The Thing About Positive Thinking

For 18 years, I built my brand by sh*tting on positive thinking.

Then I read the research.

For almost two decades, I’ve been the guy rolling his eyes at the “look in the mirror and tell yourself you’re amazing” crowd.

It was kind of my thing.

So when my research team sent me a summary on resilience for my Solved podcast, I sat there with my head in my hands thinking:

“No. Guys. I can’t do this.”

Because the data showed I was wrong. Publicly. For nearly 20 years.

The number one factor for resilience—for actually getting through hard things—is self-efficacy. Which is basically the belief that you can handle whatever you’re going through.

In other words: positive thinking.

Cue: Mark’s Mini-Crisis. I was going to have to eat humble pie on the mic.

But the research was nuanced. It depends on the context.

And after sitting with it, I landed on a stance I feel good about:
Positive thinking while you’re sitting on the couch scrolling cat videos is useless.

In fact, it’s probably keeping you on that couch longer.

But positive thinking mid-struggle, when everything in you wants to quit? That’s when it can be the difference between pushing through and giving up.

Turns out, positive thinking is like any tool.

A hammer is useless for cutting wood, but that doesn’t mean hammers are bullshit.

See you Monday,
Mark

P.S. If being able to do hard things is a skill you’d like to sharpen, we have a whole course in The Solved Membership to help you do just that. You’ll build the kind of resilience that helped our member Ricardo “take difficult situations and emotions and turn them into fuel for something meaningful.” Learn more here.