What does it mean to think positively?

Positive thinking is not just the feeling you have when good things are happening in your life – when it is easy to feel optimistic. It is about being able to maintain that feeling of hopefulness and motivation, whatever is happening. It is different from feeling happy – which can change according to events. Thinking positively is a way of being: a way of leading your life.

The joy of positive thinking is that it seeps into every corner of your life. Thinking positively will keep you upbeat about life; it affects your attitude to everything that has happened in the past; and it means you have a healthy, confident attitude about the present as well as being optimistic about the future. It puts you in the driving seat of your life.

What about when things go wrong?

Life holds just as many disappointments, accidents, traumas and loss for positive people as it does for everyone else; the difference is the reaction to these experiences.

It doesn’t mean when something dreadful happens you have to think, ‘Oh well, better luck next time,’ and get on with your life. It does mean being able to deal with misfortune and tragedy, giving yourself time to grieve and recover, but knowing that you will recover and that life will get better.

Is it a selfish attitude?

Positive people don’t go around with a grin on their faces, ignoring the misfortune of others and basking in their own good luck. Being positive does mean valuing yourself, but it also means dealing with other people in a respectful and understanding way. In fact, positive people are more likely to be able to empathise with others and to inspire them. If you have a cynical and pessimistic view of the world, you are unlikely to want to listen to the problems of other people or to have the energy or the inclination to help

Positive people contribute to the good of society because their attitude to life is one that understands the pleasure of giving rather than receiving. If you have a positive attitude towards your own life and believe that your thoughts and actions can affect your ability to lead a happy and fulfilled life, then you will also want to improve the lives of others and be an active member of society. Contributing to the good of others and to society is one of the defining characteristics of a positive person.

Why are some people more positive than others?

The received, but unproved, wisdom is that we are born with a certain genetic make-up that means we have a tendency to have a sunnier disposition or a gloomier one. It is, however, generally agreed that nurture – your early experiences in life – can outweigh any possible genetic predisposition.

Most children, apart from those who have been abused, neglected or damaged by divorce or bereavement, tend to have a positive outlook on life. If there is anything planned, such as a visit or a holiday, they will expect to have a good time. When something goes wrong, they tend to accept it and quickly resume their previous optimistic view of life. Most children don’t expect things to go wrong; they have to learn to be anxious about things.

What causes a negative attitude?

If you were brought up with a family member who always expected the worst and who believed that life is grim, with many obstacles that stand in your way, then it would be very difficult for you to maintain a child’s natural happy disposition. If you add to this misfortunes such as illness, accidents or the absent or neglectful parent, then for some people maintaining their equilibrium is an uphill struggle.

No one can do anything about the family and the circumstances that that they were born into. Neither can you do anything about the kind of upbringing that you have had; it’s the past and nothing will change what has already happened. You can, however, do something about the way you view your past and therefore about the life you are leading now. As an adult, you can decide that whatever life experience you have had so far, you will use this to make the future better – for yourself and everyone around you.

Do you need to deal with the past?

If you find yourself thinking, ‘That’s all very well, but I can’t get over the anger (or sadness) that I feel about past events’, then you need to deal with them first. If you are harbouring resentment towards people who are still in your life, then it will be difficult for you to move forward. If you have suffered bereavement or severe trauma, it may be that your feelings are so deeply entrenched that you need counselling or therapy to express your emotions safely.

Unresolved anger can make you bad-tempered and irritable – with the wrong people. You may find yourself being mean or feeling bitter towards people whom you consider to have had a more fortunate start in life. Your animosity may take the form of self-protection: you don’t branch out or explore new ideas because you are defensive about your perceived lack of achievement.

Being human means living a life that is full of events that shape our characters. No one goes through life without things happening to them, many of which they neither planned for nor expected. If life was predictable, then you would probably be dissatisfied because it was boring. Looking back on your life can be a useful start to change, as it enables you to see the turning points and also to recognise the good as well as the bad.

Part 1: Reflections on your life

It is useful to look back on any family photographs to complete this exercise.

Create a Word document or get a sheet of blank paper and write at the top ‘Memories of my life’. Write down three things (or more, if you have a good memory) that you can remember from your early childhood – before you started school, if possible. This could be moving house, an illness, the birth of a sibling, a parent leaving, a holiday, a pet, or perhaps achieving something.

