As we continue our series on common Thinking Errors, this episode considers the way that sometimes we jump to conclusions with minimal evidence and no facts.

Ricky and Paul explore the different ways we see this playing out, taking examples from sport where commentators take stats from 20 years ago to tell us who is going to win, without anyone pointing out that there are very few sportspeople who were playing 20 years ago playing today, so it is not the same team!

If you are prone to making leaps in your logic, jumping to conclusions that don’t help you or move you forward, ask yourself when you do have a conclusion;

• Where is the Evidence? 
• What Alternative explanations might there be?
• What are the Implications of this?
• How Useful is this line of thinking?

These four vowels (E A I U) prevent you from getting to Ohh, I got that wrong.

If you have ever had one bad thing happen, and suddenly cannot remember everything good that happened before, then this podcast is for you.  In this episode, Graham asks Paul about he common thinking error, Mental Filtering.   

Our brains are designed to sort through all of the information presented to us quickly and then focus on the areas that present danger or risk.  It is doing its primary job of keeping us alive long enough to pass on our genes!  Yet, in a modern world, we are not really at risk, so occasionally this amazing trick backfires and makes us hyper-focused on the challenge as if it is life and death, without adding the context of everything else that is going on.

Paul and Graham discuss why this happens, and most importantly, how you can bring balance and perspective back into your thoughts, to allow you to see problems and challenges for what they are, and remember all of the experience you are bringing to them.

In our series on thinking errors, this podcast explores catastrophising, with Richard and Graham sharing their own personal experience of this cognitive trick our mind can play, as well as examining why it happens and how to deal with it.

If you have ever turned a paper cut into a medical emergency, or a problem at work starts to feel like the first step toward unemployability, then this podcast will help you understand how this simple mental defensive mechanism can easily shift from our best friend to an unhelpful foe.