Humans seem to have an utter fascination with negativity. We tend to lean into negative mindsets and outlooks, almost as if we were born to seek out negativity bias, which, in a sense, we were, even though most of our lives are now spent in the most comfortable environment we’ve ever experienced than at any point in history. However, and without understanding why, many struggle with a negative mindset or thinking.
Personally, I struggled with negativity for many years and still do to some extent. My outlook on life has been vastly different from others I know, and it hasn’t just been luck of the draw or the flip of the coin.
Multiple factors have led to a disposition toward negativity rather than a positive outlook. This doesn’t mean I’ll continue to struggle throughout the rest of my life, though, and it doesn’t mean you must either if this is something you grapple with yourself.
When dealing with a negative mindset, it can feel like you’re trapped in this position indefinitely. The insidiousness worms its way through your soul, leaving you wondering what’s wrong with you.
You know it holds you back from experiencing success and well-being as it ripples across every facet of your life. Yet, what’s interesting is even though you intuitively know how it’s affecting you, there are many times when you underestimate its grip on you and how it’s affecting you.
This is why today, we’ll examine the hidden costs of a negative mindset and its effects on mental, emotional, and relational health as we seek to find actionable strategies to break free from its grip.
What is a Negative Mindset?
You might think this is an easy answer. Of course, it’s a mindset that tends to be more negative than positive. While correct, a negative mindset is more than just pessimism or a fleeting moment of self-doubt, worry, or fear of or for any number of things you may or may not encounter.
Negativity, gone unchecked, can become a habitual pattern that plagues you for days, weeks, months, or even years. Some people can get so caught up in it that it follows them around for the rest of their lives.
They feel as if they can never shake these thoughts and feelings, and many succumb to the idea that this is their lot in life.
The good news is that doesn’t have to be the case. You don’t have to live that way forever. If you feel trapped in a cycle of negativity, there are ways to break out.
Instead of continuing the negative patterns that keep you rooted in skepticism, fear, worry, doubt, anger, frustration, self-limiting beliefs, etc., you can learn how to overcome those thought processes.
You don’t have to constantly compose worst-case scenarios that will probably never play out, distrust your abilities, and magnify external obstacles as you generate your own “self-fulfilling” prophecies.
When you can separate yourself from the negativity, you begin to see how you’ve been shaping your perception of yourself and your relationships. You’ll also see how you view the world at large and how it doesn’t necessarily align with your particular point of view.
I know this because I was stuck there for around two decades myself. Lost in the torment of depression and anxiety, thinking there was no way out and wondering if life would ever get any better.
Eventually, it did get better, but before it did, I had to learn and understand that my mindset, my current level of thinking and feeling, kept me trapped in that limited view or perspective. I had to understand the costs of my negative mindset and how I got stuck in the cycle in the first place.
Understanding the Costs of a Negative Mindset
Before we dive into solutions, it’s imperative to understand the costs of a negative mindset. Everyone struggles with a negative thinking and feeling cycle from time to time, but what happens when you get lost in that cycle? What happens when you continually allow yourself to go to a place that drives the negativity deeper and deeper without really understanding what’s happening?
Let’s look at four different areas that can be affected by holding onto negative thinking.
1. Mental and Emotional Health
A negative mindset imposes a significant toll on your mental and emotional health. Even though we are one of the most comfortable generations of individuals who have ever lived, the current state of mental health issues is through the roof.
Some of this comes from not going through the fire of difficult circumstances, and other aspects come from not understanding how to cultivate those deep states or senses of gratitude, peace, joy, love, etc.
We simply aren’t taught how to be at peace or how to feel loved regardless of what’s happening around us. Most authority figures you encountered growing up didn’t try to instill a sense of well-being within you because most of them probably struggled with it themselves.
As such, without adversity to pressure you to turn your coal into diamonds, you may struggle with the mental and emotional upheaval of a negative mindset.
When you are consistently consumed by a negative thinking and feeling loop, meaning you think negative thoughts that generate a negative feeling, which in its own right generates additional negative thoughts, then you are more likely to experience things like anxiety, depression, chronic stress, bitterness, resentment, etc.
Plentiful research is being discussed daily about how persistent negativity can alter the brain’s chemistry and amplify the stress hormones secreted while suppressing the feel-good hormones.
