The Perils of Positive Thinking

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Something bothered me about the teeth of the consultant who was sitting in front of me, on the other side of the helpdesk. I couldn’t identify what it was immediately. I was at my bank’s foreign exchange division, hoping to get some advice on an upcoming business trip. As the positive and friendly consultant was talking, I suddenly realized what seemed out of place for me. Embedded in his front tooth was the ultimate symbol of business success - a gold dollar sign! I struggled to concentrate on our conversation. I caught myself in forced contemplation and my curious mind was analyzing why he chose this unique form of expression. I was ambushed by the realization that it was because he was working in foreign exchange. Different strokes for different folks. Some committed corporate employees choose to personalize their car number plates with the company’s name, but this consultant chose to add some bite to the bark. I interrogated myself in silence. Was this not taking it a bit too far? Was I a perplexed spectator of misdirected positive thinking?

I’m not sure what the right answer is, but I am convinced that this type of mindset can sometimes lead to eccentric behaviour, to say the least. The wheel starts buckling once we abandon common sense and basic business acumen in the process. Positive thinking without common sense is like operating your computer without anti-virus software. It causes illogical and unnecessary threats to one’s career and business that could easily be avoided. Please don’t get me wrong! The workplace needs more positive people than ever. No-one can deny the exciting impact that positive attitudes have on the outcome of our strategies and events. The problem is just that positive thinking on its own doesn’t pay the bills nor grow market share. Someone once said that zeal without knowledge is deadly. Positive thinking without substance is nothing but a fairytale for adults. Overemphasizing positive thinking at the expense of other critical success factors will only lead to embarrassment and disappointment.

A whole industry has sprung up in recent times to teach us how to radiate a positive image. We get taught to dress professionally and how this will positively influence our companies, careers and credibility. Clients will view us in a new light and the business results will follow. Positive image consultants help us with our colour coding, rearrange our wardrobes and make sure that certain clothing items get the boot. Being in touch with our colours and making our ties and scarves work for us will positively sway opinions around us. We will also feel better about ourselves. To a certain extent this might be true, but what about the elegantly dressed executive who cannot rally her sales force to higher performance? What about the colour coordinated, smartly dressed financial broker who doesn’t know the difference between life insurance and a pension fund? Do they perhaps spend too much time in front of the mirror and too little time growing their knowledge, products and people? A young accountant approached her retired mentor one day and asked very expectantly how she managed such a successful career. This answer was surprisingly brief: “Good decisions”. In anticipation she launched the next question: “But how can I learn to make good decisions?” The wise mentor paused for a moment and replied: “Through experience!” Again the eager accountant asked: “But how do I gain experience?” Her mentor smiled understandingly: “Through bad decisions!”

Some of the ardent advocates of positive thinking with their new-age message of “I”, “me” and “myself” are simply neglecting very important factors in the process. Very often, they do not take into account the importance of experience, teamwork and old-fashioned hard work across the span of a career. It is much easier and profitable to sell instant solutions to the market place. The problem is just that people are not computers. A rapid reboot doesn’t instantly prepare people for a lifetime of growth and success. A quick download from a memory stick doesn’t build self-awareness nor instantly delete insecurity. A pair of trendy shoes with matching socks doesn’t produce the performance required to get promoted to the next level. I don’t know about you, but rather give me a team in denims and t-shirts who can do the job efficiently, caring for the customers and who are real and secure about themselves than people with very little substance. The old cliché still rings true: “don’t judge a book by its cover!”

All of us will get discouraged some or other time at work. At times like these, we seek out the support of a trusted colleague or friend. This dejected situation usually unfolds in one of two scenarios. The ideal is when the other person truly listens and empathizes with you during this challenging time. You appreciate the chance to get the problem off your chest and leave the room, ready to face the world again. The second scenario involves the friend or colleague that is a single-minded positive thinker. The more that you try to verbalize the problem in order to feel better, the more you get interrupted with “positive solutions”. The more you crave empathy, the more they inject you with the importance of positive thinking. It leaves you feeling even more dejected and riddled with guilt about your inability to think positively during this trying time. Interestingly enough this is not a new phenomenon. An ancient Hebrew proverb already described hundreds and hundreds of years back that this type of approach is like “one who takes off a garment on a cold day, or like vinegar on soda, is he who sings songs to a troubled heart.”

