The Truth About Positive Thinking
Here’s the truth about all that positive thinking.
You don’t need to be positive all the time to be an optimistic person or achieve your goals.
There, I said it!
Having a positive mental attitude is encouraged A LOT. You see it everywhere with life coaches talking about ‘keeping your vibes high’. If you focus on the positive you can do anything right?! It’s all about your attitude…
Yes ok, believing in yourself is important if you’re trying to achieve your goals. Looking on the bright side of things and counting your blessings might help some of the time. But is it realistic ALL of the time?
When times are super rough, sometimes it’s just not rational to ‘just be positive’. You can’t ignore any yucky feelings that are completely valid reactions to shitty situations, it’d be unhealthy. If you’re finding it hard to do what you need to get to your goals coz life is tough, then someone comes along and tells you that you just need a bit of positive thinking, it can be demoralising and isolating. It’s easy to blame yourself for not being able to stay positive. Before you know it you can start to spiral with unhelpful thinking patterns around being a failure.
That gets you nowhere, which leaves you feeling worse.
So I recommend constructive thinking instead of positive thinking.
Instead of trying to be positive about what’s going on, try to focus on what will help you. What would make things easier and more bearable, but also be healthy for you. I have to stress that last bit before anyone thinks I’m encouraging you to turn to alcohol or something like that! Of course it’s ok to enjoy a drink in moderation, but it’s not helpful to drink to relax or feel better about your problems.
Sometimes it’s just about acknowledging the shittiness of the situation and allowing yourself to feel the crappy feelings. Emotions are temporary, sometimes leaning into them will help them pass. Whereas trying to suppress them will often lead to them popping up in unhelpful and unhealthy ways.
Remember, what is right for you to do, is only for you to decide.
When it comes to any advice about anything in life, you get to decide what YOU are going to do. Look at what feels right for you to do. You’re the only person who really knows you and really knows your life. Only you can decide what is best for you and what will work in your lifestyle.
Ask yourself what you feel drawn to doing. If it feels easy then you’re more likely to keep doing it and build habits for life. That’s not to say don’t try to do the things that feel hard, but think about how you could break it down into smaller, easier steps. Then take the first step – taking the first step is always the hardest, but it gets easier from there.
If you know what you need to do, but it feels hard to make those changes to get to your goals. Think about what you can do or say to yourself that would help you.
Being self-aware and recognising what you’re saying to yourself is always a helpful place to start. Your thinking patterns can have such an impact on your regular habits. It’s worth taking the time to explore what you’re saying to yourself – whether you do some journalling around it or talk it through with a friend or mentor, or just spend some time reflecting on it with a cuppa.
Once you’ve figured out what you’re saying to yourself or what beliefs are having an impact on what you’re doing – here are some questions to help you challenge those thinking patterns:
Is this really true?
Be honest with yourself about whether you’re looking at the whole picture or only a small part of it. It’s easy to have blinkered vision about something and not be able to see all of the evidence.
Is this helping me?
Just because there may be some truth in what you’re saying to yourself doesn’t mean it’s worth giving it all of your focus. You may be self-sabotaging without realising it.
Is there another way of looking at this?
Think of someone you admire and ask yourself how they might view this situation. Would that be a more helpful way of you looking at it. How could you reframe things?
Remember if you’re going to give this a try – forget the self-judgement! Observe what’s going on, be curious without beating yourself up – that never helps. You’re a human being at the end of the day. You don’t need to be perfect, you’re allowed to feel all your feelings.
Need help to ditch dieting forever?
Want to eat normally again AND lose weight healthily? While still enjoying the cake & chocolate? Hell yes!
I will help you ditch dieting forever, either with my 1-2-1 support. Or if you prefer to work independently, you will learn all the skills I teach my 1-2-1 clients, on my ‘No More Diets’ online course.
My Weekly Round-up! AKA; what I’ve been up to recently…
- Tea of the week has been the old faithful Earl Grey again. I thought I’d almost run out of teabags, but found a fresh stash in the back of the dresser – yay!
- At the weekend we picked up a cheesecake from one of our favourite vegan cafes ‘Not Today Seitan’. It was gorgeous, so creamy and I’ve mostly been eating cheesecake for the first half of this week!
- We also went on one of our favourite walks at the weekend – The Rectory Wood in Church Stretton. May is the perfect time of year to go there with all the bluebells in bloom. It’s like a fairy forest with the tiny bells everywhere and some of the trees are epic they’re so tall. Yes I absolutely stood underneath them for a bit of what I call ‘treephoria’. (The blissful feeling of calm I get when I stand under a tree and look up through the branches)
- This week I joined my biz buddies for our regular masterminding meeting. It’s always helpful to set goals regularly and actually tell others about them to get some accountability. I missed the meeting last month with all the crap that was going on, so it was really good to catch up with the group.
- Bird Nerd Report: It’s been all about the woodpeckers this week. I keep seeing them pretty close up either squawking or pecking around for bugs in the wood. Only one kingfisher fluttered up to say hi this week, well that’s what it seemed like anyway. It came squeaking up, landed on a branch near me only long enough for me to see it’s beautiful colours before it flew off.
