How to Change a Self-Defeating Belief (SDB)
Many of you have expressed an interest in my free Tuesday training group for mental health professionals. Today, you can attend, thanks to the generosity of our group in allowing the group to be recorded on Zoom, and thanks Zeina, the group member who courageously volunteered to have us work on her “Achievement Addiction.” I also want to thank my beloved and brilliant co-teacher, Dr. Jill Levitt, who always adds tremendously to our group, on so many different levels.
Last week, we taught the group members how to pinpoint Self-Defeating Beliefs that trigger depression and anxiety, and we promised to show them how to challenge and modify a Self-Defeating Belief in the group you’re about to “attend.” We decided to focus on the Achievement Addiction, which is the belief that your worthwhileness as a human being depends on your achievements and productivity.
Perhaps you share this belief! Most people do.
Here’s how a Self-Defeating Belief works. Let’s say that you base your self-esteem on your achievements. As long as you think you’re achieving and being successful, we would predict that you’ll feel happy and contented. But we would also predict that you may experience episodes of depression, anxiety, and self-doubt when you fail or fall short of your goals and expectations. That’s when you’ll be most likely to start beating up on yourself with distorted negative thoughts, like “I’m a loser,” or “I shouldn’t have screwed up,” or “I’m not good enough.”
So, in short, the combination of an SDB (“My worthwhileness is based on my achievements”) plus a negative event, like a perceived failure, triggers distorted thoughts (like “I’m a failure” or “loser”) which trigger negative feelings, like depression, anxiety, shame, inferiority, or even suicidal thoughts. In addition, cognitive therapists believe that if you modify the SDB, it will not only help you in the here-and-now, but it can also make you less vulnerable to painful mood swings in the future. But how in the world can you do that?
If you like, take a look at the list of 23 common Self-Defeating Beliefs and see if you can find any of yours!
Zeina said she wanted help with her tendency to base her feelings of happiness and self-esteem on her accomplishments. In the group, we demonstrated four techniques for changing this or any SDB, including:
- The Cost-Benefit Analysis. You list the advantages and disadvantages of the belief you want to change. You can find the one we worked on with Zeina during the group if you click this link. If you want a blank one you can work with, you can find one on page 2 of this link.
- The Semantic Technique. This involves change at the intellectual level. if the SDB is not working to your advantage, could you modify it so you can keep all the advantages you listed while getting rid of most if not all of the disadvantages. This is a bit of practical personal philosophy exercise with significant emotional implications.
- The Feared Fantasy. Here’s where change at the gut level begins, and you also can begin to challenge the idea that high achievers really are more worthwhile.
- The Double Standard Technique. Here’s where change at the gut level continues, and you can hear a beautiful example in Zeina’s dramatic interaction with Dr. Levitt.
In today’s part 1 podcast, we completed the Cost-Benefit Analysis. I would urge you to do your own CBA while you’re listening. When you’re done, balance the advantages against the disadvantages on a 100 point scale. Put two numbers in the circles at the bottom to show whether the advantages or disadvantages are greater. For example, if the advantages of this belief greatly outweigh the disadvantages, you might put 80 – 20 in the two circles. If the advantages and disadvantages of this belief are about equal, you can put 50 – 50 in the two circles. And if the disadvantages are somewhat greater, you might put 45 – 55 in the two circles.
When you do your own weightings, please note that the number advantages or disadvantages is not important–that’s because one advantages could outweigh several disadvantages, and vice versa. Instead, look at the lists as a whole and ask yourself how they feel, and how this belief is working for you.
In addition–and this is super important–remember that you are NOT evaluation the advantages and disadvantages of achievement. There probably aren’t any disadvantages of achievement! Instead, you are evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of basing your self-esteem and feelings of worthwhileness on your achievements and productivity.
At the end of the group work with the CBA, I emphasize that the goal of the CBA is simply to find out if you (or in this case Zeina) want to change your SDB. This is a motivational question. If the advantages and disadvantages are about equal (50 – 50), or if the advantages out weight the disadvantages (eg 60 – 40), then there may be no reason to change the belief. But when the disadvantages outweigh the advantages, you can then change the belief so that all the disadvantages diminish or disappear entirely, while at the same time you keep all the advantages.
That sounds like a pretty good deal! In next week’s podcast, you’ll learn how to make this happen with the help of the Semantic Technique, Feared Fantasy, and Double Standard Technique!
There are a great many additional techniques for challenging and modifying any SDB as well. The four I listed above are just a kind of “Starter Kit” for SDBs to give you a feel for how some of the techniques work. If you like this podcast, we may focus on other SDBs as well, such as the Approval Addiction, the Love Addiction, and more. Let us know if you’d be interested, and which beliefs interest you the most. We’ve already done a podcast on perfectionism, as well as a popular Live TV program on perfectionism on Facebook that features Jill and me, but there are tons of beliefs we haven’t yet addressed.
To make today’s podcast more dynamic, you can do your own Cost-Benefit Analysis while you watch, and make sure you do your own weightings at the bottom, just like the therapists in our Tuesday training group. I think you’ll enjoy it, and it might nudge your thinking a little, too!
Please let me know if you’ve enjoyed “eavesdropping” on my Tuesday training group, and if you’d like more Feeling Good Podcasts like this in the future. Let me know, too, if you’d have an interest in attending a weekly TEAM therapy training group for therapists or for the general public.