Eventually, this leads to an imbalance where your mental and emotional resilience begins to erode, causing you to feel like the challenges you face, whether real or imagined, are insurmountable.
2. Physical Health Consequences
There is ongoing research into the mind-body connection and how they can each affect one another in ways we can’t fully comprehend. Yet this interconnectedness, coupled with constant rumination via a negative mindset, can lead to various physical health problems.
Chronic stress, which means an overload of cortisol in your system, can weaken your immune system, leaving you susceptible to diseases that otherwise might have been prevented. I can’t say those diseases would have been prevented entirely, but individuals with a more positive mindset tend to have a more robust immune response than those who don’t.
The Mayo Clinic lists the following as potential adverse effects of chronic stress. This may include but is not limited to:
- Anxiety.
- Depression.
- Digestive problems.
- Headaches.
- Muscle tension and pain.
- Heart disease, heart attack, high blood pressure and stroke.
- Sleep problems.
- Weight gain.
- Problems with memory and focus.
It can not only lead to symptoms such as these but can exacerbate other symptoms like hypertension and diabetes. Much of this occurs because a negative mindset can lead to poor lifestyle choices, which only compounds its adverse effects.
Remember, when you get stuck in this loop, it is a loop. It feeds off itself, and the more you stay in that loop, the stronger it becomes and the harder it can be to break out of it.
3. Strained Relationships
Negativity affects not only your mood, thoughts, and feelings but can also adversely affect your relationships.
It can create a defensive or overly aggressive communication style. You might be unable to accept criticism from anyone, causing you to overreact when someone mentions something that sets you on edge. It can also cause you to cower and hide away in an attempt to pretend the world isn’t there.
You will find yourself blaming others, and really anything and everything except yourself, because it’s much easier to play the role of the victim than to stand up and take responsibility for your thoughts, feelings, and actions.
This isn’t me judging you; I understand where you come from because I’ve been there.
The impact it can have on your relationships can be devastating. It begins to erode trust between you and the people you’re closest to. You start to create a certain amount of emotional distance with your loved ones, all the way down to your work colleagues.
Friends and family may start to feel burdened, or you’ll find them disengaging, which creates further isolation and tends to entrench you further into your worldview because, after all, if the problem’s out there, then they’re simply contributing to the problem and the real issue isn’t you, so you strengthen your worldview and continue to believe you’re okay when you’re not.
4. Stalled Professional Growth
You may not realize this if you struggle with a negative mindset, but it’s a silent career killer.
Why?
Because, most likely, you’re constantly doubting your capabilities, and instead of focusing on your wins and opportunities, you focus on potential failures and shy away from opportunities because what if you can’t live up to the hype?
A negative mindset constantly sabotages you, convincing you that failure or rejection is inevitable, so why even try? As a result, you’re overlooked for promotions, and opportunities that could help you get ahead will pass you by.
Again, the “It’s me against the world” mentality will reign supreme. As you constantly blame others, your situations, and your circumstances, you’ll be able to comfort yourself that you can’t or won’t succeed in life because all the things “out there” are holding you back.
Each opportunity that turns into failure will be used to justify your position and continue to fuel your false beliefs that you’re no good or don’t have what it takes. This will reinforce your victim mentality so that you can conveniently say, “See, I’m not good enough,” “They don’t get me,” or whatever you tell yourself to make yourself feel better.
When you read the costs of a negative mindset, you may wonder why or how someone would even allow themselves to get trapped in such a place. If you’re living in that place now, you may even wonder that yourself. I know I did. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how I ended up living in that dismal landscape of negativity over and over again.
However, I ended up there, and it wasn’t just happenstance. The same goes for you, too. You didn’t just magically wake up there one day, either.
Next week, we’ll finish this discussion as we look at:
- How People Get Trapped in a Negative Mindest
- Subconscious Programming
- Creating the Program
- Thought Programs
- Feeling Programs
- The Role of Confirmation Bias
- Societal and Environmental Factors
- Subconscious Programming
- Overcoming the Negative Mindset: A Step-by-Step Approach
- Finding Freedom
- The Journey
- Keep Doing the Work
There will be a lot of good information coming out next week, so stay tuned. For now, please share with anyone struggling with a negative mindset or simply share with your network, as there may be someone you don’t know about who is struggling. I hope you have a great week. Until next time!
Josiah
