The ABCDE Method: A Stoic, Evidence-Based Way to Lower Tension and Think Like a Leader

Most leaders were taught one of two things about anger and stress: control it or vent it.

Both are incomplete.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) offers a better option: treat your mind like a system. Not a mystery. When your thinking gets sloppy under pressure, your body pays the price—tension, irritability, poor sleep, shorter fuse, tighter shoulders, and “why am I like this?” moments.

The ABCDE method is one of the simplest, most effective “mental mechanics” tools I’ve found for leaders who carry pressure like a rucksack they forgot they’re wearing.

This post will do three things:

A brief history of CBT (why this became a big deal)

CBT grew out of two streams that eventually merged:

Behaviour therapy (mid-1900s): focused on learning, conditioning, and changing behaviours through practice and reinforcement.

Cognitive therapy (1960s–1970s): led by Aaron Beck, who showed that changing dysfunctional thought patterns could change emotions and behaviour—and developed structured methods to do it.

Over time, these converged into what we now call CBT: practical, structured, skills-based work that targets the relationship between thoughts, feelings, and actions, and trains you to intervene where you actually have leverage.

The ABCDE method (a leader-friendly breakdown)

Here’s the core idea:

You don’t experience life directly.
You experience life through an interpretation of life.

ABCDE forces the interpretation out into the open so you can work with it.

A — Activating Event

What happened? Just the facts.

If you can’t write A in one clean sentence, you’re probably blending A with B (the story).

B — Belief

What did I make it mean?

This is where stress is manufactured:

B is often fast, automatic, and emotionally convincing. It also loves to wear a disguise called “I’m just being realistic.”

C — Consequences

What did that belief create?

Consequences show up in three places:

C is the bill you pay for B.

D — Dispute the faulty belief

This is the discipline. Not positive thinking. Not denial. Cross-examination.

Questions I like:

D is where leaders stop “being right” and start being effective.

E — Effective new approach

This is the leadership move:

E should change behaviour:

ABCDE is not “be nice.”
It’s “be accurate.” Accuracy lowers tension.

The 15 cognitive distortions (and what to do with them)

These distortions are predictable patterns that feel true in the moment and quietly drive stress reactions. When you’re in D (Dispute), your job is to name the distortion and pull it back toward reality.

1) Polarized (all-or-nothing) thinking

You see only extremes: success or failure, competent or incompetent, ally or enemy. Example: “If this presentation isn’t perfect, it’s a disaster.” Application: Replace extremes with ranges. “It can be good and still improvable.”

2) Mental filtering and disqualifying the positive

Mental filtering: you fixate on one negative detail and ignore everything else.
Disqualifying the positive: you dismiss wins as “not counting.” Example: “They liked the proposal, but one person had a concern—so it went badly.” Application: Force a balanced data set. List three positives and three negatives before you decide what happened.

3) Overgeneralization

You take one event and turn it into a permanent rule. Example: “That meeting was tense. These meetings are always a waste.” Application: Add a time frame. “That meeting was tense today.” (Today is not forever.)

4) Jumping to conclusions: mind reading and fortune telling

Mind reading: you assume you know what others think.
Fortune telling: you assume you know how it will turn out. Example: “They think I’m incompetent,” or “This is going to blow up.” Application: Trade certainty for curiosity. “What evidence do I actually have?” Then ask a clean question instead of acting out a theory.

5) Catastrophizing: magnification and minimization

Magnification: you blow the negative out of proportion.
Minimization: you shrink your strengths or the positives. Example: “If we miss this deadline, we’re finished,” or “The win doesn’t matter.” Application: Scale it. “Will this matter in two weeks? Two months? Two years?” Most things are “fixable” long before they are “fatal.”

6) Personalization

You assume things are about you when they may not be. Example: “They didn’t respond right away—so I must have done something wrong.” Application: Consider at least three other explanations before you self-attack. Leaders are busy. Humans are messy. Phones die.

7) Blaming

You place responsibility entirely outside yourself (or entirely inside yourself). Example: “This is all their fault,” or “This is all my fault.” Application: Split responsibility realistically. “What’s mine to own? What’s theirs to own?” Then act on your portion.

