Now before you get annoyed with me, let me explain. I am not suggesting that you are responsible for every bad thing that has happened to you. Life doesn't work like that. Sometimes dreadful things happen to perfectly good people and sometimes people who behave appallingly seem to have everything they want. That is simply life.
What I am suggesting is something rather different. If you want your life to change, you cannot expect positive thinking to do all the work while you remain exactly the same person you were yesterday and that is something we don't talk about nearly enough.
We have become very good at the idea of positive thinking as a shopping list. We want more money, better health, a new relationship, a different career, a bigger house, greater confidence, more happiness and perhaps a Ferrari if we are feeling particularly ambitious. So, we write everything down, visualise it, repeat our affirmations and wait for the Universe to get the order ready.
But there is one rather important question we rarely ask. What are you bringing to the party? Because positive thinking isn't simply about what you want. It is also about the person doing the wanting.
Take a Look in the Mirror
So, let's begin somewhere very simple. Take a look in the mirror and no, I am not interested in whether you like what you see. You may think you are too fat, too thin, too old, too young, too grey or simply not attractive enough. Forget all of that. You are unique. There is nobody else on the planet who looks exactly like you, and there never will be.
What I want you to consider is the way you look after yourself. Do you make an effort? Do you take pride in your appearance? Do you dress reasonably well when you go to work or pop to the shops, or have you reached the stage where you simply put on whatever happens to be nearest the bed?
There is an important distinction here. I am not talking about money. Looking after yourself has very little to do with how much you earn. You don't need designer clothes, an expensive watch or a wardrobe full of labels to take pride in yourself.
Some of the poorest people in the world take enormous pride in the way they look. They may own very little, but what they do own is clean, cared for and worn with dignity. The issue isn't what you can afford. The issue is whether you care, because when you stop making any effort with yourself, you are often sending yourself a message that is far more damaging than you realise. You are saying, without actually saying it, that you are no longer worth the effort and that matters.
When you shower, shave, brush your hair, put on clean clothes and make yourself presentable, you aren't simply preparing yourself for other people. You are reminding yourself that you matter. That may sound like a very small thing. It isn't. It is the beginning of self-respect.
But Appearance Is Only the Beginning
Of course, you can look fantastic and still be an absolute nightmare. You can have the perfect haircut, immaculate clothes and the smile of a toothpaste advert while carrying around enough anger and resentment to make everyone within fifty yards want to leave the building.
So, once you have dealt with the outside, we need to look at what is happening inside. What sort of person are you? Are you someone who is generally positive about life, or do you seem to have a remarkable ability to find the problem with absolutely everything?
Do you complain constantly? Are you quick to anger? Do you blame other people whenever something goes wrong? Do you see yourself as the victim? Do you keep a mental record of everyone who has ever upset you? Do you find it difficult to forgive?
Do you spend your time comparing yourself with other people? Do you assume that somebody else is always getting the opportunities that should have been yours? And what happens when somebody cuts you up in traffic? This is where positive thinking becomes rather more interesting, because we can no longer hide behind an affirmation. We have to look at ourselves honestly.
The problem is that most of us are remarkably good at explaining away our own behaviour. We aren't angry; we were provoked. We aren't negative; we are realistic. We aren't jealous; we simply know what we deserve. We aren't difficult; we just have high standards.
The human mind is a wonderful thing. It can make almost anything sound reasonable if it wants to. So perhaps you should ask someone who knows you well. Someone who loves you enough to tell you the truth. Ask them what you are really like and when they answer, don't argue with them. That is the difficult bit. Just listen. You might discover that the person you have been trying to change isn't quite the person you thought you were.
What You Carry Around With You
This matters because you don't leave your emotions behind when you walk out of the front door. You carry them everywhere. You take your anger into conversations. You take your insecurity into relationships. You take your resentment into your work. You take your fear into opportunities. You take your disappointments from yesterday and use them to predict what will happen tomorrow.
Eventually, you can become so accustomed to seeing life through a negative lens that you don't even notice you are doing it. You simply think that this is the way the world is, but perhaps the world isn't always as negative as you think. Perhaps you have become exceptionally good at finding the negative.