Positive thinking on its own cannot and will never be a substitute for getting things done and achieving results. Positive thinking without application of knowledge and skill is nothing but wishful dreaming and fraught with the dangers of disillusionment. A penchant for action is a sure way to move ahead in the workplace. One of the greatest characteristics of all successful people is that they are forever action-oriented. Positive thinking in the absence of all the other factors that contribute to success will never be the magic bullet it is made out to be. And before I forget, the positive thinking consultant from my bank with the gold dollar smile made a positive impression on me, but unfortunately he couldn’t solve my query...

Estienne de Beer is a Professional Speaker and Leadership Coach. He is the author of the book “Boosting Your Career - Tips From Top Executives”. Over the past few years, Estienne has empowered people in 7 countries. To receive his free personal development newsletter, visit his website at http://www.leader2leaders.com or e-mail him at estienne@lantic.net with your first name, surname, city & country in the body of the email and “My FREE subscription to Leader2Leaders” in the subject line.

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Affirmations For Positive Thinking

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If you are sick and tired of the negative self talk, it’s time to change that. Replace your negative thought patterns with positive affirmations. The best way to employ this technique is to first single out the negative thoughts.

Write down every negative thought you have on index cards, using one card per thought. Don’t stop at ten or twenty. Keep writing until you have every negative thought down on paper.

Now take your stack of cards and read each one. As you read them, think about why you have this thought. You have to get to the core of each negative thought. If you’d like, jot down notes below each negative thought for answers to the following questions:

• What triggers this negative thought?
• Where/who does this negative thought come from?
• Is it something you were once told by a relative, friend or associate?

Now that you’ve thought about this, it’s time to start creating your affirmations for positive thinking. WordWeb defines an affirmation as, “The act of affirming or asserting or stating something.” Keeping this in mind, let’s begin.

Take your first index card in hand. Read the negative thought and consider your notes/memories regarding this thought. Now, flip the card over and write a rebuttal, in the form of a positive affirmation.

For example: One of my negative thought cards reads, “I don’t deserve anything good to happen to me.” This thought stems from my past, in which I was verbally abused. My positive affirmation on the back of the card now reads, “I am worthy to receive every good gift from my Father. Jesus loves and bestows gifts upon His children and I am His child.”

Continue in this manner until you have a stack of positive affirmations. If you want to, you can rewrite each positive affirmation on a new stack of index cards. Some people choose to eliminate the negative thoughts altogether by writing their positive affirmations on new ones. I like to write my positive affirmations on the same card, flip-side, so I can reflect on the shifts in my attitude.

Your positive affirmation cards should be used like medicine—frequent, healthy doses when “sick” and regular doses when “well” for maintenance.

Hope Wilbanks is an inspirational author who writes to motivate, inspire and encourage women. Her first non-fiction book, The Self-Empowered Woman will be published early 2007.

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Thought Awareness, Rational Thinking and Positive Thinking

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These three related tools are useful in combating negative thinking. Negative thinking causes stress because it damages your confidence that you are equal to the task you face.

Negative thoughts occur when you put yourself down, criticize yourself for errors, doubt your abilities, expect failure, etc. Negative thinking is the negative side of suggestion – it damages confidence, harms performance and paralyzes mental skills.

Thought Awareness

Thought awareness is the process by which you observe your thoughts for a time, perhaps when under stress, and become aware of what is going through your head. It is best not to suppress any thoughts – just let them run their course while you observe them.

Watch for negative thoughts while you observe your ‘stream of consciousness’. Normally these appear and disappear being noticed. Normally you will not know that they exist. Examples of common negative thoughts are:

• worries about how you appear to other people
• a preoccupation with the symptoms of stress
• dwelling on consequences of poor performance
• self criticism
• feelings of inadequacy

Make a note of the thought, and then let the stream of consciousness run on.

Thought awareness is the first step in the process of eliminating negative thoughts – you cannot counter thoughts you do not know you think.

Rational Thinking

Once you are aware of your negative thoughts, write them down and review them rationally. See whether the thoughts have any basis in reality. Often you find that when you properly challenge negative thoughts they are obviously wrong. Often they persist only because they escape notice.

