone has their failures and shortcomings.
3. Keep Negative Thoughts Away, Keep Company of Positive People
If negative thoughts about the future of your job, business or family haunt you often, then you are in the habit of creating negative thoughts in the mind. It may be due to the company you keep or due to your upbringing. Surround yourself with positive people rather than negative ones.
4. Meditate
Meditation helps calm the mind and give rest to the brain. It is during this process that negative thoughts can be eliminated and a silence develops. It is often stress- both physical and mental, that causes turbulence in the mind.
5. Read Books and Get Help from Therapists
When you keep negative thoughts to yourself, you are a prisoner of your own thoughts. Reading self-help books, biographies and seeking help of therapists can help you overcome magical thinking. Your failure or success has nothing to do with some bad omen, spirits or astrological stars.
6. Don’t Believe in Lucky Charms
You may believe that certain days and dates are favorable to you. Or you may think wearing a bracelet or ring will bring luck. For an important event, if you are not able to wear it, you feel disheartened and attribute your failure to it. Remember, luck favours when hardwork meets opportunity.
7. Be Grateful and Prayerful
Having a great regard for whatever you have in life and your achievements make you more stable and strong enough to withstand any adversities. When you are grateful for the job you have or the possessions or family, and pray regularly, you become more confident to take both victories and setbacks on your stride.
People who are obsessed with magical thinking believe in destiny, fate, luck and so on. Thee is no scientific basis for this type of assumptions. Three times you wore a yellow shirt and you met with an accident, but the color of the shirt may have nothing to do with the unfortunate event. But your mind is conditioned to accept ‘coincidences’ as real.
