Why positive thinking needs a makeover

When I hear about ‘positive thinking’, my immediate reaction is to screw up my face and shudder with revulsion. This year I’m aiming to change that, for my own good, and in my own way. I’ll tell you why in just a moment.

First, though, I do need to have a quick rant about positive thinking, just to get it out of my system.

The phrase ‘positive thinking’ conjures up images of excessively cheery people, bounding around with ceaseless, inexplicable joy, squirting out irritating, glib catchphrases like “There are no problems, only opportunities”.

I associate ‘positive thinking’ with the kind of grating, false positivity that’s often touted in a supposedly motivational way. I was once at a conference, eating my dinner and chatting to the people I was sitting with, when a motivational speaker popped up and began to address us. The one thing I remember from his talk was his method for dealing with people who weren’t positive. If someone objected, complained, or appeared disgruntled, however justifiably, he would shout ‘FANTASTIC!’ in their faces. As a motivator, he was actually very effective – a number of people felt highly motivated to leave the company soon after that conference.

It’s not that I’m a ‘the glass is half empty’ sort of person. I’m not really a ‘glass half full’ person either. I’m more of a ‘there’s some water in the glass’ person. I’d class myself as a realist, rather than an optimist or a pessimist.

I have to admit, though, that when I think about something, I tend to think through the difficulties or problems before I get to the good bits. When it comes to managing difficult projects, which is something I do quite a lot, identifying problems is actually quite a useful skill, and part of making sure the project is successful.

But it’s less useful when it comes to most other things. The more problems you can foresee, the more difficult something appears. And the more difficult something appears, the less likely you are to do it. And the less likely you are to do something, the less likely you are to get anywhere. So you stop trying to get anywhere, then you get frustrated at yourself for not getting anywhere. That kind of thinking is a dream killer of the highest order. It stops you thinking ‘What if?’ and drives you down the road of ‘You can’t’.

I recognise that pattern of negative thinking from my experience of depression. It’s my default setting – imagine the worst first. Even now I’m feeling better, all it takes is tiredness, hunger or a difficult day, and the negative-thinking demons start dancing a gleeful jig in my brain, dragging me down.

I decided at the end of last year that I would try to be more positive this year. However, I started writing this in December and only now, at the end of February, am I posting it – because I didn’t feel positive enough.

I’ve come to realise that what I need is not just an unthinking dollop of positive thinking, but just to try and see the positive side of something first, before the negative jumps in. It’s hard. It involves changing years of habitually doing the opposite. But I don’t want those dancing demons to get the upper hand again, so it’s got to be worth a shot.

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