In case you haven’t seen the movie (or read the book) “The Secret” I’ll give you the condensed version: positive thinking improves your life, negative thinking worsens your life. For example, Bill Gates is the richest man in the world because he believed he would be (his business instincts and impeccable timing were trivial details) and everyone who has ever been the victim of a crime deserved it (for thinking negative thoughts that caused their victimization).
Yes, I agree its trash but I’m going somewhere with this.
In “The Dilbert Principle” Scott Adams’ discusses how he wrote “I am a world famous cartoonist” 5 times per day until he was a world famous cartoonist. He also played monopoly for an entire summer with a bunch of Irish kids and never won once (because the lousy potato eaters were convinced of their “Irish Luck”). He writes about an objective reality (where things happen because they happen) and a subjective reality (where things happen because we expect them to happen).
He’s a smart guy and I like him, but still kinda wonky reasoning.
Positive thinking actually works though. How it works is based on psychology rather than mysticism. We all have limited resources (time, money, energy, etc) and competing internal needs and desires. As much as economists believe we’re purely rational beings, often we make poorly considered decisions because of resource constraints (salesmen would be unnecessary in a purely rational world). Thinking about something (positive or negatively) increases its “priority” during the limited resource consideration cycle our tiny brains go through, and increase the chance that we’ll take action towards that goal.
For example, every day Mr. Adams wrote out the 5 lines. Later, when he was debating whether he should practice drawing, have a nap or take his girlfriend out for lunch 2 hours later, it was easier for him to practice drawing, because he’d recently put a priority on that activity. If you have a goal (say becoming famous or being rich) that you don’t think about very often, the chance of taking actions that will lead towards it are very small. Any action that gets you thinking about it (writing lines, talking to friends about it, dreaming about it before bed or in the shower) will increase you commitment to the goal and the chance that the next time you have a decision to make, you’ll work towards this goal (instead of a competing goals – such as watching the next episode of “Hell’s Kitchen”).
Recently I was told I’m consumed by money (ouch!). While I don’t agree with this 100%, in part I think it means I’m on the right track to sorting out my finances since I’m spending time thinking about them (to the point that other people are aware of it and thinking I’ve gone too far).
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Great post! I am planning on writing a review on “The Secret” in the near future.
Have you used “the secret” to get yourself a new bicycle yet?
You’ve inspired me to rent ‘The Secret’ tonight.
D’oh! Please don’t!!!
How did you know about the bicycle?
Very boring movie. Interesting concept.
You sum up my feelings about the concept well in your post. Very well actually.
Great post!
Positive thinking makes you see things another way. Our brain is the most powerful tool we have to create anything. Unfortunately, we are raised to use it a certain way. As creativity is not rewarded as it should be (at school for example!), positive thinking bring your mind to a world where everything is possible.
Other people might describe it as opening your mind.
“Positive thinking won’t let you do anything but it will let you do everything better than negative thinking will” — Zig Ziglar
If you’ve ready self-help classics, you won’t find much new in The Secret. It’s entertaining, though. Here’s my review here.
Do you believe it’s hard for a realist become a positive thinker? One of my buddies said I’m too logical. Too logical? Is that bad? I used to be a “neutral” thinker. Logical thinkers like Vulcans should be freed of emotions, right? (Opps, now everyone knows I’m a Trekkie.) My attitude has changed. Positive thinking is logical. It does work. Positive thinking emits extra umph in your efforts to achieve your goals. It’s real, you can almost touch it, and you can reap the reward.
FJ: I definitely think a realist can become a positive thinker (with the perspective I wrote about, not if they define it in religious/mystic terms).
I don’t think being logical is a problem. The only issue is when people confuse being rigid and close-minded with being logical. Logic is only useful based on the premises that you’re working with.
Mr. Spock would routinely make absolute pronouncements that logic dictate things must be a certain way. Kirk would then discover new information that would violate Spock’s pronouncement, and he’d then incorporate the new information and acknowledge that things are different then he original expected.
What he should have been doing instead (as all logical people should) is saying “given my current knowledge, logic would POINT towards X, if I learn something new, this could easily change, so X is far from certain”. You would incorporate how likely it would be that you’ll discover new information (a certainty on the ncc-1701, and pretty certain with anything you’re going to deal with here on Earth) when you’re thinking about X.
That’s my perspective anyway, it might change when I learn something new
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