The truth about too positive thinking: the bitter pill

Dear reader,

for the first time I prefer the german idiom (literally “the sour apple” or “biting the sour apple” actually) to the english “biting the bullet” or “swallowing the bitter pill”. Often I like the english idioms more. In this case though, fruit-wise, the german one fits better after my The lemon post than “biting the bullet” or “swallowing the (bitter) pill”. That's not the truth about too positive thinking. That's just something I noticed for myself and it doesn't even have to be the truth at all.


Gabriele Oettingen from the university of New York is researching self-regulation of goal setting and goal disengagement. In 2011 Oettingen and her colleague Heather Kappes did an interesting experiment. They deprived participants of the experiment of water. But they let them experience a guided visualisation exercise in which they pictured a glass of cold water. After that they measured the blood pressure and found that the exercise drained their energy and made them relaxed. They felt less compelled to actually get the real glass of water to satisfy their very real thirst.


Oliver Burkeman from the Guardian writes in his article How to be fitter, happier and more successful: stop dreaming and start getting real, that these findings are actually the reverse of what's very commonly known and assumed. Thoughts of the quite popular and well known The Secret come to my mind, which is full of examples of people more or less wishing for a positive future and then getting it.Gabriele Oettingen and her colleagues show that this intensive imagining is just one way to failure. A positive, new future doesn't come from “thinking up” a perfect world, but actually taking actions and that's other and new actions from what has been done before and brought unsatisfying results. Remember Albert Einstein's definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Therefore my idea of “thinking yourself thinner” as described in my Thinner too: with savvy - weight and see, was meaningless in the end. At least it's not the only way, if you want to be thinner. Especially girls or women can be seen again and again wearing tight cloths. At least that's not the only way to go, if someone wants to be thinner. In any case, there isn't just this one thing someone has to change or do to be thinner anyway. Tighter cloths can help in some ways. But what some, especially girls and women do, is not helping the “thinking yourself thinner”, but looking like a stuffed sausage and making it visible for everyone else just how not fitting those close are for them, which is certainly not at all the way to do it. Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation, Oettingen describes the WOOP method. WOOP stands for “wish, outcome, obstacle, plan”. On the WOOP homepage you can not only find more information like WOOP in 24 hrs to listen to and other downloads and help for interested people. WOOP is the idea that not everything is beautiful and perfect with thinking of it that way. The outcome, more specifically one specific outcome you imagine from that changed future helps. The very popular ignoring or “fighting your way” through obstacles may work sometimes. The second “o” (obstacle) in WOOOP and the “p” (plan) help making plans for what to do when ignoring isn't helping the reality and your original goal seems to fade away. That's how so many good ideas fall through after all: a missing plan for what to do when obstacles are there.


Until next blog,
sarah