Question 2

While reading through the fallacies section I thought this question was going to be difficult to answer because none of them stood out to me until I got to "Fear of catastrophic failure", which summed up my fallacy in intrapersonal communication well. I have struggled with this side of myself and I was glad to see that it is recognized as a fallacy in self-talk. The fact that I am constantly playing these scenarios in my head of negative things that could happen has had an affect on my life in many different ways. One example of this was that I was procrastinating meeting with an advisor for school simply because I thought that she was going to be upset with me once she realized that I had taken a senior class that was meant for the last semester. I had played out this scenario many times where she was telling me I had to re-take the course, and this would cause me to avoid meeting with her. I realized that I had to go and meet with her in order to graduate, and by doing this I found out wonderful news that I am graduating this Spring. I am very happy about this, but I feel that if I had met with her sooner I would have probably graduated even earlier. As our text explained, we should find ways to counteract these fallacies, and the way that I am slowly learning to change this is by realizing that I have more to lose by avoiding situations based on fantasy and scenario than I do by actually gathering courage to do them. I have changed my self-talk to point out that positive scenarios that may also happen by challenging these fears. While this may still be fantasizing to a certain degree, it is a positive type of fantasy that can keep me focused on the good things I have going on in my life.