The stories you tell yourself shape your entire life. The more silver linings you can find, the better off you are.
According to Chris Voss, people are 31% smarter when they are in a positive mood.
I like to be smart, so this seems like an excellent reason to stay positive. Things just go smoother when you are… probably because you’re so smart!
Just like anything else, you can hide behind positivity.
Being positive doesn’t mean that you have to be happy about things that aren’t going well or ok with you.
It doesn’t mean shoving your feelings, or reality under a mat.
I see a lot of people make this mistake. When you have blinders on, you get blindsided by life.
If your ship is sinking, then telling yourself a story about how it’s not sinking and everything is fine isn’t helpful. Just because you are smiling when you sink, doesn’t mean you won’t still sink.
We need to be honest about what is happening, even if that makes us feel bad. This can be extremely humbling, and we resist it. We almost always feel like we should be “further ahead by now” and those stories bring up feelings of failure and being a loser, or that you aren’t smart.
Even though it’s humbling, the good news is, once you have come to terms with where you are at, you have a new starting point. You start asking better questions, and you can start moving forward… and finding progress (yay, we love progress!)
In other words, once you determine that your ship is sinking, you can then look for a way to keep yourself afloat.
And that’s when positive thinking becomes important.
You need to believe that there is hope, that things will improve, and that whatever your trying might work… or you will spiral down into a black hole of inaction.
From there you take notice of the results that are showing up to see if it’s working or if you are still sinking.
You need to stay real about where you are at so you can continue to adjust accordingly.