Question

1. Think of a stressor in your life, preferably at school or work.

2. Describe how you can use the ABCDEs of cognitive restructuring.

3. Do you feel more confident in your ability to overcome or reduce this stressor?

4. Does simply making this plan make you feel better, less stressed?

The ABCDEs of Cognitive Restructuring

1. A—Name the event or problem.

2. B—List your beliefs about the event or problem.

3. C—Identify the consequences of your beliefs.

4. D—Formulate a counterargument to your initial thoughts and beliefs. Pessimistic thoughts are generally overreactions, so the first step is to correct inaccurate or distorted thoughts

5. E—Describe how energized and empowered you feel at the moment.

Answer 1

A stressor in my life at work is the possible prospect of losing the job due to my constant underperformance and my inability to meet targets.

I can use the ABCDEs of cognitive restructuring to focus on my thoughts in a positive manner as it is a fact that my thoughts are the architects of my destiny. I will use the ABCDEs of cognitive restructuring to determine the activating event, assess my beliefs and thoughts about the event, consequences of those beliefs and then determining ways to defeat that thought and henceforth develop positive thoughts.

Yes, after using the ABCDEs of cognitive restructuring I do feel more confident in my ability to reduce this stressor.

Yes, simply making this plan makes me feel much better and very much less stressed.

The ABCDE plan for my stressor is provided below:

A – I am having difficulty at work due to poor concentration and this is leading to constant underperformance on my part. I have even received a warning from my manager to improve my performance or else there is a prospect that I will be fired.

B – My thoughts with regards to my underperformance is that I am plainly unlucky as many large sales contracts that were coming my way went to other salesmen. My bad luck leads to me missing out on big contracts.

C – The consequences of my belief is that I find no motivation to pursue large and lucrative clients as I think they will eventually be bagged by other salesmen and so I end up pursuing small sales contracts.

D – Here I will determine why my thoughts are not true. I will also determine what automatic negative thoughts (ANT) and cognitive distortions are present in my thoughts. This will help me to realize that my thoughts are not really rational and that if I work really hard I will be able to bag big contracts. I realized that success all about perseverance and luck plays a very small part in it.

E – I am feeling very energized and empowered as the negative thoughts in my mind has now been replaced by a more rational and healthy thoughts and this will push me to work hard, to toil and to increase my efficiency. I will have the motivation as I am in a better control of the situation and hence have the motivation to work hard to ensure that I achieve my goals and objectives.