I consider myself a positive thinker. Not necessarily a rose-colored-glasses-wearing optimist, mind you, but a person that tries to see something positive in any situation, regardless of how bad things might be.
Positive thinking sometimes gets a bad rap. It can be difficult for many people to understand what’s so wonderful about finding the silver lining in every cloud. I’m not going to attempt to answer every argument against positive thinking, but instead I’ll try to make a single strong one for it:
Negative thinking leaves no room for a positive outcome.
In the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta the American women’s gymnastics team was on the verge of doing something that had never been done before by a U.S. women’s team: winning the team competition.
Standing the way of the American women were the imposing Russian gymnasts who had dominated the competition for years. On the final day of team competition the Americans held a slim lead with the Russians right behind them.
It was a little like Rocky IV, but without the bad acting and slurred speech.
On the final event of the competition for the Americans, disaster struck. With her teammates putting up meager scores that might allow the Russians to overtake them, Kerri Strug landed awkwardly off the vault, tearing tendons in her ankle. It looked like yet again the U.S. team would walk away in defeat, leaving the Russians victorious.
After conferring with her coach Bela Karolyi, Strug gamely limped back to the start of the runway to make her second and final attempt.
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In that moment, standing at the top of the runway, pain shooting through her damaged ankle and the hopes of an entire country on her shoulders, Strug could have focused on all kinds of terrible things:
The pain
Failing in front of millions of people
Disappointment
Causing permanent damage to her ankle
She didn’t. She brushed those concerns aside and thought of only one thing: winning. Sprinting down the runway on her hobbled ankle she hit the vault at full speed, perfectly executed her routine, and landed miraculously on one foot.
The crowd exploded. Her teammates went crazy. Strug had to be helped off the mat by her coach, her arms raised in victory.
The American women won gold in the team gymnastics competition for the first time in history, defeating the previously dominant Russians.
If Strug had focused on anything else, on anything but winning, there would have been no room for thoughts of her routine or of victory.
Great, you say, so Kerri Strug was a badass. What does that have to do with me?
When the unimaginable happens to you, when life broadsides you with yet another setback, if you allow your entire field of vision to be clouded only with negative possibilities, there will be no room for good things to happen.
Sure, facing reality is sometimes necessary. Sure, if someone treats you in a shitty way you have a right to stand up for yourself. But that doesn’t mean you can’t look for a way to make something good happen.
And if you’re going to look for something good to happen, why not concentrate on only that? Why not block out everything else and focus only on the upside?