“You never touch me anymore.”
“You’re always late.”
“Complain, complain, complain—that’s all you ever do.”
The statements above are called “over-generalizations.” They use words like “always” and “never” that typically exclude any examples that don’t fit the over-generalization. I’ve been studying neurolinguistic programming (NLP) and I’ve learned that we tend to use these over-generalizations to our own detriment.
When we overgeneralize, we ignore the times when things are the way we want them to be and focus on the times things are the way we don’t want them to be. It hurts us because it belittles what’s going right. It moves our focus to the negative and lends to a sense of great dissatisfaction, frustration and even the sense of feeling overwhelmed.
I’m figuring you’re like me and you’d like less dissatisfaction, frustration and overwhelm in your life. We can have more of a sense of peace and hope when we are entertaining a more accurate appraisal of what’s going on around us.
I was just talking to a friend and she made a general statement about how people never work with her. She then proceeded to tell me about a recent experience where another lady worked with her, although it hadn’t gone exactly as she would have liked. I pointed out that it wasn’t accurate to say no one ever works with her and that it wasn’t helpful to tell herself that story.
I’ve been guilty of doing the same thing myself. One of my inner talk mantras used to be, “Walk, walk, walk. Work, work, work. Cook, cook, cook. That’s all I do!” When I looked at it, the statement just wasn’t true. I do a lot of other things like self-care and some recreation, too. When I believed that story I was telling myself, I was totally feeding into a sense that life was overwhelming and unfair. So I needed to change my story.
These over-generalizations really show the importance of our self-talk. Our self-talk is crucial because it affects how we’re perceiving the world, classifying our experiences and reacting to that information.
We can change our self-talk, as well as the words we use with other people, to have a more accurate understanding of reality and, consequently, a more positive experience. Next time you find yourself saying things like “always” or “never,” take a moment to evaluate how accurate those words are and if that perception is useful for you and the other people around you.
