Everybody has thoughts that pull on them. Some drift past. Others grab hold, stir up feelings, or quietly decide what we do next. This exercise helps you notice which kinds of thoughts have the most pull in your life right now.
A thought hooks you when it has some power over you. It might grab you emotionally, or dictate how you act in certain situations.
You can be hooked by a thought even if you do not believe it is true. An insult can sting even when you know it is false. The question here is not “Is this thought true?” but “How often does it pull on me?”
You will see 30 thoughts. For each one, choose how often it has hooked you in the last month. Go with your first reaction. There are no better or worse answers.
This is not a test of who you are. It is a way of becoming aware of your thoughts, so you are in a better position to choose whether to believe them. Nothing you enter here is saved or sent anywhere.
The 30 thoughts fall into six families. Each family is scored from 5 to 25. The number matters less than the shape: look at which family sits highest, and which ones you had not noticed. Tap a bar to learn about it.
Thoughts you rated “Often” or “Always”. These are good places to start a conversation.
In ACT, we do not try to argue with a hook or get rid of it. We change our relationship to it. Pick one of your thoughts and read each version aloud, slowly. Notice whether the thought feels any different when you can see it as a thought.
Everybody gets hooked. The goal is not to have fewer thoughts, or only pleasant ones. It is to notice a hook as it happens, so you can decide what to do next based on what matters to you rather than on what the thought demands.
You can have the thought “My feelings make me act a certain way” and still act differently. You can feel anger, think “my anger makes me aggressive,” and still respond calmly.
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