Learning to be Positive

Sounds simple right? I will be positive instead of negative and then life happens. You find yourself swimming in the negativity again. It seems to happen out of nowhere and you are once more back to your old self.

The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale has been a best seller since it was written in 1952. We have known for a long time that how we structure our worldview matters and dictates how we see the world. This in turn impacts the choices we make and our ability to achieve our dreams. In 1954, Abraham Maslow wrote: “The science of psychology has been far more successful on the negative than on the positive side; it has revealed to us much about man’s shortcomings, his illnesses, his sins, but little about his potentialities, his virtues, his achievable aspirations, or his psychological height.”

What could happen if we focused on what we are able to accomplish, on dreaming and taking actions toward those dreams? What could happen if we realized life will life us and we have a say in the way we choose to be with what happens?

Being positive is not putting a positive spin on everything that happens. It is not being happy all of the time, nor is it denying our feelings. By allowing ourselves to mourn losses, get angry when hurt or feeling wronged is part of being human. Being positive does mean we don’t have to stayin those states for very long and we can continue moving ahead toward our dreams.

Many of us have had experiences which resulted in feelings of helplessness and victimhood. We develop a reluctance to attempt new things and begin to convince ourselves that we are not capable of living powerful and successful lives. This becomes our self-fulfilling prophesy and we will ensure that we stay in that victim role. Some of us master this roll to the extent that we go around convincing people that we are incapable, needy, lacking in intelligence, and incapable of fulfilling our own needs; much less reach our dreams. It is like we develop a false sense of incompetence and then live like it is real.

This process is made worse by our culture which teaches us not to be prideful of ourselves and knowing our strengths and talking about them is bragging. There is a big difference between bragging and feeling good about ourselves and who we are.

When we have a survival narrative, a view of the world in which the goal is to survive, we tend to look for things in our world that are threats to our survival. We see the world as a place full of threats and us as inadequate to meet them. Additionally, we judge ourselves with standards and measuring sticks we would not apply to another human being and we will always fall short.

When this is the world we swim in we do not notice anything else. We become wired to find evidence in our surroundings for our point of view. We have a filter that will filter out anything that will contradict what we think we know as true; that the world is a certain way, that other people are a certain way, and that we are a certain way. We have difficulty seeing that life could be any other way. This process is so powerful that we completely miss opportunities to have dreams and reach them. When we do see something that lights us up, like a possible job that would be perfect for us, we will talk ourselves out of applying for the job. We have all the reasons in the world why it is not a good idea.

Another phenomenon that goes with our filter is that we think that if something goes well for us it is a fluke, and if it goes bad then it was because we caused it, or we are the victim of someone/something. When we do well or dare to apply for that perfect job, or go after that dream, we feel like imposters and that we will be found out at any time. We are always afraid we will get caught while never realizing we are accomplishing more than we ever dreamt of.

What we are talking about in learning to be positive is a paradigm shift, a new filter through which we see the world. An ability to see opportunities where we did not see them before. The ability of experiencing ourselves as capable, powerful, gifted; able to dream and take actions to fulfill our dreams. We are able to see opportunity all around us as we make our own opportunities. We realize we are not a fraud and that we really can achieve the things we say we can.

When we dare to make a shift in our view of ourselves, the world around us changes. When we see opportunity where we used to see problems and barriers, we approach the situation differently. The way we think about it, the way we act, the amount of effort and time we put in to achieving what we want changes. We do not put a lot of effort and time in to complaining and wishing things were different because those thoughts and actions are inconsistent with opportunities.

Ultimately, we are out to dislodge our core belief that we are not good enough. We have to consciously and intentionally alter what we look for, listen for, and seek out as experiences in our lives. Affirmations help when we keep them simple and credible. Affirmations use only language that propels us forward and never moving away from something. So, an affirmation would never be “Today I know I am not stupid”. That just keeps me focusing on the idea that I am stupid. An affirmation is grounded in strength and what is working well, or we can be proud of: “Today I create opportunities from any circumstance.”

Learning to be positive is like learning any new skill, it takes practice over time. Another great practice is to set a timer on your phone to go off every hour and when it goes off, ask yourself what you experience in the moment that lights you up. It can be that you see a bird or a squirrel, it can be that you realize you got a lot accomplished in the last hour, it can be that you like the clothes you are wearing. Just get in the habit of finding something that went well in the last hour.

Another positive habit to get in to is to start your day by asking yourself what do you like about your life? Come up with something new each day. Doing this and the other practices mentioned above, people will begin to see subtle changes in their lives. You will begin to see opportunities, you may not feel tired all of the time, and life may even seem a bit brighter.