Written By Lizanne Dsouza-Founder Liz Lyn Careers
We constantly hear people telling us to be positive no matter what we are talking about, this sometimes can be frustrating, for eg.
Me- "Hey, I lost my job"
Friend- "Hey, don't worry, stay positive"
Me- "I do not like the job I'm doing at the moment"
co-worker- "stay positive, things will change"
Me- " I feel like my life isn't going anywhere"
parent- "no need to feel like that, Stay positive"
Is "staying positive" always the answer? or have we as a generation decided to look away and try and stay positive no matter what the situation? and is it a myth and whatever happened to realistic thinking?
SO here are my thoughts:
Pro Staying positive-
Yes staying positive in the long run is good, however, you cannot ignore the mistakes or issues at hand and just be positive.
Information is key, if you do have enough information and feel like it's just a matter of time for things to work out, then yes stay positive
It's ok to lose your cool sometimes while staying positive and dealing with your emotions, sometimes staying positive can mean suppressing your true feelings
Anti Staying positive-
Stop telling people to stay positive as an answer to their problems, sometimes people come to you because they think that you may have an answer or probably even be the person to resolve it, asking them to stay positive isn't going to help.
Saying "stay positive" sometimes can mean that you aren't taking the person very seriously and brushing it off, be careful of this, and be there for the people who need you
Sometimes you just can't stay positive because nothing positive is happening in the present, so asking someone to just change how they feel in the present makes no sense.
A lot of people think that staying positive can have a healthy impact on their mental state, however, ignoring facts and doing nothing about it can have an adverse impact on life overall.
The key is to find balance here and yes staying positive is important, but let's draw a line at how we use the phrase and the whole idea of positivity in general, lets not forget to be real.