Don’t ‘Think Positive.’ Try These 7 New Ways of Thinking Instead.
A chart for people who struggle with thinking patterns based on fear or self-pity
This summer, I wrote an essay titled “Instead of positive thinking, try this.” I posited that positive thinking wasn’t useful, and in fact, can be harmful. I then offered a framework for thinking in more useful ways.
I still think that holds, and it’s something I’ve been delving more into as I prepare to kick off my mastermind group this September. You see, I don’t believe in quote-unquote positive thinking. But I do think opening up yourself to different ways to think is one of the keys towards moving forward in life, especially if you struggle with patterns of fear-based, self-pity-based, or black-and-white thinking.
My theory is this: Our brains are the biggest super computers in the universe, but they’ve mostly been trained to exist and be stuck in a loop of self-critical or stuck thinking models.
By feeding your brain better questions or possibilities, you start to reprogram it, in a way, to become a more useful thinker.
Another angle I feel is worth addressing: Sometimes people are very comfortable in their negative thinking loops—one, because they’ve been conditioned to think this way via…
