Why Positive Thinking Doesn’t Work
By Michael Masterson
One of the great fallacies in the self-help industry is the notion that you can change your life with “positive thinking.”
The purveyors of positivism, starting with Napoleon Hill
Some self-help gurus sell positive thinking because they know it is one of the most lucrative products to put in the marketplace. Change one thought and you can change your life! What better promise can you make to an underachieving, wanna-be-rich-and-successful couch potato?
And purely from a profit point of view, they are right. Positive thinking products making quick-and-easy promises account for more than a billion dollars a year in direct-mail and Internet sales. And that’s just for the companies I personally know. The total number is probably multiples of that.
I am not saying all proponents of positive thinking are hucksters. Many are honest men and women who believe in the concept because they use it successfully in their own lives. They are usually people who have always been accomplished, excelling in sports or academics or business almost from the start. Their repeated successes gave them confidence that they can do just about anything. And they readily tap into that underlying feeling of confidence whenever they face a new challenge. In their hearts, they know they can succeed. So when they take on anything new, they can’t help but believe they will be successful.
But what about the rest of the world? The 80 percent of the population that got C’s in school and sat on the bench during ball games and had little or no success in business? What messages are buried in their hearts?
Well, the positive thinkers will tell you that is exactly the point. The people who struggle on without success are failing because they don’t really think they can succeed. If only they could change their thinking, they would do better.
And so the therapy for these self-doubters is positive thinking. Stand in front of the mirror in the morning and repeat 20 times: “I am a good person. I can do anything. I will be successful.”
It’s very appealing. Two or three minutes of talking to your mirrored image, and a mental switch will be turned. Everything after that will come to you effortlessly.
The reality is different.
A study mentioned by Julie Norem in her book The Positive Power of Negative Thinking
Researchers divided their subjects (all identified as pessimists) into two groups. They told one group that, based on their past performance, they were going to do well on a standardized test they were about to be given. And these subjects indicated on a pre-test survey that they did, indeed, feel optimistic about their results. The second group was not given any encouragement. The results? The first group, the temporarily optimistic pessimists, actually performed worse on the test.
I’ve been critical of the idea of positive thinking for years, because I think it is useless to the people who most need help in changing their lives: people who have deeply held negative feelings about what they can accomplish.
Positive thinking works only for those who are emotionally positive. Usually, these are people who have a history of being successful. People who have been good wrestlers, for example, find it easy to believe they will win their next wrestling match. Entrepreneurs like yours truly find it easy to believe their next business venture will be successful.
When you are emotionally positive, you can’t help but think positively about everything.
So thinking positively helps. But it only helps the 20 percent of the population that is already emotionally positive. The rest of the population, the 80 percent of the world that is emotionally negative, cannot be helped by positive thinking.
I knew this was true, though I didn’t know exactly why. When I wrote about it in the past, many ETR readers objected. When I spoke about it at conferences, attendees complained to me afterward. They seemed angry. As if I was trying to take something precious away from them.
They believed I was trying to deny their best chance of succeeding. Meanwhile, what I was really trying to do was get them to stop conning themselves and take the specific actions that would help them achieve their goals.
As the years passed, I would meet some of these same people at other conferences. They were still attending self-improvement seminars, still carrying positive-thinking books, and still upset with me for telling them that positive thinking wouldn’t change their fortunes. It had, after all, worked for the people promoting all those seminars and books.
Year after year. Decade after decade. They stayed poor. They stayed stuck. But they wouldn’t give up their dream of changing their lives quickly and easily by changing their thinking.
I was never able to articulate why it was that I knew positive thinking would never work for these people. But then I read a book that helped me understand: General Theory of Love
Essentially, our emotions are deeply rooted in the way our minds are wired. There is a scientific basis for many of our emotional responses and how we relate to others. At the same time, our interactions with the world and people around us have a profound impact on our attitude. This interaction, which can actually alter neural pathways in the brain, begins in infancy and influences our development.
So if you grew up with negative feelings about your ability to achieve success, that’s the way your brain is wired. And no amount of positive thinking will change it.
Here is what the authors of General Theory of Love
“A vigorous self-help movement has championed the hoax that a strong-willed person, outfitted with the proper directions, can select good relationships. Those seduced into the promise of a quick fix gobble it up. But the physiology of emotional life cannot be dispelled with a few words…
“… Self-help books are like car repair manuals: You can read them all day, but doing so doesn’t fix a thing.”
To change yourself from being emotionally negative to emotionally positive, you have to get some solid successes under your belt. And that’s where another success technique - visualization - comes in. But this one works. Visualization is a proven and useful technique for achieving peak performance.
It’s no secret that many of the most successful people in the world - including entertainers, athletes, and CEOs - used visualization to help them achieve their goals.
Take Tiger Woods…
“Visualization has become a major part of my shot-making, especially as it pertains to shaping shots. … It makes a huge difference in your performance.”
And Jack Nicklaus, one of the greatest golfers to ever grace the game, said, “I never hit a shot, not even in practice, without having a very sharp in-focus picture of it in my head. It’s like a color movie.”
Famed sports psychologist Bob Rotella charges thousands of dollars per session to help pro athletes and business executives achieve success through visualization. In addition to coaching pro PGA golfers and top athletes in the NBA and NFL, he coaches high-ranking executives at Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, General Electric, Coca-Cola, and many other companies.
