Healthy Thinking Patterns

Two official videos.

Both videos open on churchofjesuschrist.org. Download them before class if the building’s Wi-Fi is unreliable. Both are part of the core lesson. The manual provides a transcript for the first one, and you can find it in the facilitator notes.

• ★ Our True IdentityMy Foundation · President Uchtdorf · the ugly duckling3:39
• ★ Am I Good Enough?Learn · our thoughts influence our emotions · Elder Cornish3:28

Common inaccurate thinking patterns.

These come from the manual. Which one or two do you use most?

• All or Nothing: seeing something or someone as all good or all bad. Look for always and never.
• Mislabeling: taking something that happened and making a broad or incorrect statement.
• Jumping to Conclusions: interpreting others’ thoughts or assuming the worst possible outcome.
• Personalizing: blaming yourself or someone else for a situation that in reality involved many factors.
• Emotional Reasoning: judging a situation based on how you feel.
• Overgeneralization: applying one experience and generalizing it to all experiences.
• Negative Mental Filter: focusing on a negative detail and dwelling on it.
• Discounting the Positive: rejecting all positive experiences because you don’t feel like they count.
• Magnification: exaggerating your weaknesses or comparing them to others’ strengths.
• “Should” Statements: telling yourself how things should or should not be.

What we added and why.

The manual’s content is kept as written. These additions are marked Optional in the deck, so you can skip any of them.

• Three warm-ups (choose one): Left on read, Weather report, or Highlight reel / blooper reel. Each one lets students experience the idea that thoughts influence emotions before you teach it.
• The four-box chain: something happens, I think something about it, I feel something, I do something. It appears on the first Learn slide, and the rest of the lesson refers back to it.
• Name that pattern: ten sentences a senior might say, one for each thinking pattern. The answer key is in the notes.
• Catch it, check it, change it: the manual’s steps (recognize the pattern, challenge it with the seven questions, create accurate thoughts, practice) in a form students can remember.
• A senior-year Thinking Management Chart example: the manual’s example is written for a parent (“My child always lies to me”). Slides 22 and 23 use “My friends always leave me out” with the same structure, and the notes include the manual’s original so you know what the printed chart says. Two of the ten-pattern examples on slide 17 are also parent examples; those stay in the manual’s wording on the slide, with a student version in the notes to say out loud.

These come from the manual. Before you believe a thought, ask one of these questions.

1. Considering all the evidence, is the thought I’m having 100 percent accurate?
2. Is this something the Savior would want me to think or feel?
3. Is this thought all or nothing—all good or all bad, win or lose, true or false?
4. Does thinking this way help me or hurt me?
5. How do I feel when I have this thought?
6. What do I know about myself and others that tells me this is not true?
7. What would I tell my best friend or someone I respected if they thought these things?

• AI will identify one way to remember my divine identity this week.
• BI will write down one thing I am grateful for each day and thank God for it.
• CI will work on my personal commitment from the “Ponder” section.
• DI will contact and support my action partner.
• EI will share what I’ve learned with my family or friends.

Breathe first, then catch, check, and change.

Breathe in for 4, hold for 4, out for 4, hold for 4, and repeat four times. Then name the thought, ask it one question, and replace it with something accurate.