A Daily Dose of “Positive Thinking?”
In just the 1 – 2 years, I have seen so many people start “Awesome Businesses” only to disappear from the face of the Earth 2 – 3 months after meeting them.
After surviving the first year in my business and having the actual “Combat Scars” and “Battle Experience”, many of the things I learnt about Positive Thinking from Seminars and books was simply not true.
What I also found interesting was that the people that either have massive business or succeeded, totally laughed and had no respect in Positive Thinking at all. You hand them a book on “Positive Thinking” they would sneer at you!
On a much sadder note, I found that many of the people that didn’t make it – loved their Positive Thinking. They religiously clung to their “Positive Thinking” books and didn’t deal with any of the real issues they were facing.
This practical experience taught me the short-comings of extreme Positive Thinking. It advocates not dealing with reality and just imagining how you “Want Things”.
Wanting to look like Indian guy off Twilight generates completely different results than working out in the Gym 4 hours per day for 6 months.
Quite an interesting experience! This proved Positive Thinking is certainly quite lame and “Positive Realism” is the answer. Wish I learnt this one 20 years ago!
One response
There are two kinds of “positive thinking”. Some people (the ones you mention in your blog) are really practicing “positive WISHING”. As you wrote, this kind of thinking is fairly useless. People who tend to wish hope that the harder they wish, the faster they will receive what they desire.
The other kind of positive thinking is specifically to delete negative thinking that can get in the way of success. People who do this kind of positive thinking use their thoughts to eliminate their fears, become more motivated, less stressed, and ultimately to TAKE ACTION.
Positive wishing is ridiculous in my opinion.
Positive thinking designed to help me to take action and reduce my fears (fear of rejection when meeting new clients, fears of speaking in public, etc.) is what I share with my clients.