Matt Furey - world-class martial artist and top Internet marketer - credits visualization for his success. Matt’s wrestling coach told the scrawny, uncoordinated high school teen he never had a chance. But by using the power of visualization, Matt gained the confidence to win match after match - and became a champion wrestler in high school and college.
Later, Matt became World Kung Fu Champion - thanks, again, to visualization and the very positive attitude that was now buried deep in his limbic brain (the part of the brain involved in emotional behavior).
As I said, people who are emotionally positive about their chances for success have a history of succeeding. They’re doers, not dreamers. So forget about positive thinking. Instead, start rewiring your brain by working toward the goal you want to achieve or practicing the skill you want to master.
At first, you won’t feel very good about what you’re doing, because you won’t be very good at it. But stick with it. Remember that it takes about a thousand hours to achieve competency in anything that’s worthwhile.
Start by setting very modest objectives. Use visualization to help you excel at specific tasks and overcome specific challenges. But don’t waste your time repeating useless mantras. Actions - only actions - will reprogram your limbic brain and turn you into a real “success machine.”
[Ed. Note: “Thinking positive” is a success technique that so-called experts have touted for years. We offer dozens of simple - and more effective - strategies that you can use to accomplish all your goals in our Total Success Achievement program. Learn the details here.]
Learning How to Fall
By Paul Lawrence
When I found that I could earn college credits by taking judo, I jumped at the chance. I’d been taking karate for a couple of years and I was pretty good at it, if I do say so myself. I was used to getting punched and kicked, so I figured judo wouldn’t be any big deal.
As I entered the first class, I felt pretty confident. The instructor gave me a hearty welcome and explained that judo was basically like wrestling. I paired up with a guy about my size and the instructor said to “give it a go.” My opponent quickly grabbed me and flipped me over his back and onto the mat. The pain was excruciating. All I could do was lie there in shock. This sure wasn’t karate!
If I hadn’t needed the credits to graduate, I may never have gone back. But I did need the credits, so back I went. And in the next class, my instructor taught me something that changed the way I have since thought about all challenges - physical or mental, personal or business. He taught me how to land.
Landing in judo involves twisting and absorbing the impact of the fall in your leg and hip while slapping the mat with your hand. Do that, and it doesn’t hurt at all.
Once I knew how to protect myself by landing right, I lost my fear of being flipped. A few weeks later - despite being such a novice - I agreed to participate in a judo tournament. And because I was no longer afraid of getting flipped, I actually won a few matches.
It’s amazing how much self-assurance you can suddenly have when you know how to negate the risk of something that had seemed frightening. Of course, learning how to “land” is different depending on the challenge you’re facing. But as long as you know how to minimize the potential “pain,” you can take on almost anything.
Here’s another example. When I first began doing stand-up comedy, I was terrified that people wouldn’t laugh at my jokes. My fears, it turns out, were well founded. I bombed the first time I performed my act in front of an audience. I was so bad, the crowd booed me off the stage. And the agony of that experience dwarfed any physical pain I’d ever felt.
Shortly thereafter, I began training with professional comics in a weekly workshop. There I learned that when you tell a joke that bombs, you’ve got to acknowledge it to the audience. They will usually laugh and be happy to give you another chance. So if I told a joke that got zero response, all I had to say to keep the audience on my side was, “Wow, I guess that joke sucked! It sure seemed funnier when I wrote it.”
The technique worked. No longer afraid of trying out jokes that might tank, I became fearless onstage. (And I still am.)
Learning how to fall in both judo and comedy gave me massive courage where I had once been apprehensive. And this confidence-building technique applies in almost any challenging situation. I call it “The Antidote Strategy.”
Being self-confident can help you get a job, win a new client, or get other people on your side. It can help you try a new hobby, lose weight, or even get a date. By developing an “Antidote Strategy,” you can guarantee that you’ll be at your best when attempting to succeed at just about anything.
Here is how to put The Antidote Strategy to work:
- Identify the possible negative outcome of the challenge.
Let’s face it. A lot of things you could do that might help you become more successful are risky. Let’s say you’ve been working on a new project idea. And to show your boss how creative and innovative you are, you want to present the idea at the company’s next staff meeting. But you’re afraid.So Step One of The Antidote Strategy is to determine exactly what it is that you are afraid of. Will you feel stupid if your idea is rejected? Will you be disappointed? Will you be embarrassed? - Create or find a way to prevent that negative result.
Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Do some research. Chances are many other people have struggled with the same type of challenge and have come up with a good way to deal with it.Let’s go back to our example. The experts I polled suggest a method similar to the one I use as a comic: self-deprecation. If your new project idea is ridiculed by your boss and co-workers, brush it off. You really can win people over by being humble - maybe even getting a laugh. So just smile and say something like, “You’re right. I guess that wasn’t one of my brighter ideas. But I’ve got more. You’ll be hearing from me again.” - No matter how scary the challenge you are faced with, remind yourself that you have nothing to fear. You are prepared. If the worst happens, you have an antidote.
A lack of confidence prevents many people from achieving their full potential and reaching their goals. But with your safety net in place, you’ll have a winning edge - the inner strength to take a chance and boldly “jump off buildings”… because you know you won’t get hurt.
[Ed. Note: Paul Lawrence is the creator of the Quick and Easy Microbusiness System, ETR’s program for starting a business for under $100. He is also the publisher of the Confidence: The Key to Riches program. Check out the details here.
You can achieve all your personal, social, financial, and business dreams with the help of ETR’s Total Success Achievement program. Learn more here.
This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.]
