This can be hard to grasp, but most studies support it and over the years, people have come a long way with their positive attitudes and optimism. However, no one has ever said how much positive thinking is ideal for success.
4 Reasons why your excessive positivity is preventing you from succeeding:
First: Ignoring the existence of negative feelings
Life is about maintaining balance. You learn the value of good because there's evil, and people value life because of death. Likewise, in order to go far in life, you have to maintain a balance between your positive and negative feelings. There's no way you can feel balanced if you start ignoring all your negative feelings.
If you stay positive all the time and never feel emotional pain, you may not find a reason to change yourself for the better. Negative feelings, such as anger teach people how to live in the midst of all challenges. Researchers conducted a study in which they asked a group of students with low self-esteem to repeat the phrase: "I am loved." The result was that students felt more insecure than ever, and if they were asked to face their fears, the results would have been better.
Second: Having a weak perspective on reality
People may have told you that optimism makes your life good. But this practice often distracts you from acknowledging the real problem. Over-optimism can undoubtedly confuse you and affect your decision-making abilities. As a result, we often fail to assess the risks.
Moreover, over-optimism often gives us a false sense of power because it leads us to believe that we won't be harmed and make unhealthy choices everyday - like smoking - thinking they won't affect us much, but in fact these are the leading causes of fatal diseases, such as cancer.
Optimism isn't a bad thing. It encourages us to believe in ourselves when we're in deep water, but when you start ignoring the real situation, you make mistakes, as former English Prime Minister Winston Churchill says: "A pessimist sees hardships in every opportunity, and an optimist sees the opportunity in every hardship."
Third: Ignoring that you're not in control of everything
Have you ever heard of the term "delusion of control?” Psychologists describe it as a tendency for people to overestimate their ability to control every outcome. If you're overly optimistic about everything, you're most likely to develop a delusion of control, and you've probably noticed how people still invest in the lottery despite the fact that their odds of winning are low, only one in a million.
The best way to deal with tough situations is to assess all the factors and not head for the hills out of enthusiasm and optimism. If we look at everything with optimism, we will turn away from reality and will lose heart.
Fourth: Finding solace only in ideal ideas
Success comes for those who dare to defy the odds, not only for those who think about success. It has been observed that when people are asked to imagine the best possible way to accomplish a certain task, their productivity is negatively affected. On the other hand, when they're asked to think about the negative or realistic results, their performance actually improves.
Once we've imagined success, it becomes hard to convince the mind to actually get the job done. A recent study revealed that people who display an overly optimistic approach were less able to repay their loans and save money than the average person.
This is because they think they can face all these challenges very easily. What they don't understand is that they're actually getting themselves into much bigger trouble. “When you see that something is very important to you, you can do it even if the odds are stacked against you,” says the entrepreneur Elon Musk.
Bottom Line:
Regardless of the self-help books you read or the motivational speeches you listen to, nothing can get you far unless you discover your own way of coping with your feelings. Optimism can be helpful if used correctly, and you can improve your odds in success greatly. However, you shouldn't be distracted by all these positive thoughts and idealistic beliefs. Maybe the best way to succeed is to keep the right balance between reality and optimism.
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