Harnessing Your Negativity Bias: Fueling Optimism, Creativity, and Solutions

How to Hack Your Negativity Bias…

...to Be More OpTimistic, Creative and Solution Oriented

Hack Your Negativity by Noting and Celebrating Each Time Your Negative Predictions DON'T Happen.

It took me the majority of my life to finally learn that I was in the majority. Virtually our entire species are by default negative / pessimistic.

It's called the negativity bias, and like many other biases, it helped us survive in the primitive past. Most optimists in evolutionary history got eaten, starved to death or were killed.

Nowadays, pessimism is harming us just as living an unhealthy lifestyle motivated by other outdated evolutionary drives are. These include being lazy, seeking pleasure and overeating.

Imagine a primitive hunter who had a "Don't Worry be Happy" attitude about the deer they missed, or didn't even try to hunt because they were optimistic they'd see another tomorrow.

What do you think happened to the optimistic cave people who thought to themselves "I choose to believe that snake is friendly and not venomous."

How about that curious creative who chose to investigate that strange sound in the dark assuming it wasn't a potential threat?

Negativity survived in our genome because those pessimists were more likely to survive in a world far more dangerous than today. Surviving meant they could have kids, and eventually pass those genes along to us.

This first technique is likely to be especially effective when you're in the habit of "catastrophizing".

It can be an extremely hard place to get out of if you're stuck or struggling with negativity in your life.

It leverages our species wide habitual, default negativity to invalidate every catastrophic thing that doesn't come true;-)

Its power lies in the fact that you don't have to convince yourself, or strive to reframe anything, just be mindful and note the objective truth when your negative assumptions don't manifest.

To be honest, I also spent most of my life learning how not to be negative and depressed about life. It was a relief to learn that we were ALL biased toward negativity. It wasn't my character deficiency, and I wasn't alone. Fortunately, I had already figured out how to live and maintain a mostly positive, optimistic life without knowing about the negativity bias.

It wasn't easy, and it took years of hard work, but I figured it out for myself. That said, it takes maintenance and ongoing effort because anyone slip back into their species' default pessimism by choosing to indulge in catastrophizing and rumination.

My technique is simple, but will take practice.

Be mindful when you have a catastrophic thought, then celebrate when you're wrong:-)

Strive to be positive and optimistic in your life because those habits ARE beneficial in the modern environment. Don't seek to be pessimistic, or negative, BUT when it happens, apply this technique.

Sometimes your negative predictions will come true, and it'll suck:-? But when that happens, learn from it, move on and forget about it, or this technique may backfire. When you're wrong, be happy, grateful and REMEMBER it. Write it down or journal it if it helps.

Am I saying you should remember when good things happen, learn from bad things, then accept and forget them before moving on? Damn right I am.

UNLIKE Freud's deeply flawed theories, there's a ton of scientific support for NOT ruminating about a past you can't change. Freudian psycho-analytic therapies are as a rule woefully ineffective to the point that they are no more effective than patients doing NOTHING. On average most people get over a psychological trauma in about two years with or without therapy.

In Black Box Thinking Matthew Syed took the position that identifying problems was at the core of inventing and creative problem solving. He was PARTIALLY correct, because that's just ONE of the primary sources.

I leverage my negativity bias into creativity and live in a solution oriented mindset. It's still natural for me to find faults or deficiencies with products, systems, business models and strategies, but that's a strength IFF you use them to find solutions for those problems. For me, "fault finding" ( of things not people ) is a primary method I use to invent and create solutions:-)

It's popularly believed that creativity is a muse that only the talented are born with, but that's completely backward. Creativity comes from connecting formerly unrelated ideas or knowledge that come from OUTSIDE the creator. Creativity's muse is the environment, problems, ideas and experiences you are exposed to. The broader and more you learn and experience, the more material you have to drive your creativity.

Every time you see a "problem", strive to find its solution. Nobody likes to listen to you, or anyone else complain all the time, but your boss and others will be delighted when you solve a problem for them.

Fair warning, if you offer unsolicited solutions to unrecognized problems. they won't be well received. Privately build your inventory of solutions, then keep them to yourself UNTIL someone asks for them;-)

By using our natural tendency to recognize problems, we can learn to be in a solution mindset:-)

tim #bgreen??

P.S. How can you turn negativity into an asset?? Please reply in the comments:-)

P.P.S. Next article: Why you should dump your vision board...