Be Your Best

Todd Gifford – Success Coach, President

I was watching the CBS ‘Sunday Morning’ show recently, and they had a piece on ‘Positive Thinking’.  The crux of the story (the headline) was that: “Many experts believe that positive thinking does nothing in the way of healing illness or overcoming problems.”  On the surface, this story had kind of a negative tone by refuting the popular belief that ‘positive thinking’ does help heal people quicker and helps overcome problems.  They had both sides of this issue represented, but the slant definitely was that just because you think positively, does not mean you will have a positive outcome.

As I watched the CBS Sunday Morning story, I reflected on a concept that I had learned some time ago called the Positive Power of Negative Preparation coined by author, copywriter, and business consultant Dan Kennedy.  I do a lot of reading on the topics of the power of the brain, achieving success, and personal improvement.  Basically, the power of negative preparation concept articulates that ‘thinking positively’ is not just about ‘thinking in a positive way about positive outcomes’.  The positive power of negative preparation (positive thinking) should also include thinking about potential negative outcomes.  In other words, thinking about all the ‘what is’s’, not just about the ‘what ought to be’s’.  This is thinking more in the way of a ‘what if’ approach, and then determining how to deal with or preparing for all those what if scenarios.

Another Key Irony about Positive Thinking

On the CBS Sunday Morning story, they interviewed some top professional athletes, who all believed in positive thinking as having a very important impact on their success.  But as I listened and watched, another key principle or truth was glaringly obvious.

Although each of these top athletes was talking about positive ‘thinking’, what appeared to really make the big difference in their success was positive “DOING”.  Yes, ‘Thinking’ has to happen before ‘Doing’, but ultimately, the difference between two people who think the same exact positive thoughts about the same successful outcomes, is what they DO.  The doing is usually the difference.  I think we can all agree that positive thought alone, without action, will not yield success, regardless of your definition of success.

Some more examples of Positive Thinking through Negative Preparation

Someone who prepares for a presentation by writing down and thinking about every possible question, concern, or negative opinion they can come up with that the people they are presenting to might have is positive thinking through negative preparation.

Another example is an athlete going into a match or game thinking about all their weaknesses and how they can proactively counteract or turn those weaknesses somehow into strengths.  Having multiple game plans created in case the primary game plan is not working well is a form of positive power of negative preparation.  This is all positive thinking, and again, largely translates into positive action vs. just thought.

6 Steps to Leveraging the Positive Power of Negative Preparation

1. Try to forget about any preconceived labels of positive and negative.  Focus on what is, or what if, not what ought to be.

2. Make a list of every potential negative response, concern, question, or objection you can think of related to the task or situation you are focused on.

3. Make a list of everything that could go wrong.

4. Develop and document positive responses and actions to all the negatives you thought of.

5. Organize and document your information so that you can easily reference it and use it.

6. Have great confidence and a positive disposition that you have thoroughly prepared.

Notice that many of these steps are ‘action’ oriented, not just thought-oriented.

The Elusive Pursuit of Perfection

As a side note to Positive Thinking, most of us are ‘perfectionists’.  We tend to see what others are doing as somehow better, we set lofty goals for ourselves, and that we simply need to do better.  Nothing wrong with that continual motivation to improve, however, it is important to understand that every pasture, from a distance, looks greener than yours.  Most are not.  Taking some pleasure in your own imperfect pasture is a very challenging, but important skill to master.  Although it is our dissatisfaction with our current situation that produces most of our achievement, this same source of power can also be a source of inaccurate thinking — the thinking that somewhere, somehow,  somebody has it all figured out.  Far too often, we use the word ‘perfect’ as a synonym for ‘successful’.

Be Your Best,
Todd D. Gifford