As we continue to explore the common thinking errors, the little trip-ups in the way that we think, our episode this time explores Personalisation. Personalisation happens when we blame ourselves for things that are really outside our control. We did not plan this episode for our Christmas one, but what a lucky coincidence, as you may experience a little of this over the next few days, so it might be worth understanding what is going on.

Graham and Paul dig into what causes us to take the normal to and fro of life and sometimes find meaning and slight on ourselves that was never there, or a least never intended in that way. How criticism of a project or piece of work can feel like criticism of us, or the people around you laughing are almost certainly not laughing at you.

So this Christmas break, the weather is not down to you, and unless you really are one of the few people who decide what is going to be shown on the telly, the fact that there are 200 channels and nothing on, well, that is not your fault either!

One of the common thinking errors we encounter revolves around 'should' and 'must' statements that we say to ourselves, creating high demands on how the world needs to be, when the world has not agreed to our demands. Often, we don't need to operate anywhere near that level to be successful.

If you carry around the invisible rule book of your own standards, ticking off each day where you fail to live up to impossible expectations, and the world conspires to frustrate you. This podcast in our series on thinking errors will be of interest. Richard and Graham explore how, by changing should to could, and I must to I would prefer it if, we can give ourselves more scope to move forward in an uncertain world.

As we continue our series of podcasts on common thinking errors, in this podcast, Ricky and Richard make up stuff. Well, to be honest, I just made that up because this is a great podcast and I was not part of it! This is emotional reasoning, and if you listen to this podcast, they will introduce you to this common thinking error that we can all make from time to time.

Emotional Reasoning is where our mind mixes up who we feel about something (or someone) and the supporting facts about that situation or person. If you have ever had a bad meeting and started to think that represents the capability of your team, or decided that a new project that is all new and sexy, but has very little detail, is bound to be better than the current project, where you understand all of the complexity and issues, you have fallen prey to emotional reasoning. Listen in while Ricky and Rich help you take back control and see things as they are, not how they feel...