Positive Thinking and Affirmation

You may find it useful to counter negative thoughts with positive affirmations. You can use affirmations to build confidence and change negative behavior patterns into positive ones. You can base affirmations on clear, rational assessments of fact, and use them to undo the damage that negative thinking may have done to your self-confidence.

Examples of affirmations are:

• I can do this.
• I can achieve my goals.
• I am completely myself and people will like me for myself.
• I am completely in control of my life.
• I learn from my mistakes. They increase the basis of experience on which I can draw.
• I am a good valued person in my own right.

Traditionally people have advocated positive thinking almost recklessly, as if it is a solution to everything. It should be used with common sense. No amount of positive thinking will make everyone who applies it an Olympic champion marathon runner (though an Olympic marathon runner is unlikely to have reached this level without being pretty good at positive thinking). Firstly decide rationally what goals you can realistically attain with hard work, and then use positive thinking to reinforce these.

Stephanie Loebs is the executive director of Williamsburg Place, one of the top drug rehab clinics in the nation. Williamsburg Place aids those who suffer from drug and/or alcohol addiction, and specializes in caring for health care professionals. For over twenty years Williamsburg Place and its joint rehabilitation center, the William J. Farley Center, have helped thousands of people from all walks of life take back their lives and overcome substance abuse.

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Spiritual Affirmation - Healing Your Inner Self With Spiritual Affirmations

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From childhood to adulthood, the knowledge we gain or the experiences we have in our lives only helps us to discover our outer personality and brings us closer to material things of this world. At the same time we sometimes get depressed or fall into a low self-esteem Problem. Spiritual Affirmations help us get out of these problems. Spiritual Affirmations leads us towards a happy and satisfying life with a peaceful mind.

Affirmations are a judgment that we pass or any thought we have. An affirmation is directly linked to our sub consciousness. Affirmations can either be negative or positive which can either guide our subconscious actions to a successful life or towards failure.

Spiritual Affirmations are a form of meditation which when mediated often, have a desirable results. For example if a person has a lack of confidence or self-esteem problem sit in a peaceful, quiet place with some spiritual affirmations in your mind, let the emotions flow to you and start saying the spiritual affirmations aloud, ‘I believe in myself’ or ‘My inner self will always guide me towards right path with decisions that are beneficial to me and others’.

The key behind spiritual affirmations is to let go of all your negative thoughts and trust completely in yourself. Instead of thinking ‘This project is too difficult for me’ try thinking ‘I am capable of anything and obstacles do not effect me or my work’. Once you adopting this kind of spiritual affirmation you will notice a positive and healthy change in your life.

The best way to carry out spiritual affirmation technique is to release your mind of any negative thought, sit in a peaceful and quiet place, relax and visualize any positive spiritual affirmation such as ‘My mind is at peace now’. At the same time try to use simple words and sentences which can easily be interpreted by our mind and mind can easily accept it to be true.

Spiritual affirmations not only help to achieve a peaceful mind and happy life but also helps us draw closer to God. Remember God and His blessings as much as possible while utilizing the spiritual affirmation technique. For example “I let my renewed soul thank God for His blessings” or ‘I release my old self and reborn with a new pure soul’. The most acceptable and commonly used word in spiritual affirmation is ‘Amen’ meaning ‘so be it’. While some of us use it to conclude our prayer, it can be used for spiritual affirmation.

For a positive result spiritual affirmation needs to be repeated many times for effectiveness. Write down any positive thought you get maybe in a diary, on a piece of card or whichever way is convenient to you. Review them daily to get your mind to completely accept these thoughts. Preferably review them twice a day. Initially during spiritual affirmation technique we will also get negative thoughts. Note down these thoughts as well and at the end of the day review them and try replacing them with something more positive. Once you perform this spiritual affirmation technique on a regular basis you will find a positive change in yourself with a renewed spirit.

Robert Watson is a certified hypnotherapist with the ABH and the NGH, and has worked with affirmations and subliminal messages for over ten years. Visit his website for more information about using affirmations and subliminal messages to help you lose weight, quit smoking, have a more positive outlook and more.

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