Emotional reasoning is assuming that because we feel a certain way, it must be true. You might think things like: “I feel anxious, so something terrible must be happening.” Or “I feel stupid, so I must be stupid.”  Or “I feel overwhelmed, so my workload must be impossible to complete.” This type of reasoning plays a role in almost all depression. Some aspects of Emotional Reasoning are:

•  Because things feel negative, it must be true. A situation is interpreted through
  your feelings instead of the facts. If facts contradict how you are feeling,
  you choose your feelings.
• You don’t just act on your negative feelings;
  they are a reality for you. You feel your partner has been unfaithful,
  so it must be true, even though there is no evidence to back up your feelings.
• You don’t think to challenge your own perception
  of why you are feeling the way you are.
• Making decisions using emotions can have a high
  risk of error because emotions are constantly changing. You might make a decision when you are in a heated argument with someone, and later realize you did not make a correct assessment of the situation because you chose emotions
  over logic.

This can affect your timeline of completing projects or goals: it leads to procrastination. You want to start eating healthier, but every time you consider trying new recipes, you think “It will be too much work for me to make meals, and I’ll never be able to learn them.” Finally, a few months later, you start making a few new recipes, and you find it to be easier and more gratifying than you had thought. Your negative feelings got in the way of acting, because your habit of negative thinking guided you instead of the evidence.