Gerem Louise Cadorna

Sister Garcia

PC 101 Life Skills

October 8, 2023

Stopping Thinking Errors

Have you ever experienced a situation where your teacher gave you a very challenging

task to do in school and you felt like you couldn’t do it? To the point that you didn't even try

if you could? Sometimes, it is a human's natural response to be scared when difficult

circumstances like this arise. But a lot of times, it is our own mind that makes it more

difficult. When these things happen, instead of facing them, we immediately conclude that we

can't do this or that. This illustrates the thinking error of powerlessness. To overcome the

thinking error of powerlessness, one thing I can do is do my best to stop it right away when I

realize I’m committing it.

My own personal experience has shown me that being able to stop my thinking errors

right away after I realize I'm committing them is a great first step toward overcoming them.

When I was a youth, the president of our branch assigned me for the first time to be the

speaker for the upcoming church's sacrament meeting. Since I was too shy to decline his

invitations, I accepted them, but deep in my mind, I was really overthinking. Since then,

public speaking, or speaking in front of a crowd, has really been one of my weaknesses. I was

telling myself that I couldn't do something like what I saw at every sacrament meeting that

other people do, plus the fact that I haven't even tried it. For the whole week, that's what I've

been thinking, and instead of starting to study my talk, I was stressing out of it. So, I decided

to tell my mom. She told me something like, "There is no impossible thing to do if you will

trust in the Lord to help you. If others can, why can't you?". That's when I recognized it was
just a thinking error. I was the one bringing myself down and making the situation more

difficult the whole time. When I figured out it was unhealthy for me to think like that, I

immediately did my best to put an end to the negative thoughts that came to mind and replace

them with the good ones. Afterwards, I was inspired to pray and ask God's help, and then I

was able to start studying the topic. I am confident that having the ability to terminate a

thinking error of powerlessness as soon as I find myself committing it will help me to control

and eventually overcome this thinking error.

In conclusion, the personal circumstances that I have experienced have shown me the

impact of doing my best to take a moment to stop a thinking error of powerlessness right

away as a step to overcome it. To illustrate, let's go back and reflect once again on the

challenging task your teacher gave you before. How was it? Do you think it would make a

difference if you'd known that you're having a thinking error and stopped it sooner? What

could this new knowledge about thinking errors do for you in the future?