Negative thinking is powerful, but not in a good way. Negative thinking, as defined by seeing and focusing on the negative in any situation, has the power to shape our perceptions and make us miserable. When we create a habit of seeing things negatively, it becomes difficult to have a good day or a good life. Our vision skews in the direction of seeing everything worse than it could be.  Neutral or ambiguous events become negative, threatening, or hurtful. The more things we perceive in this manner, the easier it is to become cynical, defensive, or depressed.  When everything is bad, life seems bad.

If that isn’t bad enough, the misery we experience while in the grips of negative thoughts can make others miserable. Just as positive interactions can spread from person to person, negative interactions can be contagious. One person’s complaints about their life, bad day, politics, or other people can influence listeners to see things more negatively.  

Negative thinking powerfully limits one’s opportunities too. If we see things negatively, we’ll have less hope for good outcomes.  Without hope, it’s hard to try.  If we don’t try, we’re unlikely to succeed.  If we see the world as a scary, unfair, vicious place where it’s impossible to get ahead or impossible to be happy, then why would we put ourselves out there just to get crushed? Why apply for jobs when “no one will hire me,” no one is hiring right now,” and “jobs suck anyway?”  If we see life negatively enough and come to believe things always go wrong for us or life itself is bad, it’s going to be really hard to take a risk or invest in a better future. Negative thinking can turn into limiting beliefs that place ceilings on what we can become.

Our negative thinking can lead other people to restrict our opportunities as well.  If I had the choice to date, partner with, hire, or spend time with a positive or negative person, I’d pick the positive person every time.  I don’t want to be around negative people, and I don’t think successful people do either. The kind of people I want to be around don’t enjoy spending time with negative people. 

Lots of negative thinking makes us miserable, makes others miserable, generates limiting beliefs, and pushes good people away from us. So, why do we engage in negative thinking?

We see things negatively because it’s reasonable and justifiable to. Awful things happen sometimes.  Slightly annoying things happen all the time. We can point to specific instances in our lives of negative things that were unfair, discriminatory, and painful. After enough of these instances, it’s reasonable to be wary of the future. It’s reasonable, but it’s not helpful. If we adopt a negative, suspicious, spiteful view of life, we’re in for a world of hurt.

If you think negative thinking is harmful or you engage in it more than is optimal for you, implementing these ideas may help:

• Set a time limit – When something bad happens, allow yourself time to feel the suckiness of it but define a time when you will dust yourself off and try to move on.  Often, the emotions we associate with a bad event are strongest closest to the occurrence of the event. Giving yourself the time to feel the emotions is helpful. Ruminating on the emotions or mentioning them to anyone who will listen isn’t. Squashing our emotions isn’t good, and isn’t the point of this tip. Setting a time limit for focusing on something negative is.

• Don’t complain about the same event multiple times – When we see something negatively and are hurt, we may crave validation from others that we’ve been wronged. When people agree that we were wronged, it reinforces our negative views. We might think, “Yeah, that guy was a jerk! Everyone agrees with me.” The validation feels good and rewards us for sharing something negative that happened.  Our negative lens grows stronger because it leads to interesting, dramatic stories that end with us feeling validated. We might be tempted to tell multiple other people. But be wary of doing so because it reinforces the negative narrative in your mind and makes it easier to recall times you were wronged.

• Adopt the point of view that “Obstacles are Opportunities” – When you see obstacles as opportunities, you interpret setbacks or negative experiences as important feedback and fuel for your growth.  It’s hard to get upset at something you value for helping you grow.

• Combat negativity with gratitude – If you’re overly negative, try to build a habit of being grateful. The gratitude may balance you out or become habitual and eventually outweigh the negative thinking.

• Get curious – When someone does something you interpret as negative, try to understand where they’re coming from. Are they a bad person or is their information limited? Are they just having a bad day? Did they intend to hurt you? Seeing potentially negative events as interesting instead of as attacks can interrupt the intensity of negativity you might normally feel.

Too much negative thinking makes life worse. Seeing things as negative can be reasonable, but seeing everything negatively is miserable and focusing on the negative can be unhelpful. I believe we are responsible for interpreting the meaning of the things that happen to us. I think we can choose to focus on the positive or the negative. I advocate for a balanced approach where we can see both. If we see everything negatively, there’s a problem that can become habitual without even realizing it.

Beware the life-altering power of negative thinking!

Necessary Caveat: some things are negative, unhealthy, or dangerous. I would hate to encourage someone to see the positives in those things and do nothing to change their situation or seek help. I believe we should see those things as negative and should resist, fight, or change them to improve our lives and the lives of others. It can be tricky to know the difference between these truly negative things and the things we choose to interpret as negative that don’t have to be. If our lives get better by not interpreting something as negative, I think that’s a useful approach.