What Does Positive Thinking Really Mean?

Think positive! We’ve all come across this statement at one time or another, often when we’re down in the dumps and least attuned to the message. It was a popular catch phrase amongst sales managers in the 80’s who tried to motivate their sales teams with its upbeat message. The whole “positive thinking” thing is a bit passé now though, isn’t it?

Now it’s all about choice and personal empowerment. We choose how we feel and whatever we’ve chosen is OK, even if it’s negative. Who cares if my negative attitude infects everyone around me? It’s me that’s important here. And well you might think so, but the reality is somewhat different. Every one of us has the ability to impact upon people in our vicinity without even trying and every one of us has ongoing choices about what type of impact we’ll make.

Our choices have inevitable and predictable effects on us and the people around us. If we choose to indulge ourselves and wallow in our own misery, it’s inevitable that people who cross our path will detect our negativity and be affected by it. How they’re affected is determined by their own choices, but rest assured they will be affected. They could choose to sympathise with you for having such a bad day/week/year/life. They could choose to reject you because they don’t want to buy into your pity party. They could choose to ignore you or they could choose to join you.

Let’s consider for a moment the results of their actions upon you, after all, it’s you we’re really talking about here. If they sympathise with you, you have someone feeling sorry for you and that makes you an object to be pitied. If they reject you, you have someone dismissing you, which means that you’re not sufficiently valuable to be accepted by them. If they ignore you, then you’re not important enough to warrant paying any attention to and if they join you, you can be certain that they will be unloading just as much negative garbage on you as you do on them, after all, that’s why misery loves company.

Taking it one step further, because you have people pitying you, rejecting you, ignoring you and dumping their negativity on you, can you guess how you’re going to feel? If you were only a little bit down in the first place, you’ll certainly be deeper in the hole now and that’s only going to make things worse.  Now imagine that all of these people are your customers.  Do you think they’re going to want to buy something from you?

Consider things from the other side. What would happen if when you awoke in the morning, you chose to be upbeat, happy, positive and enthusiastic? People in your orbit would certainly pick up on your attitude, because we all have built-in tuners that let us know how people around us are feeling.

Your positivity will affect others in various ways. There will be people who smile at you because you’ve smiled at them. A lot of people will do this and when they smile back at you, you’ll feel even better. Try it for yourself if you don’t believe me. There will be people who are caught up in their own unhappiness to such an extent that they barely notice you. You might get a little half-hearted smile from them, but that’s about it. There will be people who will ignore you and others who will feel compelled to join you.

Having people smiling at you all day long is sure to raise your spirits even further. Coaxing that half-hearted smile from that grouchy person was sheer victory for you. It more than made up for all those busy people wrapped up in their own little worlds who ignored you today. And the people who chose to join you in your positivity made you feel more empowered and more certain that being positive was the right choice for you to make this morning. All of this will make it even easier to make the same positive choice tomorrow morning.