posted on: May 25, 2013
author: Brian Lomax, Ed.D.
One of the fundamental aspects of the PerformanceXtra program is to be more positive in competition, in your training and in your life in general as this has been proven to be a determinant for success. To most people, that sounds fairly logical. However, there is a lot of literature that misrepresents what being positive really means and whether it is truly beneficial to performance, so I wanted to take this opportunity to clarify what I mean by “being more positive.”
Recently, I was driving in my car and listening to an audiobook entitled “Top Dog – The Science of Winning and Losing” by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, and the topic of one of the chapters was positive thinking and Positive Psychology. With my background and study of Positive Psychology, I was excited to hear about some of the science behind this key concept in success. Instead, what I heard was a misrepresentation of what positive thinking and Positive Psychology actually are. According to the authors, positive thinking is simply thinking that only positive things can and will happen, while ignoring all negative thoughts. They then go on to extoll the virtues of negative thinking and even equate being negative with being realistic.
Why is negative thinking considered to be realistic while positive thinking is viewed as fantasy? Do good things happen in life? Yes, they do, and the same is true for bad things. Isn’t reality a mix of positive and negative? This is where I think the authors are being somewhat intellectually dishonest as they chose to represent positive thinking as it’s presented in a work like “The Secret“, which is all about just thinking good thoughts and letting good things happen to you, rather than a more scientific work from Positive Psychology like “Positivity” by Barbara Frederickson. They even go on to say that visualizing a successful performance is a bad thing because you won’t think of all of the things that could go wrong during your competition. As an athlete, I find that notion to be utterly ridiculous. When I visualize a good performance, it’s in the context of overcoming all of the challenges that I will be presented with that day. I never assume everything will simply go well just because I’m being positive.
Frederickson’s book “Positivity” discusses the necessary ratio of positive to negative thoughts to be successful in life. The minimal ratio for flourishing in life is 3 positive thoughts to 1 negative and she shows how this has been proven both qualitatively through surveys as well as quantitatively through elaborate mathematical equations. Notice that there is a negative thought involved in that 3 to 1 ratio. It isn’t 3 to 0. That’s because Positive Psychology is reality based. It’s not a formula for becoming a pollyanna. Reality is a mixture of the positive and the negative.
I recently wrote a post on a formula for success:
Success = Optimism*(Persistence + Resilience)
If I truly believed that all you needed to do was think positive thoughts and everything would be great, then I could have simplified my formula to Success = Optimism. But I didn’t do that because I don’t believe that’s true. Success takes hard work and a lot of it. That’s the Persistence part. On the road to success, you will encounter obstacles. How you handle them is Resilience. Those two factors embrace the reality of life. Having a positive mental attitude can exponentially help you with these two important character traits.
So what exactly do I mean by a positive thought versus a negative thought? My simple definition is that a positive thought allows you to do something constructive while a negative thought either provides no plan of action or a destructive one. When we compete, it’s important to be thinking constructively even if the tone of your private voice is negative or critical. The next time you compete, examine your own thoughts and determine whether they are constructive or not. And don’t be afraid to be more positive out there! It will help you to be successful in every aspect of your life.
Dr. Brian Lomax founded PerformanceXtra™ in 2009 with a mission of helping athletes achieve their goals and their top performances more consistently through a progression of mental skills that enables them to focus on what is truly important.
Learn more about the author: https://performancextra.com/brian-lomax/
Good Stuff Brian…. I think the following book would interest you – written by a good friend http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=energize+bob+faw