My new book Feeling Great, is now available on Amazon (see the link below) as a hardbound volume or as an eBook. It features all the new TEAM therapy techniques, and is geared for therapists as well as the general public.
Rhonda and David
You can reach Dr. Burns at david@feelinggood.com. Dr. Rhonda Barovsky practices in Walnut Creek, California, but due to Covid-19 restrictions is practicing via Zoom, and can be reached at rbarovsky@aol.com. She is a Level 4 Certified TEAM-CBT therapist and trainer and specializes in the treatment of trauma, anxiety, depression, and relationship problems. She also does forensic work in family court, but finds TEAM-CBT to be way more rewarding! Check out her new website: http://www.feelinggreattherapycenter.com!
Zeina Halim, MA, AMFT practices in Menlo Park, California. She specializes in the treatment of TEAM-CBT with adults and anyone aged 13 or older, struggling with depression or anxiety. She also works with executives or adults wanting to boost their performance. She can be reached at zeinahalimtherapy@gmail.com. She is supervised and employed by Matthew May, MD.
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This is the cover of my new book, Feeling Great. The kindle is available now, too, and the audio version may be available by the time you read this, too!

Are you guys actually teaching people to be failures in order to be happy? I don’t think that’s very responsible. You might as well tell people with depression to be lazy and stop working altogether to be cured!
You have not understood my message. Are you open to that? There’s an angry edge to your comment, so you may not want to have a dialogue, which is totally okay! It’s just that you are attributing a position to me that I have never endorsed. Thanks! david
Hi David,
I found a couple grammatical errors so in my effort to achieve a perfect Reply, I’m resubmitting 😉
There may be two fundamental Benefits to maintaining the belief, “my self-worth is derived from my achievements”, which were not discussed in Episode 211, Part 1. One is of a cognitive/behavioral nature and the other, biological in origin. To make things as confusing as possible, let’s begin with the second one first.
Biology: Like all humans, Zeina enjoys Dopamine. Self-disclosure: It’s #1 on my top 10 list of favorite neurotransmitters. Various drugs of abuse are a quick source but, they have some pretty nasty downsides. It seems that Zeina has discovered the natural Dopamine-generating practice of goal-directed behavior which involves interactions of both prefrontal cortical and limbic inputs in the nucleus accumbens. Dopamine is generated as we observe ourselves moving toward a goal which “we believe is important”. Without this ancient evolutionary adaption, we would not be having this discussion in the first place because our ancestors would not have adequately prepared for an ever changing future. It’s the drug that keeps us going! Now consider the impact of a deep belief that one’s entire self-worth is directly tied to achievement. Has Zeina effectively found a way to turbo-boost that Dopamine kick?
Cognitive/Behavioral: The degree to which Zeina believes that her self-worth is based upon achievement affords her a concurrent measure of CONTROL over her self-worth. She can now modulate her self-perception and associated feelings in a fairly reliable manner. With the added Dopamine-kick, she can effectively self-medicate (so-to-speak) whenever the need arises.
I have found these live sessions personally helpful because they afford me the opportunity to consider a problem/issue/etc… from a different and perhaps safer perspective. Each volunteer becomes a sort of archetype for what Carl Jung called the Hero’s journey.
Greetings From The Front,
Richard Gilstrap, PhD
Thanks, Richard, very cool! d
Thanks for this podcast. It’s made it easier for me to approach my own Cost / Benefit analysis work, and also to see that I have been focusing so hard on the things I haven’t achieved that I have sometimes forgotten how to enjoy the things I’m already doing.
As for negative comments in the responses here, well, the poster has clearly missed the point, but I must admit I struggled during the first few podcasts I heard to understand the point of the positive reframing exercise. But I’m pretty sure I get it now. If I’m not mistaken, you are not saying that there is anything wrong with achieving success, but that one can have self esteem before and while striving for it, instead of postponing feelings of self-worth until one has reached some specific goal. It means that we might fail to achieve a goal, as all of us do now and again, but our confidence needn’t take a knock because of it.
Most of us have reasons to resist improve our lives, but mostly they are unconscious ones. By putting them into words (as with the positive reframing, or the cost-benefit analysis), these reasons are brought to the conscious mind, and only then can we start to challenge them. The object of this part of the session, I think, was not about making Zeina happy with her failures, but to make her happy despite them. She can continue to strive for success all she wants, and probably will, but she’ll have an intrinsic sense of self-esteem while striving, instead of afterwards (in which case, her self-esteem will probably fade again quickly as moves her focus to another goal she hasn’t achieved yet).
Hopefully I’ve understood the point of the podcast – looking forward to hearing the second part today.
Great job, Brian. Thanks!
Yes, there is nothing wrong with the healthy pursuit of excellence. My focus is on beating up on yourself because you’re “not good enough,” vs. approaching life with feelings of joy and seeing errors or “failures” as opportunities for growth and learning.
To my way of thinking, this is a bit of a philosophical / spiritual / mystical journey with profound practical and emotional implications. Once you’ve experienced “a sense of self-esteem while striving,” as you put it so elegantly, you can, if you like aim for: 1. getting rid of your self-esteem entirely, since it is just another perfectionistic trap; and then 2. getting rid of your sense of “self,” and discovering that you don’t have, and never needed, a “self.” The Buddha thought of the second step as the “Great Death,” but there are really four “great deaths” in TEAM-CBT.
Thanks so much! Warmly, david