Turning Negative Thoughts into Positive Performances

What to learn how to conquer them?

 

 

Shakespeare (Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2)

“for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”

 

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy

The following information was adapted from:

Burns, D. D. (1999). Feeling good: The new mood therapy. New York: Collins.

 

Cognitive therapy is a method of mood modification that helps change our negative thinking patterns.  It teaches us how to understand and change our moods and negative abnormal emotions.   Thoughts that are negative, discouraging, and self-critical create feelings and moods that can halt your productivity, self-esteem, and happiness.  Cognitive Therapy can help us learn coping strategies to help us change our negative thinking patterns, reduce anxiety, and prepare us to play better.

 

More on how we think negatively

 

Your moods are created by your thoughts or “cognitions.”  These thoughts are based on how we perceive and interpret things.  This includes what we say about someone, something, or to ourselves.  We feel the way we do because of our thoughts and the dialogue we have with ourselves.  Our emotional reactions are based more on our thoughts than the actual things that are happening to us.  Your thought creates the emotion and the emotion can have a positive or negative effect on your mood and the resulting ability to be positive or negative and continue.  Negative thoughts and moods can make playing or practicing music seem impossible and it therefore becomes impossible.  Negativity leads to more negativity and those thoughts start to become believable and crippling.

 

“I’ll never get into an orchestra”

 

– You stop practising and create a self-fulfilling prophecy from the negative thought

 

“I’m the worst person for playing in tune.”

 

– You avoid fixing it and putting in the time because it makes you feel even worse.  What if I prove myself right?

 

“I’m never going to be good enough to be a professional.”

 

– You are frustrated and down and can’t focus on practising.  This simply blocks you from getting any better and fixing those things that would make you a professional.