Coachamatic

Andy Wibbels made a post yesterday about negative thinking. His post got me thinking about the differences between negative thinking and proactive planning - acknowledging the very real possibility that challenges will arise on your way to the postive outcome you’re working toward and deciding in advance how you’ll deal with them if they do.

I’m all for postive thinking, visualizing, setting intentions for positive outcomes. I’m a fan of the core message of The Secret, that we create our reality and have the power to bring that reality into closer alignment with what we most desire it to be if only we can become more conscious of our thoughts, the choices we’re making and the actions we’re taking.

At the same time, I believe it’s critical to be aware of, to plan for, the possibility of seemingly negative occurences or challenges arising in the process. This may seem contradictory, but bear with me for a moment.

There’s a world of difference between telling yourself you can’t do something, are incapable of achieving something (negative thinking), and setting an intention to achieve a positive outcome and then assessing, identifying, and planning for, the possibility of challenges arising along the way.

The fact is, you can think positively, visualize your dream life incessantly but if you don’t take action you’re not going to get very far, and let’s face it, taking action means trial and error. Not every action you take is going to turn out exactly as you envisioned it would. If you’re relying solely on postive thinking, when the action you’ve taken doesn’t pan out as expected you’re likely to become frustrated, disheartened, and convinced that “postive thinking” doesn’t work. And you’d be right. Positive thinking alone doesn’t cut it.

If, on the other hand, you’ve acknowledged that the action you’re about to take might not go quite as planned, you can look at ways to avert disaster, identify steps you can take to make it more likely you will achieve that positive outcome and, alternatively, you can put a back-up plan in place. Then if things don’t go as expected, rather than feeling frustrated or deciding to throw in the towel, you simply implement Plan B and keep moving forward.

For example, when I take on any new project I set an intention for a positive outcome and I identify, in advance, the obstacles I think might get in the way of my achieving it. Once I’ve done that I can then look at ways to either lessen the possibility of those obstacles arising in the first place, or I can decide how I’ll approach handling them if they do arise.

This isn’t negative thinking, it’s proactive planning, and it makes the chances of achieving whatever you’ve set out to achieve much more likely.

Posted on May 24th 07 by Lisa Wilder.

Lisa is passionate about helping others to create lives and businesses they're passionate about and which bring them joy. Through her small business coaching and consulting she helps service professionals boldly step out of their comfort zone into The Wilder Zone to build successful businesses doing what they love. http://www.thewilderzone.com http://www.thewilderzone.com

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