Now write five things for the next ten years of your life. This will include primary and secondary school experiences, but it may also include making and perhaps falling out with friends. Were you ever bullied? Do you remember winning something – or perhaps failing to do so? What positive experiences can you remember? It is usually easier to remember negative ones. What made you feel good about yourself at that age? Put your approximate age next to the memory, if you can.

Now bring your chart up to date with at least another five experiences. What has happened to you since you left school? There may have been illnesses, accidents and bereavements, but there will also have been births, holidays, achievements and excitement. Highlight the positive experiences in bold, if you are working on a computer; tick them if you are writing by hand. What does the balance look like? If you have many more negative experiences, can you think of any more happy ones to add?

Of the negative experiences, which ones do you think affected you the most? Are there any experiences that you can remember which seemed disastrous at the time, but which you now see in a different light? Which ones do you think are still affecting you now? Is there anything you can do about it?

Some people seem to find it easier to remember painful experiences and have to try hard to remember the sweet ones. Savour and enjoy remembering the happy ones; share them with someone else. Try remembering the good experiences in more detail and see if you can recall the feelings that you had at the time. Fix them in your mind so that you can recollect them whenever you want.

When you have time, examine the photographs and think about the people in them who have helped to shape who you are. Identify three people who have had an impact on you. What positive or negative beliefs do you think they have handed on to you?

Part 2: Become an agony aunt

Sometimes it is useful to look at your life experiences in the third person. Try condensing the highlights (or lowlights) you identified in the first part of this exercise into one or two paragraphs, as if you were writing to an agony aunt. Here’s an example:

Josh was five years old when his brother was born. His mother was depressed for some time after the birth and his father was often absent. When he started school, his teachers found his behaviour demanding as he was always seeking attention and being disruptive. His father alternated between being a heavy-handed disciplinarian when he was around – and not keeping in touch at all when he was away.

Eventually Josh’s parents split up. His mother seemed to spend all her time caring for his younger brother and Josh often had to fend for himself. He admits now that he wasted a lot of his time at school and blames his parents for his poor exam results. He has never had a close relationship with his brother and can see that he was jealous of the attention that his brother received.

Josh tends to be quite negative about life and his childhood experiences could be the reason that he finds it difficult to be optimistic and to feel confident about his own abilities as a young adult. His experiences are common triggers for negative thinking. For example:

• A sense of rejection from a parent (which often leads to an unhealthy desire for the approval of others).
• Jealousy of a sibling who appears to get all the good things in life, while you are left to ‘fend for yourself’.
• Inconsistent parenting.
• Misbehaving at school in an effort to gain attention (and the inevitable effect of underachieving academically).

Now imagine you are the agony aunt receiving this letter. What would you say to Josh? What questions might you ask him? How can you help him to move forward from the past which is holding him back? Do the same for your own memories and see if you can get a clearer view of your thinking patterns by looking at yourself from the outside.

What can you do?

If you think that you have a negative outlook on life because you still have unresolved problems with certain people or events in the past, then you need to be able to deal with them before you can move on. If you cling on to your hurts – carrying around that ‘chip’ on your shoulder – you are actually allowing those people or events to continue to hurt you. It means that bully at school is still bullying you 20 years later; your brother’s birth is still causing you a problem; your parents’ neglect continues to make you feel a failure.

Free yourself

Being able to forgive is the first step in being free of the negative influences from your past. It can be a painful experience to dredge up memories that you would rather forget. But the fact that you have written them down suggests that you haven’t forgotten them. It can also be cathartic to revisit the past – if you give yourself time and understand that you have the power and the maturity to see things differently now.

Try some of the tips below if you find it difficult to forgive or to deal with painful experiences. They apply to current events in your life as much as the ones in the past. But notice the ones that you reject as being too much effort. No one said it was going to be easy.

