Stay Positive and Stay Alive

I’m a positive person—most of the time. I start every day with a good attitude and high hopes. But in a world of crime, corruption, and calamity, it can sometimes be difficult to stay positive.

You know having a positive attitude is essential for building success and happiness, yet how often do you feel your optimism and ambition beaten out of you before lunchtime?

Are you really a positive thinker or just posing as one? Do you fight to keep that smile on your face or does it shatter every time you get slapped?

In short, when life gets tough, do you see the glass half full or half empty?

That’s the question we typically ask someone to test whether they’re a grateful go-getter or a dismal doomsayer. Of course, it’s not a fair question because we’re all wired to notice the negative. And for good reason!

If a shark is eating your leg, you need to be aware of that. Ignore the shark, lose your leg.

The trick, however, is to not let negative situations turn into negative thoughts. The first problem may be the shark, but the second problem will be your reaction to the shark.

Will you flail your arms and scream, “Aghh! Shark!” or get to work punching the shark in the eyes and gills?

Will you cry to the heavens, “This is so unfair! Why am I always the one being attacked by sharks?” or growl and bite back?

If you concentrate on losing your leg, the glass in your head is half empty. If you focus on fighting back, the glass is half full.

Can you see how positive thinking is vital for self-defense?

Positive thinking is a survival strategy. The purpose of forcing happy thoughts into your head, therefore, is not to hide or deny your problems, it’s to help solve them!

This is the reason why so many people lose the battle over their own thoughts. They believe positive thinking is supposed to make them feel good! They think positivity is an emotional process.

It’s not! Or at least it doesn’t have to be.

The secret to staying positive in the face of trouble is to remove emotion and focus on the solution.

Let’s say someone grabs your arm. Escaping the hold is a physical puzzle. Fear won’t help you. Happiness won’t help you. Actually, your emotions are more likely to cloud your good judgement than help you make smart decisions.

But if you stay calm, stay detached, and stay positive, you will realize that your other hand is free—you know, the one with the hammer in it. By focusing on what you have instead of what you don’t have, you’ll start to see new opportunities. You’ll see new angles of attack.

Staying positive doesn’t mean you smile and laugh all the time like an idiot. It also doesn’t mean you don’t have any problems. Here’s what it means—

Staying positive means you are relentless in your effort to solve problems. You’re always on the lookout for ways to improve your circumstances.

Staying positive means you see a tiny crack of light when everyone else is lost in darkness. It means you’re skilled at finding the smallest good and building upon it when everyone else has given up.

The good news is that we’re all capable of positive thinking. We’re all capable of solving problems. The challenge is to stop pain, fear, and disappointment from poisoning our minds and blinding our vision.

Wallowing in pain, feeling victimized by circumstance, or taking failure personally will drag you down into a whirlpool of despair. You’ll move through life feeling hopeless and helpless. You’ll believe your glass is always half empty.

To be fair, there is some benefit to negative thinking. In Dealing With Death, I wrote about the power of confronting your dark side. By facing your fears and imagining your failures, you can make peace with feelings that might be holding you back from taking chances or taking action.

But that’s just an exercise, not a lifestyle! If you keep thinking about tragedy and death, you’re going to end up living under a bridge, huffing spray paint.

Make no mistake, a happy life depends on positive thinking. You must force yourself to walk on the bright side of the street.

No, that doesn’t mean you have to hang puppy posters on your office wall or skip down the street tossing daisies in the air. It just means you don’t allow anyone or anything to halt your forward momentum.

Let me introduce you to Christina…

Christina was every teacher’s dream at our Karate school. She listened. She practiced. She came to class six days a week. She took weekly private lessons. She was respectful and kind.

But wait—I still haven’t mentioned her best quality!

Christina’s best quality was that she never beat herself up. Even though martial arts didn’t come easy to her, she persisted. While countless other students with natural athletic abilities came and went, Christina stayed and eventually surpassed all of the quitters.

But this isn’t just a “she never gave up” story. What made Christina truly special was her ability to stay positive under pressure.

If you watched me spar or grapple with Christina, you wouldn’t see what I’m talking about—this is something you have to feel. So, let me tell you what I felt, or more precisely, what I didn’t feel working out with Christina.

I never felt Christina tense up. Or panic. Or worry.

Even though I was bigger and stronger… even though I held her in uncomfortable positions… even though anyone watching would say I was winning… I never felt Christina give up.

She wiggled. She bumped. She breathed.

She never stopped to feel sorry for herself, or get angry, or take a break.

She was a machine. As far as I could tell, there was no emotion attached to her efforts whatsoever.

No desperation. No hurry. Just a relentless drive to overcome.

