How to Make Positive Thinking Work

Positive Thinking, by itself, isn’t much, and it’s certainly not sufficient. Positive thinking without constructive visualization and consistent action/adaptation is like pizza without sauce, and cheese, and toppings, and an oven, and someone skilled to make the pizza and bake, and slice, it — it’s just dough.

Positive thinking when combined with vivid and emotionally charged visualization of desired results and accompanying challenges, and consistent action, reflection and adaptation is a very potent combination. But yes, just sitting on the couch thinking positive thoughts will not amount to much of anything.

So, what it comes down to is, given the choice between combining positive thinking and visualization, consistent action/learning/adaptation or negative thinking with the aforementioned, which makes sense? Put another way, would you want pizza sauce, cheese, pepperoni (or your fav topping) with mold-ridden, off-smelling pizza dough? Of course not, it takes high quality, fresh ingredients — from the dough to the toppings — to make a great pizza.

Let’s apply this:

  • are you noticing and managing your thoughts effectively, consistently returning to positive, resourceful thoughts?
  • are you taking the time visualize new or challenging tasks, imagining how you’ll overcome challenges and marshal strengths and resources?
  • are you taking consistent action, all the while taking time to reflect on what has worked, and what hasn’t — and making the changes necessary?

Those are the Big Three of Life. If you’re not doing them, you’re missing out on what life has to offer you. Change that. Do the Big Three more, start small if necessary, but start Now.

Similar Posts

  • What Keeps You Small?

    Nothing ever goes away until it teaches us what we need to know. – Pema Chodron That which we resist, persists. What keeps coming up for you? “Causing you*” persistent, or recurring, or even occasional, angst, frustration, upset, overwhelm, anger or sadness? What in you must evolve to solve, or better yet make irrelevant, this…

  • Do. The. Work.

    It takes 20 years to make an overnight success. – Eddie Cantor People don’t realize that things take time. Becoming takes work. Do the work. Become not just what you might be, become what you truly desire to be. Do. The. Work.

  • What Makes You Weak

    Something we were withholding made us weak, until we found it was ourselves. – Robert Frost One of the things that gets in the way of our strength is how we mask, deny, subjugate and otherwise dis-empower our true selves. Our true self is a well-spring of power, and creativity, and industry and, most importantly,…

  • Glow in the Dark

    Sometimes Seth Godin puts out something so good I need to share it with you, in its entirety: Some people are able to reflect the light that lands on them, to take directions or assets or energy and focus it where it needs to be focused. This is a really valuable skill. Even more valuable,…

  • Where Fear Comes From

    Fear comes from the future, and discouragement comes from the past. Both obsessions are linear mistakes. – Steve Chandler The mistake we make with time is that we think it’s a linear progression, with a now and two “thens” (past and future) and all the points in-between. It’s not that. It’s just not. There is…