forget about positive thinking!

Some years ago, in my early days as a coach, one of my clients mentioned that he had been declared bankrupt when he was 21. Now, years later, this memory was still a barrier for him; he had become afraid of being "too successful", for fear of losing it all. He explained that he had done all the positive thinking he knew how to do at the time, and the results he had wanted never materialised.

At the time, I didn’t quite know the subtlety between positive thinking, and positive thinking with positive expectation.

We often hear about positive thinking, and yet for many people, when they do, they also often get a voice in their head that says, "You don’t believe that for a second, really, do you?" or words to that effect. The feeling is that of disbelief – a less than positive feeling.

At other times, we may think positive thoughts, but use it as a means to deny what is in front of us. In my client’s case, he kept repeating, "Everything will work out fine." But he plastered over any feelings that may have arisen; he simply pushed them away. As a result, he didn’t pay attention to the any of the feelings that accompanied his thinking. And he didn’t take any action either.

This is positive thinking, which, in my experience, doesn’t work. You tell yourself one thing but you feel another.

Remember, our feelings are our internal guidance system. A negative feeling tells us that we are focusing on something that is not in keeping with what we want, and/or that we need to take inspired action so that we can expect positive results.

When we do this, we feel differently. It is a calm feeling of anticipation. You know it when you feel it – it’s like "a sure thing". You have a sense of positive expectation about the action that you have taken.

Then, when the results come through, you take this as feedback and make any required adjustments accordingly.

The key difference is that one set of positive thinking feels definitively good and the other doesn’t.

So, forget about positive thinking on its own, and think about positive thinking coupled with positive feeling resulting in positive action and positive expectation.

That is positive thinking that works.

Action Points

Pay attention to your feelings. Are you truly listening to them or are you just pushing them aside?

Align your thinking and your feeling, so that you feel good. Firstly, focus fully on getting clarity on what exactly you want. Then and only then, determine what action to take from that place of feeling good. Then take it, and hold positive expectations. How will you know if you have positive expectations? You’ll feel calm and have a good feeling of certainty about it.

Quote

"The ancestor of every action is a thought." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in." - Napoleon Bonaparte

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