Positive thinking and striving for happiness are common goals associated with self-improvement.
But theres more to positive thinking than might appear on the surface.
This post originally appeared on theCrew blog.
When Is Positivity Good for Us?
During performance reviews, criticism and focusing on problems canmake it hard for employees to see possibilities for improvement.
Moderate levels of happiness and a positive mindset can help us solve problems byfostering creative thinking.
It also opens us up to taking more risks and helps us to feel less inhibitied.
However, the act of striving for happiness itself has actually been shown tomake us more unhappy.
It seems like the more we force positive emotions, the less we truly feel them.
Should We Cut Back on Positive Thinking?
It ends up being a stressful, always-on-alert situation, rather than a happy, enjoyable one.
And for people who already have low self-esteem, the effects of so-called positive affirmations (e.g.
I am a lovable person!)
can actually be detrimental.
People with low self-esteemtend to feel worse after saying or hearing these affirmations, because they disagree with them.
Even in business, this can be an issue.
Company leaders who are so optimistic they ignore warning signs canlead their companies to disaster.
In some cases, negativity can actually bebeneficial for our performance.
A tendency to think negatively can also be beneficial in terms of reducing suffering of negative events.
Whereas trying to correct negative thoughts can actually make them worse.
But too much negative thinking is no good for us either.
Negative emotions cansuppress the immune system, increase stress levels, and increase our blood pressure.
Finding Balance
Positivity and negativity both clearly have a place in our lives.
The trick, as with so many things, is to find a healthy balance.
Another suggestion is toavoid positive affirmations.
Lastly, avoid pressuring friends, family, employees or colleagues into positive thinking.
So let yourselfand othersexperience and appreciate the downs that are part of life, as well as the ups.
How Healthy is Positivity, Really?| Crew
Belle Beth Cooper was the first Content Crafter at Buffer.
Shes the co-founder of Melbourne startup Hello Code, an iOS developer, and a writer.
Image byKninwong(Shutterstock).