1. First of all, forgive yourself. Sometimes people who feel negative about themselves have impossibly high standards. No one is perfect and everyone says mean things sometimes; everyone has done things they regret. You are only human: forgive yourself for your past mistakes and unkindness.
2. Dwell on the positive. Look back on the list of your life experiences and keep on adding more positive memories, however small, until they outweigh the negative ones. When you find yourself remembering something painful switch to a pleasurable memory. It is possible.
3. Deal with it. If there is a recurring memory that still has the power to upset you or to keep you awake at night, then perhaps it is time that you confronted it. If it happened long ago you can write a letter – whether you post it or not, you will feel better. If it is something recent, then you have to be brave and say what you think to the person concerned. Don’t be aggressive, and make sure you acknowledge how you feel. So you could say, ‘I felt humiliated when you said that about me.’ It doesn’t mean that the other person will apologise or change their behaviour, but you will feel better than if you just suffered in silence.
4. Look for the positive. Many people have suffered the most appalling injustices or traumas and yet have developed the resilience to deal with their experiences. A common characteristic of resilient people is the ability to look back on the event and deliberately find something positive from the experience.
5. Acceptance. Sometimes you have no other choice but to accept that something dreadful has happened. Blaming others and bearing a grudge isn’t going to change a thing. You are wasting your energy being judgemental or negative about something you can do nothing about.
6. Help others. By turning yourself to the outside world and trying to do something good and useful, you will feel better about yourself. The best way to stop dwelling on your own misfortune is to help others. They don’t have to be strangers; your friends and family need you, too.
7. Ask for help. Confident, positive people are able to recognise when they need help and are not afraid to ask for it. When you are in a negative frame of mind, you think that asking for help is a sign of weakness. Remember: people like being asked for help and advice; it makes them feel good.
8. Forgive others. To do this you need to try to understand why people behave the way they do. Often, when you put yourself in their shoes, you can see why they behaved so badly. Josh realised as an adult that his mother had suffered from postnatal depression – and had felt bitter that she had to cope with the difficulties of bringing up two boys with no steady income and an unreliable partner.

Examine your beliefs

Fundamental to the way you think are the beliefs that you hold. They hold an enormous power over your life and how you respond to the things life sends you (good and bad).

Every single experience you have had in your life serves to form your beliefs and these beliefs will in turn affect your thinking, in a positive or negative way. So if, for example, you believe that intelligence is inherited (and you think you haven’t done very well in the genes lottery) then you won’t achieve your full potential. If, on the other hand, you believe that your success or failure is down to you and you want to succeed, then you are more likely to do so.

Your beliefs turn your life into a self-fulfilling prophesy. And beliefs are the most difficult to question and analyse because they have formed and taken root in your subconscious over a long time. Each time something has happened to reinforce those beliefs they have become stronger.

But once you recognise how much they affect your life you will realise how important it is to examine them to see if they are impacting your life for better or worse.

Your negative beliefs tend to be absolute and may feel to you as if they are undeniably true. But they aren’t, and, once you have identified them, it is possible to change them. And that will change your whole outlook on life. In the next chapter, we will examine some of the negative beliefs that you may hold and how you can change them.

Recognise your feelings

The first step in this process is to become aware of your feelings and your emotions when faced with a potentially difficult problem or opportunity. By recognising your emotional signals, you will be prepared for your response to a situation.

This doesn’t mean never feeling angry or sad. Sometimes, we deliberately listen to sorrowful music because we want to feel sentimental or nostalgic; we leave the cinema after crying, saying how much we enjoyed the film – just as we watch comedies or comedians because we are in the mood for laughing. In these situations, we know what we are doing: we have chosen to play the sad music or to go and see the harrowing or exciting film because we want to feel these emotions.

We all smile, laugh and cry involuntarily because of things that are said or done to us in the present. But we can also react in the same way to a memory. You can conjure up physical feelings just by thinking about something that has happened in the past: an embarrassing situation can make you want to squirm and your heart race even when recollected years later. Negative emotions such as anger, fear and disgust aren’t necessarily to be avoided; they can be useful, because they act as warnings against danger or aggressors and alert us to be cautious.

But thinking about the future sometimes causes feelings such as anxiety; negative thoughts about things that haven’t happened and might never happen. Common physical sensations that are the telltale signs that you are confronting or thinking about difficult situations are: sweating, blushing, shaking knees, migraines, butterflies in your stomach, feeling sick, a tingle down your spine, or even a rapid heartbeat. All these sensations alert you to the fact that you are feeling uncomfortable, afraid or, perhaps, excited.

These feelings can be useful signs of danger: instinctive reactions that are warnings that you do not feel safe – for example, if someone you have just met offers to give you a lift home. If we didn’t have anxiety, then we wouldn’t lock our doors or buy insurance. But being able to use our feelings to enable us to take precautions and use common sense is different to giving in to anxiety when there is no physical danger – just a fear that you may make a fool of yourself or perhaps fail at something.

So, for example, if your previous reaction when you felt yourself getting overheated in an argument, or upset by unfair criticism, was to find yourself going red or developing a headache, you will recognise the signs immediately and know to calm down, take a few deep breaths, saying nothing until you are composed. Just remember that these physical reactions are being experienced by you – other people don’t usually notice them. And even if they do, so what?