As a result, I never felt like I beat Christina. Not because I wasn’t able to hit her or take her down, but because she never stopped to lick her wounds or make excuses. She was always too busy planning her next move.

Honestly, I learned more about the power of positive thinking from Christina than any teacher I’ve ever known. When I reflect on that young lady’s tenacious tight-lipped smile and tireless forward-thinking, I always wonder, “How can I be more like Christina?”

Good question. Here are two answers.

How to Stay Positive

1) To stay positive like Christina, you must practice seeing the good in every situation.

I don’t just mean feeling grateful for what you have now, I mean seeing opportunities for what you could have in the future.

If you focus on what you don’t have, you will continue to not have it. If you focus on what you could have, you can start working to get it.

When you’re sparring or grappling and take a hit or get caught in a choke, instead of thinking, “No!” or “I’m screwed!” simply say, “Okay.” Ask yourself, “What can I do from here?”

Focus on the position you want, not the position you are in.

2) To stay positive like Christina, you must train yourself to keep moving forward no matter what.

Yes, I said train. Moving forward is a skill that needs to be developed just like kicking or punching.

Every time I thought I had Christina beat, she had already moved on, testing a new angle, applying pressure a new way. I could never rest. She pushed the pace and forced me to react to her.

Focus on making your next move instead of worrying about your opponent’s last move.

Stay positive and move into the future. This is a major strategic advantage compared to merely being in the moment.

Think of it this way—we all take hits. The difference between winners and losers is the length of time it takes to recover and move on. Positive thinking is your road to recovery. Positive thoughts always offer a chance for success. Negative thoughts always lead to nothing.

Wait! Did you catch that qualifier? I said you have a chance for success, not a guarantee.

Positive thinking is not magic. I will never tell you, “If you can dream it, you can achieve it.” That’s because I have dreamed many, many goals and nurtured them with years and years of positive thinking only to watch them crash and burn in spectacular, heart-wrenching fashion.

Dreams die, my friend. You can stay positive, work hard, take the hits, and fail anyway.

Yes, positive thinking is celebrated like a super power in our culture. But should it be?

Consider all those folks who suffer catastrophic injuries from car accidents or sports mishaps. The ones who are told they’ll never walk again or will never wake up from a coma. The ones who go on to shock their doctors by making miraculous recoveries.

In interviews, these miracle patients will tell you that the secret to beating the odds was never giving up and keeping a positive attitude…

But that’s not the whole story, is it? What about genetics? How about prior health? What about age, quality of care, and old fashioned luck? Don’t those all play a part as well?

And hey—what are we supposed to think about all the good people with positive attitudes and strong wills who don’t recover from accidents and illnesses? They didn’t believe in themselves enough? They weren’t positive enough?

Reality check. Positive people still die from cancer. Positive people still file for bankruptcy. Positive people still get divorced.

Positive thinking does not guarantee you success or survival… it only guarantees that you’ll fight your best fight.

Don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying positive thinking doesn’t work—it does work! It just doesn’t always work. Especially when you don’t do the work. What does that mean?

The one way to make sure positive thinking doesn’t work is to not take advantage of the opportunities that you’re training yourself to see. Unless you follow up an opportunity with solid decision-making and strong actions, positive thinking is a complete waste of time.

You may see a thousand opportunities, but if you fear pursuing the wrong one, or believe you’re not capable of achieving your goals, you will go nowhere and get nothing.

So, do the work. It’s not enough to train yourself to stay positive, you must also train yourself to make plans and execute them. If your plans work out, great. If they don’t, stay positive and look for the next opportunity.

That’s the cycle of success: See. Plan. Do.

Simple, right? Not necessarily easy, but simple!

So, if you’ve tried positive thinking and failed, don’t give up. Nobody succeeds at everything. Remember that failure is not a step backward so long as you learn how to take a smarter step forward the next time. Keep stepping!

And now, after all that talk about positive thinking, let me ask you again—

Is the glass half full or half empty?

The truth is it’s a trick question. The choices are false. The glass is not half full or half empty…

It’s full. Half full of water and half full of air! A trained positive thinker will see that.

The first time someone pointed that out to me, I was blown away. Here I thought I was a pretty positive guy and yet I had only been seeing 50% of what others were seeing.

Don’t make the same mistake! Don’t set limits on how positive you can be.

For example, take a look at your life. What do you see?

Do you see 100% of your talents and capabilities? Are you seeing 100% of your opportunities? Are you focused 100% on solving your problems?

If you answer yes, take another look…

…because when it comes to positive thinking, I’m positive we can all be more positive.

This article is also available as Episode #25 of the Fight for a Happy Life podcast, “The Secret to Staying Positive.”