Is there a purpose to thinking positively?

Should we think positively? Why? Why not? Does it really help, or are we just fooling ourselves into thinking it does? Take an in-depth look at positive thinking versus negative thinking and draw your own conclusion.

Every bit of evidence we’ve witnessed has shown that positive thinking and confidence in one’s ability dramatically improves performance in all fields.

Give your child an easy word problem to solve. Congratulate them when they succeed and watch as they do exponentially better on harder problems than if you had never given them the easy warm up and praise for their ability.

Of course, positive thinking isn’t a magical do-all, cure-all. But it has been proven many times over that positive thinking improves performance when matched with negative thinking.

So then, why do smart people tend to think negatively? Are they not as smart as they seem? Do they simply lack motivation?

A reasonable conclusion would be that they think that way simply because it feels good. Conciously, we lead ourselves to believe that negative thinking is a benefit. It lowers expectations, makes us feel more realistic in our goals, glosses over embarassment or takes care of our pain. We believe negative thinking protects us from ourselves and others.

In numerous ways, negative thinking seems more fun to us. Thus we get on with it.

Positive thinking isn’t easy. If it was, we’d all do it, all the time. Our belief that negative thinking is actually appropriate makes thinking positively all the more harder for us. We think it [negative thinking] works, we’re the exception to the proof, all else is hype, we say to ourselves.

It’s difficult to think positive. But nobody said success was a walk in the park.

For more insight on the qualities and virtues of having a positive mindset, check out the Instant Positive Attitude e-book by David Blaird at http://believeinyourselfnow.tk