Brilliant Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, 2nd Edition

So how do you change the rules?

There are three things you can do to start with:

1. Remind yourself that your rules are based on beliefs and values that other people may not share so they are not set in stone. Our rules are aspects of a personal meaning system that can never be objectively ‘true’. As this book has hopefully shown you by now, beliefs and meanings can be changed and adapted to better suit your needs.
2. Systematically review the evidence as to whether your rules are helpful for you and test them against the criteria listed above.
3. Conduct behavioural experiments to look at the consequences of alternative rules or see what happens if you deliberately allow yourself to break your current ones. Do the anticipated consequences always follow? ...