The value of negative thinking

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Studies have clearly shown that people who feel effective and empowered tend to perform better. The reason why: because they tackle the new challenge with a ‘can do’ (=positive) mindset and as a result are more creative and energetic when dealing with the problem.

So if positive thinking is such a powerful force, why do so many people think negative? What could they hope to achieve?

Well, the truth is, we don’t always confront a challenge feeling effective and empowered. Perhaps we’ve been battered by events, bad luck or things simply got away from us. So we confront the world with a sense of vulnerability, a sense of our own very real ability to fail.

Here’s the trick: no matter what happened a minute or a day before the challenge presented itself, the challenge is an isolated incident, unaffected by past events. Our effectiveness to deal with it therefore isn’t at all compromised by the challenge (we either CAN or CANNOT overcome it) but rather by our own inner state at the moment of the challenge.

Negative thinking at the moment of the challenge is a natural event. When the caveman saw yellow and black stripes in the bushes, he or she naturally feared the object might be a tiger. In its evaluation whether it was a match for the tiger or not, the caveman couldn’t be faulted for negative thoughts – flight is the right response.

Fear an negative thoughts are our friend: they aim to prevent us from entering in a harmful situation. The real trick is to separate our realistic negative thoughts from the ones that we have because of the context we have created for ourselves, such as a feeling of ‘not being strong enough’; ‘deserving something better right now’ or wanting to sooth an existential pain by simply blaming the world for being too difficult. Our reasons for being passive and avoiding facing pertinent challenges are endless.
When we recognize our negative thoughts as being void of realism, as wanting to label ourselves or the challenge in terms that are purely subjective, terms that either sell us short or compound the challenge, that’s when we have to fight like lions. Because at that moment, it is not the challenge that might beat us, it is that we might beat ourselves.

Real negative thoughts keep us safe. They tell us when to flee and when to preserve our strength for another day.

False negative thoughts make us avoid the challenges that we need to grow. Instead, we shrink in our ability to overcome life’s demands. As we shrink, smaller challenges become harder to conquer.
The power of positive thinking is relative to the challenge. Some challenges we can win, some we can’t.  But positive thinking is invaluable when it comes to evaluating ourselves: who we are, how much we can change and how strong we are.

In that respect, positive thinking is always related to action: how far did you push yourself? It is useless to judge ourselves for every short coming we have right now: we can’t change a thing about that. But we can change where we’ll be in a year. That’s the test and also the endless opportunity. To challenge ourselves for more growth. Every sin can be forgiven at an instant: the moment a real change affects the person, so the wrong can never happen again.

That is why positive thinking is hard, because it requires constant action to grow. But it is worth it…