How to overcome the vicious circle of negativity

Someone asked me once: “Why am I so negative? Why everything seems to be going against me?” I didn't know that person, it was just a stranger I met on some social media, so I couldn't directly answer their question, but it made me think about people in general. It really seems some people have much more “good luck” in life than others.

I have observed that people with negative attitude to life usually are insecure and diffident, they lack confidence, don't believe in themselves. They are afraid that “somehow something could go wrong”, see danger in any opportunity and therefore avoid taking risks. At the end they really have plenty of "bad luck" and many things go wrong in their lives.

People with positive attitude, on the contrary, usually are optimistic and cheerful, they are self-confident and decisive, believe in themselves, embrace changes and see an opportunity in whatever comes their way. They are determined to achieve their goals, will take extra risks, and they usually have plenty of "good luck" on their side.

Why is it this way? I'm not a psychologist to answer this question, but I believe it is because our thoughts steer our actions. When we think about the worst possible outcome, about what happens when we don't succeed, we think what to do after we've failed, we will be stressed, unable to think clearly, trying to solve problems which could only occur after we failed. In this way we automatically go in the direction of failure. However, when we think about the best possible outcome, about all the rewards we could get when we achieve our goal, this will motivate us to find solutions to overcome any obstacles which crosses our path, we do our best to get closer to our goal and in this way, at the end we will succeed.

An optimistic student vs a pessimistic student.

Imagine two students with equal intelligence but different attitude to life, who are preparing for an exam.

The positive person thinks: “When I pass this exam I will have great chances to get my dream job and the world is my oyster. Getting paid for doing what I love doing sounds great! I'll be living my dream! What is the best way to prepare for the exam? What are my strength? In which areas I need to improve?” In this way the student is motivated to learn, concentrates on the right areas of study, his or her brain is content and relaxed, and like a sponge absorbs all the knowledge. At the end this student will pass the exam.

The negative student thinks “What if I don't pass the exam? I'm not good enough, for sure I won't pass it... I will never find a job, there are plenty of others who are much better than I'm. What will I do then? How will I survive? I'm just a loser... Why even bother with the learning... I don't have any chance to succeed... ” In this way the student is stressed, depressed and worried. They can't concentrate on the studies, because their brain is "frozen", paralyzed with fear. They don't believe they deserve to succeed. The student can spent hours trying to prepare for the exam, but they lack motivation and concentration, they can't remember much of what they learned (stressed brain doesn't absorb information well). At the end this student most probably doesn't pass the exam and they say “I was right, I'm not good enough...”

The vicious circle vs the positive feedback loop

The positive and optimistic individuals, through their success build up their confidence. They become more courageous willing to take more risks and chances in life. Taking more chances leads to more opportunities and successes. Of course they will face failures, too, but they weigh them against their successes and they notice that they were more often successful than they failed, and even when they failed they "somehow got through it". They believe in themselves, their successes motivate them to do more, and so they become even more positive towards life, have more “luck” (I call it courage) and are happier.

In similar way the negative people lose their confidence - “I was right, I can't succeed”. They begin to be even more cautious and they take less risks, and as results they have less chances in life. Through their frustration and fear, they lose a lot of opportunities and they see themselves as failure. They start seeing the other people succeeding and this makes them jealous and depressed. And so they become more negative, bitter, resentful and unhappy.

The magic of confidence

As we can see we are getting here to confidence. Please, don't confuse confidence with arrogance and over-confidence – this is destructive, not productive. Many people believe that arrogance means strength and confidence. No, arrogance is a way of hiding lack of confidence.

If we want to change our attitude from negative to positive, I believe the key is building up our confidence. I know, easier said than done.

One way to boost our confidence would be through the following:

1. Find something we enjoy doing and we would like to improve at.
2. Connect with people who have similar interest, maybe join some organization where we can share our interest with others, where we can learn more and also find some recognition. Usually, when others acknowledge our successes, this builds up our confidence and motivates us to do even better.
3. Set up realistic goals for ourselves. If the goals aren't realistic we fail to achieve them, and we will end up disappointed and frustrated. The goals can be tiny, but it is important we achieve them and celebrate our successes.
4. Celebrate even the smallest success - We can celebrate just by sharing our achievements and joy with people close to us, those who love and support us, like our family and (real) friends. This will start building up our confidence.

Then we need to set up bigger goals and milestones and step by step try to achieve them. We will notice with every goal we achieved our attitude starts to change, we become more positive, happier and more successful. We will have more luck in life.

How I changed my attitude to life, and built up my confidence

Many years ago, when I was at high-school, I went through a lot of bullying, humiliation and intimidation, not only by other students, but also by teachers. It got so bad that I started to believe every human being was vicious, and the best, if not the only, way to survive was to reduce any contact with people to absolute minimum. In the case there wasn't any way to avoid people, I had to attack them before they could hurt me. What they say, the best form of defense is... attack. I became perfect at this, perfect at... making an enemy from any human being that crossed my path.

One day through my cousin I met a group of very friendly people, who used to do a lot together. They often caught up for breakfast, every Sunday shared a dinner that they often cooked together. The group discussed various topics of common interests and helped each other in different aspects of life. Really friendly people. Nonetheless, with my attitude towards people I managed to convince everybody there, that it was impossible to be friends with me. Whoever tried to approach me, I... just smashed them.

One day, without any particular reason, I really felt bad about my behavior and my defensive personality.

I thought to myself that if I see the entire world as wrong and vicious, and I am the only “normal”, then... maybe it's not the world that is wrong, maybe there is something wrong with me.

The Change

I decided to join the group and try to win their friendship. The first few meetings were truly awkward for me. Despite my previous behavior, the people were friendly to me, I however, felt embarrassed because of how I treated them in the past. I started to suggest that I could cook or bake something for our meals. They agreed and even liked my dishes. Slowly I started to participate in some discussions, I took part in competitions and occasionally I won something. I learned joking about myself and laugh at myself. People started to like me more and more. The more people liked me, the more friendly I became towards them. I started to realize that not everyone was as wicked as the teachers and students at my high-school. Of course there are vicious people in the world, but I learned that there is also plenty of kind and caring people.

The fact of being liked and wanted, the growth of my 'popularity' also boosted my confidence. And with the rise of my confidence, also other things in my life started to change.

Couple of years later I got to know about an organization that sent young people to Germany to improve their language skills. Though I couldn't speak German at all, and actually I didn't meet the most important requirement, I had the courage (and in some respect confidence) to apply for that position. At this stage I was a friendly, cheerful and likeable person and... I succeeded. The interviewer signed my documents (that's a story in itself, I posted about it on my YouTube channel, and one day I'll share the tory here too). Again plus for my confidence. Later I learned German language very quickly and the next tick towards my confidence. And since then the positive feedback loop has accompanied me for decades.

With time I had failures and successes in life, nonetheless when I look back at my life, I can say I've succeeded – I have the life I always wanted to live. I completed my master degree, I emigrated again, and though at some point I was homeless and went through trauma, I rebuilt my life and now I'm living my childhood dream. I have job I enjoy, true friends, live on a farm I love (I'm not a farmer by profession), I'm liked and respected wherever I go, and much more.

Now I know my strengths and my weaknesses, I am confident and I don't need the 'recognition' from others. However, at the beginning it was much easier to gain more confidence when I had people who supported me by acknowledging my little successes.