Core Beliefs Worksheet: Identifying and Reframing Damaging Beliefs

Download this free worksheet PDF to help clients identify and change core beliefs that are working against them

Core beliefs profoundly shape how we see the world, ourselves, and others. These deeply ingrained assumptions influence our emotional and behavioural responses, often leading to stress, anxiety, or depression when the beliefs are negative or unrealistic. This Core Beliefs Worksheet is designed to help clients identify such beliefs and challenge them effectively, fostering a more flexible and healthy outlook.This comprehensive worksheet targets several common negative core beliefs and assumptions:

• Fatalism: Assuming that bad outcomes are inevitable: “Nothing ever works out for me.”
• Mind reading: Believing one can know others’ thoughts: “Everyone thinks I’m stupid.”
• Infallible prediction: Predicting negative outcomes as certainties: “The vacation is going to be lousy.”
• Globalizing from the specific: Generalizing specific negatives to broader aspects of life: “I failed my maths test; I can’t do anything right.”
• Internalizing the negative: Taking undue blame for negative outcomes: “My business failed. I can’t make anything work.”

With exercises to help clients practise challenging these unhelpful assumptions, this worksheet will lead to:

• Improved self-awareness: Clients learn to recognize and articulate their core beliefs, understanding their impact on daily life.
• Enhanced cognitive flexibility: Encourage clients to consider alternative, less damaging ways of thinking, reducing emotional distress.
• Empowerment through challenge: Provide strategies to challenge and alter negative beliefs, empowering clients to take control over their thought processes.

The Core Beliefs Worksheet is an useful tool for therapists that offers structured exercises to guide clients to transform damaging core beliefs into beliefs that support wellbeing and personal growth. It equips clients with the skills needed to question and change assumptions that influence their feelings and behaviours, promoting a healthier perspective. An editable version of this worksheet is free to members of Uncommon Practitioners’ TV.