The Problem With Positive Thinking

I was at a networking event earlier in the week where one of the participants was talking about the importance of positive thinking. I've heard quite a few people recently saying that we should turn off the news and tune out the doomsters and gloomsters, and turn to "optimistic" or "positive" thinking.

While it's true that negative beliefs about the self, the world, and the future can lead to anger, anxiety and depression, the solution is not as simple as positive thinking. Despite what the self-help books and programmes such as The Secret might tell us.

Don’t get me wrong. Thinking positive goes a long way to changing our perspective. But negative things happen to us, especially now, and we need to act quickly to overcome them. It’s like the saying goes,

“When life hands you lemons, make lemonade!”

It doesn’t say to think positively about lemonade, or to wish you'd not been handed the lemons. It says to make lemonade. In other words to take action.

The fact of the matter is that as business owners, we're dealing with a complex set of challenging circumstances made far worse than they need to be by the failure of our leaders to get a proper grip on the pandemic. We've been handed a lorry load of lemons.

I'm thinking of the yoga studio owner in Walthamstow who had just invested ￡100,000+ in upgrading her centre, only to have discover she couldn't open her doors as planned in March. The beauty salon owner in Northern Ireland who'd not long re-opened before Tier 3 restrctions meant she was forced to close again. The retailer in Brighton who's had to put her 30 staff on furlough, apply for CBILS funding and and set herself up at home to sell stock online.

No corner of the UK is immune to the effects of coronavirus, and the financial impact across the country is startling. Hundreds of thousands of people across the country are now trying to come to terms with this and re-evaluate how they can sustainably run a business. This is why seven out of 10 business leaders see Covid-19 as posing a high or severe threat to their organisation, according to the Institute of Directors.

Thinking positive won't change the current situation. But positive action will. We’ve got to take action to chart a course through. Somehow we've got to take the lemons we've been handed and use all of our resourcefulness to turn them into lemonade.

So the next time you hear someone tell you to think positive,” say to them:

“You know what? You’re right. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go and make some lemonade!”