An Better Alternative to Positive Thinking

Positive thinking is one of the latest things that you simply must do if you want your life to be better apparently.

You’ll see it in people’s instagram bios – “positive thinking only”, on dating profiles you’ll see “no negativity allowed”, and people will insist that they’re a positive thinker and that is the only people they want in their lives.

And that must be simply wonderful for them and although this sounds sarcastic as hell I am genuinely pleased that these people are able to live in this manner.

Constant positive thinking is hard work if you’re someone who simply isn’t used to doing it, there isn’t a switch in your head that you flick and can instantly let go of all the negativity in your life.

That’s why in this blog I’m going to be presenting a much better alternative to just thinking positively all the time.

But first I have a question.

Is Constant Positive Thinking Actually Good for You?

I don’t, for one second, want to be accused of hating on positive thinking – if you do it and it is working for you then please keep doing it.

I do however think that preaching about it to people and just expecting them to be able to think positively all the time when maybe they suffer with anxiety, depression, guilt, SAD or they’re going through a break-up or chronic pain or loneliness or financial issues is a bit much.

I am a strong believer in finding the positives in anything that happens. 

In fact on a personal note I finish every single day by writing down all the positives that have happened within it and I find that really helpful.

Thinking positively about the world is definitely not a bad thing, however believing that you have to think positively all the time and that thinking positively about a situation will always help is, in my opinion, not true.

When people speak about constant positive thinking I get the image of “Joy” from Pixar’s groundbreaking film “Inside Out”.

If you haven’t seen it then Joy is literally the emotion of happiness inside a young girls head – she is the ultimate positive thinker – according to her everything can just be made better by thinking happy thoughts and doing happy things.

But what about when things go wrong?

What happens when you lose your job? What happens when you get a harrowing medical diagnosis? What happens when you are going through an awful time in life?

Is it still the right thing to just plough on through with a smile on your face believing that by thinking positively everything will improve?

In my opinion, no it isn’t.

The Beauty of Our Ugly Emotions

In “Inside Out”, Joy simply does not understand the purpose of the character “Sadness” who is the emotion of sadness who mopes around slowly generally making everything worse.

We tend to only want to show happiness to other people, when we feel anything else maybe we’ll complain about it, perhaps even laugh and joke about how bad it is but all with a smile on your face.

God forbid you should show how you actually feel.

Jealousy, Guilt, Fear, Anger, Sadness could never really be described as positive emotions but they are very useful and, dare I say it, beautiful emotions which genuinely help us learn and grow.

Blindly ignoring them by just being positive all the time is a surefire way of becoming emotionally void.

Jealousy helps us realise what we want in life.

Guilt reminds us of our moral compass, core values and how to live by them.

Fear tries to keep us safe.

Anger lets us display that our boundaries have been crossed and that we will defend them.

Sadness lets us show that we are struggling and that we need help.

So there is positivity to come out of all of these ugly emotions but they have to be gone through first.

An Alternative to Constant Positive Thinking 

If you struggle with the idea of this constant positive thinking then I have the solution.

Rather than being positive all the time you just don’t allow yourself to complain about your life.

That’s it, it’s that simple.

This means that you don’t have to walk around with a forced smile plastered on your face when you’re dying inside, you don’t have to grind out the positives when you’re really struggling but also you don’t complain about what is going on.

It is incredible how much this subtle switch up will change how you act, how you talk and how you behave.

This drives out unnecessary negativity which is sometimes brought upon yourself by continuing to complain about what is going on in your life.

Furthermore it will change how you interact with people about what is going on in your life.

We’ve all been in situations where someone is just splurging their problems at you – it isn’t conversation it is more like someone just dumping their shit onto you.

There is rarely any getting a word in and you just end up blindly agreeing with whatever it is that they’re saying even if you don’t – you aren’t given a choice in the matter.

This is complaining.

Stopping complaining doesn’t mean that you stop talking about your problems, it means that when you talk about them you come at them with your brain focussed on a resolution to the issue.

There is a fine line between complaining about something and trying to resolve it. When you find yourself in conversations with people about your life internally ask yourself “am I complaining or solving?”

If you’re complaining, stop it.

Conclusion on positive thinking and an alternative to it

Positive thinking is great if you can just get on board with it and do it but some people will struggle with it a lot more than others.

If you can do it, do it – and nothing against you for doing so.

If you can’t do it then the perfect thing for you, from my point of view, is to remove as much negativity as you can by making the decision that you’re not going to complain about your life any more.

This can be well supplemented by increasing your gratitude, there’s a blog on that here as well as accepting what your situation is – a blog on that here as well.

Whether you’re a positive thinker or someone who has decided to stop complaining and you need some help overcoming an issue in your life then why not get in touch about having a free no obligation chat with me about life coaching or hypnotherapy – simply click the button below to book in.