Identify your thoughts

Whenever your body gives you these physical sensations, you will have accompanying thoughts racing through your mind. So if, for example, you speak up at a meeting and feel yourself blushing, you may be thinking, ‘Everyone’s looking at me. Who do I think I am? It’s a stupid thing to say anyway.’ Or if you take something back to a shop and want your money back, you might find yourself speaking too quickly or your voice shaking. Your inner voice will be saying, ‘I’m not going to get my money back. She’ll get the manager and there’ll be a scene and everyone in the shop will be looking at me.’

The trick is to practise altering your thoughts so that you speak up at the meeting thinking, ‘I have a right to be heard. This is a good idea.’ Or when you step into the shop, you smile and think assertively, ‘I know my rights and will just stand my ground. It doesn’t matter who looks at me. I feel good about myself.’ When you can learn to think in this way, it changes your emotions and the way you feel and react.

Anna was dissatisfied with her job and had been delighted to get an interview with another firm. This is the story that she related to me about her interview:

‘I set off from home in good time, but the bus was late and by the time I arrived for the interview I was feeling stressed and in a panic. Nevertheless, I got there on time and someone brought me a cup of coffee. But I was so nervous I accidentally knocked it over and some of it spilt onto my skirt. It made me feel self-conscious during the interview.

‘There were four other people waiting to be interviewed for the same job – all men. I discovered that one of them already worked there. So I was pretty sure he would get it. Several times in the interview my mind went blank and I could feel myself waffling. My presentation was okay, but no one on the panel made a comment. I’m sure I haven’t got the job. In fact, I don’t think I’ll ever get another job and I’ll be stuck with my present one forever.’

Negative thinking traps

Can you recognise some of the negative thinking traps that Anna has fallen into?

First of all, her overall assessment of the day is negative: she is convinced that she hasn’t got the job and seems to have decided this before she even had the interview.

This kind of pessimism is sometimes a self-protective mechanism: you fear that disappointment is imminent so you prepare yourself, as if to soften the blow when it comes. This is fine as long as you are aware of what you are doing. Remember that predicting failure often affects behaviour and sometimes stops people applying for jobs in the first place.

Secondly, there is an implication that Anna believes that they would prefer a man and that the person who already worked there would get the job. This may be true – although she has no evidence of this. But Anna’s negativity would have affected her performance in the interview. Next, she sees the lack of comment about her presentation as being a criticism and is unable to give herself credit for the fact that it went well.

Finally, Anna is guilty of viewing the whole event as a catastrophe: ‘I’ll never get another job.’ This is typical thinking for people whose outlook on life tends to be negative: one disappointment or failure is magnified out of proportion until it becomes a life-changing disaster.

Seeing the same events in a positive light

As a positive thinker, Anna would first of all have patted herself on the back for getting an interview. She found out that more than 50 people had applied for the job; so she has already succeeded just by being there. She would have been pleased that she had the good sense to set off early so that she managed to arrive on time, despite the bus being late.

A positive Anna would have made a joke of the coffee spilling: no harm was done and it didn’t spoil her chances in any way. She may not have spilt the coffee in the first place as she wasn’t stressed and in a panic after her journey to the interview.

She could at least have been satisfied with her interview performance, particularly the way she managed to cover up when her mind went blank. She had obviously prepared well for the presentation – which most people find nerve-racking – and the fact that they made no comment shouldn’t deter her from knowing that it went well.

Whether she gets the job or not, Anna could see the whole experience as a positive and worthwhile one because it has made her realise that she wants to leave her old job and that she is certainly a contender for the kind of job that she wants.

If you tend to think like Anna then it seems clear that to think positively about life will take hard work and a real determination to change. It means challenging thoughts and habits that have been developing over a lifetime and knowing that change will not happen overnight. It is possible, though, for even the most negative person to become a positive thinker and if you choose to do so you could completely change your outlook for the rest of your life.

• You may need to spend some time examining your negative beliefs, as they will have an impact on everything you do
• Your beliefs, emotions and thoughts all act upon each other to create either a negative or a positive feeling
• Learn to recognise the physical signs of your emotional state, as this is when you are likely to respond negatively
• The important thing is to be able to adapt your way of thinking so that you get rid of the old negative views and replace them with positive and motivating thoughts