If you expect people to let you down, you will notice every time they do. If you expect something to go wrong, you will be looking for the evidence. If you believe you are unlucky, every disappointment becomes another reason to believe you are unlucky and something rather dangerous happens.
Your expectation begins to create your experience. Not because you have magical powers. Because what you believe affects what you notice, how you behave and the decisions you make. That is why changing your thinking matters, but it is also why changing your behaviour matters. The two are connected.
Then There Is Fear
And underneath much of our negativity, there is something else. Fear.It is one of the greatest obstacles to positive change because it is very good at pretending to be sensible. It tells you to wait. It tells you that now isn't the right time. It tells you that you don't have enough money, enough experience, enough confidence or enough knowledge. It tells you that somebody else is better qualified. It tells you that you might fail and because these things sound perfectly reasonable, we listen, but sometimes what we call common sense is nothing more than fear wearing a respectable suit.
Think about the things you have never done because you were frightened of what might happen. Think about the conversations you avoided. The opportunities you rejected. The ideas you never pursued. The things you wanted to try but convinced yourself were unrealistic.
Fear doesn't always shout at you. Quite often it whispers and that makes it much more dangerous.
The Receiving State
This brings us to something often discussed in positive-thinking circles: the receiving state. I think there is something very important in this idea, although perhaps not for the reasons you might imagine. The receiving state isn't about sitting on the sofa waiting for the Universe to deliver your new life. It is about becoming open to possibility.
If you are constantly anxious, angry, suspicious and convinced that everything will go wrong, you are not exactly creating an environment in which change can flourish. You are putting up barriers and sometimes we become so focused on telling the Universe what we want that we forget to leave any room for it to surprise us.
We decide exactly what our future should look like and then become disappointed when it doesn't arrive according to our instructions, but what if the thing you need doesn't look like the thing you expected? What if the opportunity arrives disguised as a problem? What if the person who changes your life isn't the person you thought you would meet? What if the door that opens is completely different from the one you spent years staring at?
You cannot receive something new if you are so busy insisting that it must arrive in a particular form that you fail to recognise it.
And Then You Have to Do Something
There is, however, one part of positive thinking that I have always considered non-negotiable. Action. At some point, you have to get up. You can visualise a new career, but eventually you have to apply for the job.
You can imagine being healthier, but eventually you have to change what you eat and how you live. You can dream about meeting new people, but eventually you have to leave the house. You can tell yourself that you are going to become more confident, but eventually you have to do something that frightens you.
This is where common sense comes in. Positive thinking without action is simply daydreaming with better vocabulary. You cannot spend your entire life imagining yourself running a marathon and then wonder why you haven't crossed the finishing line. At some point, you need to put your trainers on.
Are You Ready for What You Want?
Perhaps, then, this is the question we should really be asking. Not, "What do I want?" But, "Am I ready for what I want?" Because those are two very different questions.
You may want a successful career but be frightened of the responsibility that comes with it. You may want a relationship but still be carrying so much resentment from the past that you won't allow somebody close to you. You may want more money, but secretly believe that wealthy people are greedy.
You may want happiness while spending most of your time talking about everything that is wrong with your life. You may want change while doing everything possible to remain exactly where you are. None of this makes you a bad person. It makes you human.
We are complicated creatures. We can want something desperately while simultaneously being frightened of actually getting it. That is why this isn't about beating yourself up. It is about becoming honest.
The Real Makeover
So perhaps the makeover you need isn't the one you thought it was. Perhaps it isn't a new wardrobe. Perhaps it isn't another book. Perhaps it isn't another vision board. Perhaps it begins with taking better care of yourself because you have decided you are worth looking after. Perhaps it continues with dealing honestly with your anger, your fears, your resentment and your need to blame other people.
Perhaps it means becoming less interested in what everybody else is doing and more interested in what you are doing. Perhaps it means forgiving somebody. Perhaps it means apologising. Perhaps it means taking the risk you have been avoiding. Perhaps it simply means getting off the sofa and starting.