8) Labeling

You turn a behaviour into an identity. Example: “He’s an idiot,” “She’s toxic,” “I’m a failure.” Application: Describe behaviour, not character. “That decision was sloppy.” Behaviour can change. Labels usually just harden the room.

9) Always being right

You treat disagreement as a threat, not information. You need to win to feel safe. Example: “If I’m wrong, I lose authority.” Application: Redefine authority as learning speed. A leader who can update quickly is more trustworthy than a leader who clings tightly.

10) “Should” statements

You use “should” to punish reality for not matching your preference. Example: “They should know better,” “I should be further ahead.” Application: Swap “should” for “I would prefer.” Then problem-solve. “I would prefer this to be different. What’s my next effective move?”

11) Emotional reasoning

You treat feelings as facts. Example: “I feel threatened, so this must be dangerous,” or “I feel disrespected, so they are disrespecting me.” Application: Feelings are data, not verdicts. Ask: “What else could be true?” Then gather evidence.

12) Control fallacies: external and internal control

External control fallacy: you believe you have no control and others control your life.
Internal control fallacy: you believe you are responsible for everyone’s feelings and outcomes. Example: “There’s nothing I can do,” or “If they’re upset, it’s my fault.” Application: Return to control reality. “What can I influence? What can’t I?” Control what’s yours: clarity, boundaries, effort, repair.

13) Fallacy of change

You believe people will change if you pressure them enough—or love them enough—or explain it one more time (with a longer spreadsheet). Example: “If I can just get them to see it, they’ll finally become reasonable.” Application: Replace coercion with agreements. Ask: “What are we each committed to? What happens if we don’t follow through?”

14) Fallacy of fairness

You assume life must be fair by your definition, and feel angry when it isn’t. Example: “That’s not fair,” as a conclusion rather than a signal. Application: Let “fairness” be information, not a stopping point. “It may not be fair. What’s the best response anyway?”

15) Heaven’s reward fallacy

You believe sacrifice guarantees payoff, and resentment builds when it doesn’t. Example: “I’ve worked harder than everyone. I deserve recognition. So where is it?” Application: Make expectations explicit. If you want recognition, ask for it. If you want a trade, propose one. Martyrdom is not a strategy.

CBT and Stoicism are cousins (and this is not an accident)

Stoicism and CBT share the same operating principle:

It’s not events that disturb us most. It’s the judgments we attach to events.

Stoicism trains you to notice judgments, separate what’s in your control from what isn’t, and choose a deliberate response over a reflex reaction. CBT trains the same thing, but in a clinically structured, measurable way.

Stoicism gives you the philosophy.
CBT gives you the drills.

Does this work clinically for reducing tension and psychological issues?

At a high level: yes. CBT is widely recognized as an effective, evidence-based treatment approach for a range of problems, including anxiety and depression, and it’s used and recommended by major health organizations.

Research reviews and meta-analyses have found CBT to be effective across multiple mental health conditions, and often with benefits that persist beyond the active treatment period.

One important note: effectiveness depends on fit, severity, and actually doing the practice. Reading about ABCDE is useful. Using ABCDE is where the tension drops.

This post is educational and not a substitute for professional care.

A simple way to practice ABCDE this week

You will become better at this method by practicing it. Journaling is one way to clarify your thinking and reduce the physical symptoms of your faulty belief system.

Once per day, run a “micro-ABCDE” on something small:

Do that for 7 days and you’ll start seeing your patterns the way you’d spot poor technique in the gym: less judgment, more precision, better outcomes.

If you want to level this up, do ABCDE in writing for one situation that reliably spikes your tension, then bring it into a coaching conversation. You’ll discover something important: most of what feels “external” becomes solvable the moment you get accurate about the story you’re running.

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Adam Kreek and his team are on a mission to positively impact organizational cultures and leaders who make things happen.

He authored the bestselling business book, The Responsibility Ethic: 12 Strategies Exceptional People Use to Do the Work and Make Success Happen. 

Want to increase your leadership achievement? Learn more about Kreek’s coaching here.

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