Positive thinking tends to be the first step most people take to be happier. It seems like a simple tool, and its powers have been lauded by experts and motivational posters. Unfortunately, positive thinking can sometimes do more harm than good.
What is positive thinking?
The term “positive thinking”, like happiness, can describe a multitude of habits or behaviors. It can be used to describe a general attitude of gratitude, which is good, or a happy wish for the future, which is where things get a bit trickier.
The problem is the thinking.
Positive thinking is great, and when it’s combined with doing and being it can change your life. It can change the whole damn world.
But if all you do is think about how happy you want to be or how much things are going to change, that is not enough.
Last week I read A Stolen Life: A Memoir
As you can imagine, the book was heartbreaking. It was also riveting and inspirational – and absolutely infuriating.
In the book, Jaycee included excerpts from the journals she kept during her captivity. Many of these entries contained positive affirmations and “dreams for the future.”
Some of the affirmations she wrote while living in her kidnapper’s backyard:
- Only I can make it happen.
- I have the strength to do everything I set my mind to.
- I am a strong and capable person.
- Anything and everything is possible with love.
- Our goals are attainable.
Her most notable and oft-repeated dream for the future:
- See Mom
Reading these affirmations made my blood boil. These were the words of a 25-year-old woman living in a tent in a man’s backyard. She is allowed to go out and shop regularly. She gets on the internet every single day in order to run her captor’s business.
All she had to do to achieve her dreams was get up and walk away.
Now, Jaycee was obviously a victim of physical abuse and major psychological trauma. She didn’t just get up and walk away because she had been told over and over again that it wasn’t safe to do so. She had been chained to walls and kept from other humans for years. I am in no way blaming her for not escaping her kidnappers or for not reaching out to her mom online when she had the chance.
I do, however, want to light those affirmations on fire.
Incidentally, Jaycee’s prisoner taught her about daily affirmations. He taught her that if she could think about being happy, she would be. Apparently, he wasn’t afraid that all that thinking would lead to any action.
And it didn’t. Jaycee was rescued when two cops finally thought it was strange that a convicted pedophile was hanging out with two little girls – the daughters he and Jaycee had together. When Jaycee was brought in for questioning, she insisted everything was fine and only told the police about her real identity and the kidnapping after her attacker had confessed.
Positive thinking will not free you from your prison.
Reading this book, I wondered how many of us affirmed our desire to escape, and maybe even visualized a better life for ourselves, all while refusing to get up and walk out of the backyard.
How often do we write dreams in our journals, but insist everything is fine when we are offered a way out?
How often do we tell ourselves that we can do anything, all while clinging to what we’ve been told by others about what is unsafe or unwise?
How often do we let positive thinking serve as our easy way out when it is only taking action that will save us?
If you’ve been making lists for years and nothing has changed, it’s not because you don’t want badly enough or believe as fervently as possible. It’s because you need to do something different.
Get up and walk out of the backyard.
Yeah, I have to agree that positive thinking is great and an admirable way to being happy, but it definitely isn’t enough. You can have all the dreams in the world, but if you don’t do something, you’ll never get it.
Everyone can dream about it. Everyone can say, “I will do this and that and everything else.” But I think saying it and actually doing it are two different things.
Yeah. Just get up and walk out of the backyard. Indeed. But really, sometimes it’s easier said than done. Fear is a great motivator.
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It is ALWAYS easier said than done. Always.
But we need to commit to doing the stuff that isn’t easier.
Great post and really true.
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Thanks, Jill.
Clearly affirmations and positive thinking are a bit simplistic. What we are really asking of people is to live without fear and that is contrary to human nature. Our bodies and brains are programmed with the instinct to survive and fears are part of that instinct. (even infants exhibit a fear of falling) Add to that years of social and emotional conditioning and it makes it a whole lot easier to think about leaving the backyard than it is to actually walk through the gate.
I don’t think we’re asking anyone to live without fear. We’re asking people to work through the fear. We’re asking people to have more courage than fear.
That might not be instinctive, but it’s what has propelled human history forward.