None of this is particularly mystical. In fact, most of it is common sense and that may be why we overlook it. We are constantly looking for something extraordinary to transform our lives when the transformation may actually begin with a series of very ordinary decisions such as look after yourself. Think differently. Behave differently. Deal with your fears. Stop feeding your resentment. Take action. Become the person you would like to be and then see what happens.
Perhaps the Miracle Is You
Positive thinking was never supposed to mean pretending that everything is wonderful. It doesn't mean denying reality. It doesn't mean smiling when you feel like screaming and it certainly doesn't mean sitting back and expecting the Universe to do everything for you.
Real positive thinking is much more demanding. It asks you to look at yourself honestly and decide whether the person you are today is capable of creating the life you say you want tomorrow.
You don't need to become perfect. Nobody is asking you to do that. You simply need to stop making life harder for yourself than it needs to be.
Stop carrying yesterday into tomorrow. Stop allowing fear to make your decisions. Stop blaming everybody else. Stop waiting for the perfect moment. Stop thinking that somebody is coming to rescue you and stop believing that positive thinking is something you can practise for ten minutes a day while spending the other twenty-three hours behaving as though life is against you, because eventually your actions have to catch up with your thoughts. And perhaps that is where the real magic begins.
Not when the Universe finally decides to give you what you asked for. Not when your affirmation suddenly comes true. Not when the vision board becomes reality, but when you look in the mirror and realise that you have been waiting for your life to change when, all along, you were the person who had to change it.
Perhaps the miracle isn't coming. Perhaps it has been standing in front of the mirror all along.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Is positive thinking the same as being optimistic?
Not quite. Optimism is generally about expecting a favourable outcome, whereas positive thinking is more about how you interpret and respond to what is happening around you. You can think positively without pretending everything will work out perfectly.
2. Can positive thinking actually change the way I feel?
It can. The way you interpret an experience influences the emotions you attach to it. Changing your internal dialogue can help you respond to difficulties with greater calm, perspective and confidence rather than immediately assuming the worst.
3. What should I do when negative thoughts keep coming back?
Don't try to fight every negative thought. Notice it, question whether it is genuinely helpful or accurate, and then choose what you want to focus on instead. The aim isn't to eliminate every negative thought but to stop allowing them to control your thinking.
4. Is it possible to become a more positive person?
Yes. Your habitual way of thinking can change. Like any habit, it takes awareness and repetition. The more often you challenge unhelpful thinking and deliberately look for alternative perspectives, the more natural that process can become.
5. Does positive thinking mean ignoring problems?
No. In fact, effective positive thinking requires you to acknowledge problems honestly. The difference is that you don't automatically assume a problem is a disaster. You recognise what is wrong while also asking what can be done about it.
6. Why do negative thoughts often feel more powerful than positive ones?
Our minds are naturally inclined to notice potential threats, problems and disappointments. This means negative information can demand more attention than positive information. Becoming aware of this tendency can make it easier to step back rather than automatically believing every negative thought.
7. Can positive thinking help when life is genuinely difficult?
Positive thinking cannot remove grief, disappointment, uncertainty or difficult circumstances. What it can do is influence how you meet those circumstances. Sometimes positivity isn't about finding something good in a bad situation; it is simply believing that you can get through it.
8. How can I start thinking more positively today?
Start by paying attention to the conversations you have with yourself. When you catch yourself using words such as "always", "never", "can't" or "everything", pause and ask whether they are actually true. Small changes in the way you describe your life can gradually change the way you experience it.
9. Can positive thinking become unrealistic or harmful?
Yes, if it becomes an excuse to deny reality. Telling yourself that everything is wonderful when it clearly isn't isn't positive thinking. Genuine positivity allows room for difficult emotions, mistakes and uncertainty while maintaining the belief that circumstances can change.
10. What is the biggest benefit of developing a positive mindset?
Perhaps the greatest benefit is that you begin to realise you have more influence over your experience than you previously thought. You cannot control everything that happens to you, but you can become more conscious of the meaning you give those experiences and the way you choose to respond.
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