What’s different about those two scenarios? In the first one you created what you anticipated would happen by your behavior and attitude. In the second one you didn’t create a negative self-fulfilling prophecy, rather you created a positive experience and you’re happy that you didn’t waste time on negativity.             This description of an experience is just an example. You can apply the same principles to any situation you’re in. Notice yourself and whether or not you’re experiencing cognitive distortions like “He/she is never any fun so I won’t have fun tonight.” You won’t have fun because you don’t expect to and your energy, attitude, and behavior will reflect that and you’ll create what you already thought would happen before it even happened. 2.  What you believe about something is what will cause the consequence not the action.             This is part of Albert Ellis’ theory of rational emotive therapy. He called it the A B Cs of Rational Emotive Therapy.             He believed that it wasn’t the action (having to change your shirt before you went out) that caused the consequence. He said it’s what you believe about the action that will cause the consequence. In other words, if...

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