Tomato, tomahto… Asking people to work through fear is asking them to let go of that fear, essentially living without it. One could argue that courage is not always born of conscious thought, but of an instinct to survive. Historically, mankind has made great leaps when their very survival has been at stake. Merely another way to look at the subject….
I swear i am not trying to be contrary here, but I think I’m missing your point or perspective. Could you clarify for me?
Are you saying that maybe people should NOT try to work through fear or be fearless or however we say it?
So sad, but so true. I also think daily affirmations are one of the worse ways of generating positive thinking.
Why do you say that?
Because my handbook says so (The Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology).
On a serious level I could reproduce their arguments, but not having reviewed any of their supporting literature I think that would be a waste of both of our times. On that note, I am now motivated to do a review of the literature…
My first gut reaction is to nod furiously at this … because I believe it with all of my heart (and I struggle with not getting irritated with people who “Wish and Dream” all of the time but don’t do a damn thing about it.
However, in my last year in Delhi, I met some amazing women who shared a lot about why they have shied away from leading their best life. Their reasons and thoughts and backgrounds were pretty enlightening. One woman even told me that it was simple — “it is really hard to always watch people who succeed without failure, and I could never possibly compete with that.”
I think those people that are NOT fearful of reaching higher could do the fearful ones a favor and share their shortcomings, and their path/process to reaching success.
Just watched a movie where one of the final comments was “We are all just one small adjustment away from making our lives work” — isn’t that a great one????
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I feel like I’ve seen that quote recently. What movie was it?
I do think it’s important to share the journey; it gives people more realistic expectations.
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Yes! That’s the one I saw it in too.
I agree. in fact sometimes if all you do is fantasize about positive thoughts and never take actions to get there, it can make you miserable.
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And THAT is why I hate playing the “what would you do if you won the lottery” game.
I def. agree that positive thinking alone won’t get us anywhere, however I think it’s integral in achieving goals. Thing is, the manner in which positive thinking was taught to Jaycee Duggard was flawed in that it was meant to suppress her and control her, so it’s not the greatest example of it.
I agree with you that dreams are achieved through action, but one has to have the positive thoughts there in order to engage in a sincere and productive attempt at achievement. I’ve known people who are incredibly intelligent and hard working who have achieved their dreams after arduous pursuit, but because the thoughts about themselves, others and the world weren’t positive, they’re still incredibly unhappy. See, for me, I don’t view the circumstance as the prison, but the lens with which one views, well, everything.
Without positive thinking, a person can catch every dream they conceive of, but still be in a prison of their own making.
You know what’s really sad? I’m not even sure if it was meant to suppress her. I think her kidnapper actually thought in his twisted head that he was helping her.
But yes. Absolutely. Positive thinking is valuable. Of course it is. And you’ve described brilliantly why action alone isn’t enough.
Positive thinking and action are, I think, symbiotic.
Great post – had no idea where you were taking us but you are so right about making our own obstacles.
Thank you.
Knowing we are our own captors is both empowering and kind of scary, in a piss me off sort of way.
Brilliant post Miss Britt! You’ve have explained the problem with positive thinking so so well. Love the example here. I never knew that about her and I am stunned. It would have been so easy for her to walk away. Wow!
Makes me stop and think about my positive thinking in a new way. Am I allowing it to paralyse me into non-action?
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In theory it would have. I don’t at all want to suggest that I blame her for not leaving. Psychological abuse is, of course, very real and very powerful.
But – yeah. Like you said, I wonder what areas in my own life I allow positive thinking to paralyze me.
Such a great post, Britt. I am surprised how many people believe they can’t do/be something because they never did/were it before. Most people were born not knowing how to do or be anything. And guess what, most of the time we fall down and get bruised a few times on the journey to expertise.
It’s easy to forget that everyone started out a beginner at some point.
I always remind myself that the opposite of being stuck is movement. You have to MOVE to make any of it happen. Even when you don’t necessarily know what you’re moving towards…the movement itself is necessary.
“the opposite of being stuck is movement” – I love this.