I will now share a powerful psychological tool, which I call the “Stop, Question, Ignore” (SQi) tool, that you can use to change unhelpful thoughts. Drawing on concepts from psychology and conducting self-experiments, I developed this tool for my use. I find it immensely useful and am very happy to share it with you.
The SQi tool consists of three simple words, which may seem nonsensical at first.
However, once I explain the simple concepts underlying these words, you will find them easy to use to change unhelpful thoughts.
In the following sections, I will explain, step by step, how to use the SQi tool.
Stop the thought
I will now explain the first word of the SQi tool, which is “Stop”.
When one notices an unhelpful thought occurring in one’s mind, to deal with it effectively, one first needs to stop it “flowing” in one’s mind, making the thought stationary.
Holding the thought still helps one to engage with it. It’s a bit like when a child is running wildly around in a room; to talk to the child meaningfully, one will first need the child to stop running and become still. In the case of the child, one may shout her name loudly, for example “Shelly!”, and this would, at least briefly, cause her to pause her running around. Once one gets her attention, one may be able to engage with her: “Shelly, it’s time for dinner!”
So, how can one make a thought that is speeding along in one’s mind come to a standstill? The answer is to use one’s inner voice. As soon as one senses an unhelpful thought occurring in one’s mind, one can use one’s internal voice to say as firmly as possible, “Stop!” What this does is to temporarily “freeze” the thought, so that one’s mind can engage with it.
It is essential to appreciate that using your inner voice to say “Stop” does not permanently eliminate unhelpful thoughts. If it did, life would have been great, as simply saying “stop” a few times would clear our minds very quickly. Unfortunately, it is well known in psychology that merely saying “Stop” does not permanently stop thoughts. The SQi tool, therefore, uses the word ‘stop’ only to briefly pause the thought, just enough for the other parts of the tool to function.
To help understand the SQi tool, let’s use an example.
Imagine a person named Tom who underwent routine blood tests at his doctor’s clinic a few days ago. Unfortunately, due to a staff shortage, the lab results will not be ready for at least a week. However, while waiting, Tom starts to have unhelpful thoughts. Specifically, he begins to get the thought that he may have diabetes, although at this point, there is no real reason why this should be so. The thought of having diabetes starts to worry him unnecessarily.
Tom decides to use the SQi tool, and as soon as he senses the unhelpful thought about having diabetes, he says to himself, “Stop”. This inner voice command briefly holds the unhelpful thought in place while he moves onto the next step of the SQi tool.
Question the thought
Now that the unhelpful thought has been made stationary by saying “Stop”, we can proceed to the next step of the SQi tool, which involves questioning the unhelpful thought.
The purpose of the questions is to “teach” your mind about why the thought is unhelpful. With repeated “education”, hopefully your mind will gradually, over time, change its way of thinking.
The types of questions that you ask the unhelpful thought will be very variable, depending on the type of unhelpful thought. For example, a common theme of unhelpful thoughts is that they are often not based on actual evidence, but rather are based on one’s imagination. In our example, when Tom was waiting for the results of his blood test, he was relying on his imagination when he concluded that the test would show diabetes, rather than waiting for the definitive evidence of the actual test result. So with unhelpful thoughts, a good question to ask is, “How much of this thought is my imagination and how much is reality?”
In the following sections, I will give you further brief examples of such questions. Please note that these are only examples; I am sure you will be able to come up with questions that are more meaningful to you.
Unhelpful thought: Sally thinks, “Anne is a bad person because she forgot my birthday.”
Questioning the thought: Sally then questions her thought, “What about all the good things Anne has done for me over the years?” Sally realises that she is judging Anne unfairly.
Unhelpful thought: Mike thinks, “I got a promotion at work today, but also lost my expensive phone. Life is awful”.
Questioning the thought: Mike then questions the thought, “Was the day that bad? After all, yes, my phone was expensive, but on the positive side, I got a nice promotion at work.” Mike realises that, after all, his day was not too bad.
Unhelpful thought: Zara thinks, “I feel stressed, I need to eat a chocolate.”
Questioning the thought: Zara then questions this thought. “Is this a helpful thought or an unhelpful thought? After all, eating sugar is not a healthy way to relieve stress.” She resists eating the chocolate.
In the above examples, I limited the questions to one per scenario to keep the discussion brief. Of course, you could ask many more and vary them to your liking. However, as the SQi tool is intended for use in your daily life, it’s best not to make the questions overly complicated.
Let’s now move to the last step of the SQi tool.
Ignore the thought
We are now in the third and final step of the SQi tool, which is the word “Ignore”.
So far, we have held the thought using the word “stop” and neutralised the thought using questions. Now, in this final step, “Ignore”, we want the thought to “go away”.
As mentioned before, a fundamental concept in psychology is that pushing away or suppressing thoughts does not eliminate them. Just asking a thought to go away can even make it worse, as it will reappear with even greater strength. I can demonstrate this concept right now, using a simple psychology experiment on you.
Here is the experiment for you:
“Please do not imagine a cat drinking milk.”
I bet you imagined a cat, even though I told you to do the exact opposite! This brief psychology experiment illustrates how, when you attempt to suppress a thought, it often resurfaces and becomes more prominent.
However, there is an alternative way to make a thought disappear. One just needs to “ignore” the thought. Ignoring means that, while you are aware that the thought is there, you do not engage with it. Eventually, the thought will fade away on its own. Ignoring is very different to suppressing a thought. By ignoring, you are not pushing the thought away. Instead, you are saying, I know the thought is there, but it does not influence me. A thought that you do not engage with will disappear, just like if you do not engage with someone, they will get “bored” and leave you.
Often, you will find that when using the SQi tool, the unhelpful thought fades away during the questioning itself. I.e. even before you think of ignoring it, the thought has left.
A helpful way to ignore a thought is to add another step, which I call “Move on”. Essentially, after one decides to ignore a thought, one moves one’s attention onto something else.
It is, of course, entirely possible for you to repeatedly face the same unhelpful thoughts over and over again. One will need to apply the SQi tool repeatedly to these repetitive thoughts, and with experience, you will become adept at catching the thoughts early. Eventually, one would hope that your mind learns about the thoughts, and they will reappear less often. However, as these unhelpful thoughts may have been with you for years, it can take time for them to trouble you less.
As I described the SQi tool, it may have appeared to be “lengthy” to you. That is only because I broke it down into individual steps. While it may have taken you a while to read and understand the steps, in practice, the SGi tool takes only moments to do. And, like everything, with a bit of practice, it will become quicker. Eventually, you will find yourself using the SQi tools almost automatically.
Summary
In summary, when you suspect yourself of having an unhelpful thought, first say to yourself, “Stop”, so that you can freeze the thought. Then question the thought, to show your mind why the thought is unhelpful. Finally, ignore the thought, so that it fades away on its own accord.
Do try the SQi tool. It will take a few attempts for you to become familiar with it, but soon you will find it immensely useful in dealing with unhelpful thoughts.