Being too positive is bad?

We all know about the saying “excess of every thing is bad”. It is true about positive thinking as well. Many may wonder, how being too positive can be harmful? 

Organizations work hard to cultivate positive thinking among their employees to boost their performance and enhance their engagement. Even some organizations hire coaches to train their employees to look at positive side of the picture. Office walls are often carrying different messages asking people to be optimistic thinkers. And leaders, politicians and corporate executives are expected to have optimistic attitude with ‘think it-do it’ spirit on display.

However, some research suggests that positive thinking doesn’t help us as much as we suppose. Across many peer-viewed studies determining the effects of positive visions of future on various kind of wishes people trying to fulfil, have consistently found that people with positive thinking either make less or the same progress in achieving attainable wishes when compared with those who don’t fantasize positively. 

Actually what happens? When we think about the positive future outcome, it brings us pleasure and creates warm and nice feelings of satisfaction. But in real work situations it may counterproductive. Your motivation goes down to make a strong effort which is required to attain a challenging task.

When systolic blood pressure is used as a key measure to determine how energized is someone, one study found that positive thinkers experience low systolic blood pressure. Another study found that positive thinkers are as likely as people in a control group to take easy steps towards attaining a goal and less likely to take difficult steps.

Good news is an exercise called mental contrasting can be of help. It brings positive fantasy about future outcome with visualization of obstacles need to overcome. Even more helpful is to add up planning to overcome obstacles as they arise.

Research has shown that use of mental contrasting make people more engaged with their work and less stressed when compared with a control group. Another study reported that use of mental contrasting help students of a vocational business programme to better manage their time.

How it happens? This process helps people to realize their wishes are attainable therefore, motivate them to channelize their energies to achieve desired outcomes. On other hand, when people evaluate their wishes and conclude that they are no realistic thus leading them divert their efforts and energies to some other more exciting alternatives.

Though it is good to feel positive but often it brings false fantasies. The key to achieve desired outcomes lies in pairing positive feeling with a clear view of potential obstacles and a plan how to overcome those obstacles.