Breaking the Habit of Checking Things (TMF:2249)

Thursday, December 21, 2023
Peace to Live By: Breaking the Habit of Checking Things (TMF:2249) - Daniel Litton
(Tap or right-click link to download two-minute feature)

       Psychologist David D. Burns, in his book titled ‘Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy’ talks about this (see Chapter 14, pp. 360-62). He said he advises people to just refuse to check something twice. He notes that though the pressure will certainly continue to mount when something isn’t checked, if one has the endurance to pass through it, the doubt will subside after a while. And, from my personal experience, I found this to be true. I use to have the habit of checking my apartment door twice to ‘make sure’ it was locked. Now I am to the point where I can turn the key and not even check it once. I just decided one day to follow Dr. Burn’s advice, and it has worked very well for me. As bad as this is going to sound, I came to realize that I also had a problem with ‘fact checking’ people. That is, someone would tell me something, and I wouldn’t necessarily believe them at face value. I would need some verification that what they said was true. What I was coming to find over and over again, was that if I knew the person was trustworthy in general, then what they said would turn out to be true. My fact checking was pointless and in vain.

Reference:

Burns, David D. (1980, 1999). Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. Harper Collins Publishers, New York: New York.