What's this All About: The CBT Project

Overview

Before we start, CBT = Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. Unfamiliar with it? Google it, or click here. ;)

The CBT Project is a project on a currently-unnamed, CBT-like tool to naturally change your bad beliefs, therefore your actions, attitude, and ultimately your reality, while minimising the risk of delusion or cognitive dissonance (see below).

Your help is needed to make this project a success.

At the end, this tool will be awesome, I promise! :)

Goals

Since I heard people love to misunderstand, I had to write a disclaimer.
So don't misunderstand me, okay? :)

Disclaimer: I'm not saying other CBT tools are ineffective or will always cause delusion. They are probably effective for certain people, and won't cause delusion if used properly. If you have a method that has been working well for you, that's great!
 
While there are already tools out there, psychological or not, to change one's beliefs, the CBT project aims for a tool that:

Minimise the risk of deluding oneself (probably achieved).

When it comes to personal development, common results of delusion are false hope and over-confidence. Oh, and false hope hurts.

Some CBT tools I have tried in the past have allowed me to invalidate statements that are facts, such as "Fresh milk goes sour if left unrefrigerated," suggesting me that, for example, the statement is over-generalised (since it addresses "all fresh milk"). Therefore, a not over-generalised (and "more accurate") statement would be "Some fresh milk goes sour if left unrefrigerated, but some fresh, unpausterised milk does not go sour when left unrefrigerated." Umm....

In order to achieve this goal, this tool is currently based on the scientific method, minimising (if not eliminating) the risk of deluding yourself. The scientific method is used by scientists to prove and disprove things, and it has been accurate (just look at the products of science like pain-killers, microwave, your computer/phone, and so on). As a result:

• If one tries to disprove "Electricity exists." with this tool, either they won't get anywhere, or they will end up with the conclusion "Electricity exists." This tool will not work if one tries disprove facts.
• If one tries to disprove something overly broad (e.g. "Strangers do not respect me."), they will end up with something like "Strangers do not respect me if I disrespect them." or "Strangers disrespect me not because of me, but because of some other factors." This disproves the original statement without leaving them thinking strangers will always respect them, and suggests them with a more accurate fact.

After all, if current CBT tools out there can provide people with 100% accurate ways of thinking, and have the capability to make predictions accurately, why are they or (at least their concepts) not adopted by scientists and researchers?

Minimise the risk of contradicting itself, hence minimising cognitive dissonance (probably achieved).

Another tool I have tried allows me to invalidate conflicting statements. For example, both "I look ugly" and "I look good" will be invalidated if you run both statements through the tool. This tool was the most effective CBT tool for me, until my left brain realised this and told me that the tool isn't probably credible enough to invalidate stuff for me.

This goal has probably been achieved as well, thanks to the scientific method.

Does not invalidate positive beliefs that, if merely adopted, will turn into a positive reality.

Some positive beliefs will naturally (or subconsciously, if you prefer that word) turn themselves into positive reality when adopted (and after the opposing negative beliefs have been discarded).

For example, adopting "I look good" and discarding "I am ugly" will automatically:

• increase your confidence
• improve your body posture (making it sexier)
• improve your voice tonality (again, making it sexier)

 ...allowing you to naturally be more attractive to others.

This tool should not invalidate such beliefs.

Goal probably achieved, but needs more testing. 

Needs to be used only once per belief.

Remember that first time you learned about gravity at school? You don't need to investigate your thoughts or do some kind of re-thinking every time before bed to convince yourself that "Things fall because of gravity."

Goal not yet achieved, need more testing & ideas.

Mimics natural belief changes, and therefore naturally effective.

Belief changes occur naturally: when you learned something new at school, when you realised that what you believed is actually wrong, when you decide that a certain belief system or religion is correct, and so on. Again, you probably did not have to regularly do some kind of belief-changing techniques at those times, and such natural belief changes were effective.

Goal not yet achieved, need more testing & ideas.

Is simple.

As of now, the tool can be complicated to use for those who are unfamiliar with the scientific method (or fell asleep during their class that taught the scientific method), and if the source of a belief is complicated (even for those who are familiar with the scientific method). Give it a try and you'll see.

It needs to be made simpler without sacrificing existing qualities (e.g. minimising risk of delusion).

Goal definitely not achieved, need more ideas.