Challenge Series: Thinking Traps In Softball

This is the third article in a series examining different types of perceptual distortions I encounter the most with athletes. I am calling this the "Challenge Series" because I will challenge you to examine yourself to see if you struggle with a selected distortion and challenge you to take action to overcome it.

To review what a perceptual distortion is and how it can affect your performance on the softball field, please read the first article in this series titled "Challenge Series: Defining Perceptual Distortions." To read more about another common distortion, check out the second article on fear distortion titled, "Challenge Series: Fear In Softball."

In this article, I discuss distorted thinking patterns, often called "thinking traps."

What Is A "Thinking Trap?"

A thinking trap happens when you experience a situation, and your brain creates a shortcut about how to make a decision or process what you experienced (Naoumidis, 2025). This may sound like a good thing, right? After all, your brain is a prediction machine, and letting your brain take shortcuts can speed up how quickly you respond. This is called "heuristics" in psychology (Yadav, 2025), where mental shortcuts save your brain energy and help you think quickly.

While this process can be good for making quick decisions during routine tasks, the shortcut approach does not work as effectively when you're in a complex situation, need to make more complex decisions, or face high-emotion or social situations. When your brain tries to create a shortcut in these situations (like after striking out in front of people), you can fall into a thinking trap that can be harmful to your performance. Why, you may ask? Well, because there is a risk-reward when your brain creates a mental shortcut.

The reward is fast decision-making, conservation of energy, and bravery, but the risk is that your brain frequently misinterprets reality when it uses a shortcut (Whalley, 2019). The shortcut process requires your brain to create a reality for you based on your personal biases, fears, or even past memories that may not be accurate or complete. Remember, your brain is trying to get you to a solution quickly, so it does not take the time to examine all of the environmental cues or facts about the situation.

This means you can fall into a thinking trap that has you misinterpreting the reality of the situation. Thinking traps usually happen when you have uncomfortable feelings like shame, judgment, fear of failure, self-blame, rejection, or loss of control. When you peel away the layers, a thinking trap is simply a subconscious, irrational defense mechanism your brain deploys to help you avoid feeling uncomfortable emotions (Whalley, 2019).

Common Thinking Traps

There are quite a few thinking traps we can experience, but I will present the most common ones I observe when working with athletes, along with the lasting impacts of each trap (McCarthy, 2025; Naoumidis, 2025).

All-Or-Nothing Thinking: This trap happens when you see a situation with two extreme outcomes and no middle ground explanation. An example of this trap could be if you think your performance was not perfect—say you made one error but had an otherwise great game, then you think you did not play well at all because of this one error.

Catastrophizing: The trap happens when you think a minor negative event will lead to the worst possible outcome. For example, you have one bad inning or game and assume you will never get recruited to play in college or picked for the team.

Mental Filtering: This trap happens when you focus only on the negative parts of your experience or performance and overlook the positive. For example, after a game in which you struck out one time but had three hits (went 3-for-4), you fixate only on the strikeout and minimize the three hits you had by thinking the pitcher wasn't that good, it was just luck, or a fluke.

Personalization: This trap happens when you take on excessive and unrealistic blame or responsibility for negative outcomes that are entirely out of your control. For example, you just pitched a game that the team lost, but you take personal responsibility and blame for the loss.

"Have-To" Thinking: This trap happens when you place unrealistic and rigid rules on yourself or others. For example, you tell yourself you "must" get a hit to score a run in your at-bat or you won't be valued, or your pitcher "has to" not give up a walk or the team will not win the game.

Mind Reading: This trap happens when you assume you know what others are thinking without actual evidence or proof, and this usually results in you thinking these thoughts are something negative or critical about you. For example, your coach gets a stern look on her face when you look her way or she's talking with you, and you assume she is thinking you messed the game up or you won't get to start the next game even if you did not make a mistake.

How To Get Out Of A Thinking Trap

The first step to work through any cognitive distortion is to recognize your distortion. Learning about thinking traps can help you recognize when you're in one. Here are some strategies you can use to help yourself out of a trap once you recognize what is happening:

A) If you suddenly feel anxious, sad, stressed, uncomfortable, or critical, pause and examine the situation that happened and what you said to yourself. Do you have a fear of failing? Being exposed? Being blamed or embarrassed? Are you experiencing a strong emotional reaction? That's a good indicator that you may be in a thinking trap. Name it and claim it.

B) Remind yourself that emotions and thoughts are not facts. Remember that a trap means your brain has created a shortcut for how to respond to the situation, and that shortcut means your brain is not interpreting the situation accurately (Hodge, 2021). You can help yourself remove the emotion by thinking through the situation in the third person. For example, instead of saying, "I feel upset because this happened," you can work through it with, "I feel upset because [describe the situation]."

C) Reframe the situation by looking for observable and objective evidence. This evidence should be facts about the situation that can be verified. Sometimes, all you have to do is ask yourself is, "What is the evidence that this happened the way I think it happened?" I call this looking for "receipts." Show yourself the receipts that your emotions and thoughts are accurate or not. Consider all the possible alternative reasons and outcomes you come up with. After you work through this process, take a deep breath and make a decision about how you're going to proceed on your very next action.

References

Hodge, B. (2021, August 30). Five common thinking traps and how to avoid them. UAB News: University of Alabama Birmingham. Retrieved from https://www.uab.edu/news/health-medicine/five-common-thinking-traps-and-how-to-avoid-them

McCarthy, P. (2025, August 9). How to identify and overcome cognitive distortions in sports. Dr. Paul McCarthy Sport Psychology. Retrieved from https://www.drpaulmccarthy.com/post/how-to-identify-and-overcome-cognitive-distortions-in-sports

Naoumidis, A. (2025, November 4). Thinking traps: 12 cognitive distortions that are hijacking your brain. Nerva Mindset Health. Retrieved from https://www.nervahealth.com/post/thinking-traps-cognitive-distortions

Whalley, M. (2019, March 18). Cognitive distortions: Unhelpful thinking habits. Psychology Tools. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytools.com/articles/unhelpful-thinking-styles-cognitive-distortions-in-cbt

Yadav, K. K. (2025, December 22). The neuroscience behind everyday decisions: Why the brain favors cognitive shortcuts. Medium. Retrieved from https://medium.com/@kamalbiotech.yadav/the-neuroscience-behind-everyday-decisions-why-the-brain-favors-cognitive-shortcuts-207d65a186be