Negative Thinking, Positive Results

Back in my school days, I had an annoying little mantra used before every tough exam: “I’m sooo going to fail!” I’d cheerfully declare.

The negative enthusiasm inspired eye-rolling by fellow students ( I was making straight A’s, after all) and occasionally a teacher would admonish me to think positively. At that point, I’d join my peers in their eye-rolling.

Popular wisdom has it that if we can only be optimistic, and shoot for the stars as if they are already ours, astounding success is sure to follow. There’s just one problem: it doesn’t work for some of us. We’ve never developed the skill to willfully ignore the potential for failure, and trying to do so makes us a nervous wreck.

If I’d waltzed into my classrooms and declared “I’m going to ACE this test!” most people would have believed me, and I might even have believed myself. But then the actual test would start. I’d find a question I wasn’t sure about… and then, oh gods, I’d realize I wasn’t acing the test at all. Performance anxiety would take over, and all of that stand-up-and-salute-confidence would vanish and leave me limp and unable to cope.

But by assuming I was going to fail, and setting my goals low, my confidence would grow at each question I felt confident about.. or even *thought* I might know the answer to. Through the negative assumption of failure, I successfully routed my mind around the pot holes of anxiety, and improved my performance.

Turns out, there’s actually a name for what I did: “defensive pessimism.” According to author Julie K.Norem (who I discovered while researching this post) it’s a successful coping mechanism for some people.

In The Positive Power of Negative Thinking, Norem suggests that positive-thinkers use optimism avoid the opportunity for anxiety entirely. They simply ignore the possibilities of failure, and the potential for things to go wrong. Their success at this depends on their ability to intentionally deny the very idea of roadblocks, which is why they can sometimes seem like positivity-pushers, insisting that others blindly follow their anxiety-free path. Their success depends on their ability to block out anything but a successful outcome, and they don’t need us nay-sayers injecting our negative reality into their worlds; they’d rather avoid anxiety entirely, and they can… which is awesome.

And it really is awesome. I’m envious. I wish I could do it

But I’m not capable of it (really, I’m not!) and according to Julie Norem, neither are a lot of people. We see the negatives, we get anxious, and we can’t block it out. We have to cope somehow, so.. tada… we become defensive pessimists. Defensive pessimists face their anxiety, consider all possible outcomes, and cope with them ahead of time.

In my exam-anxiety example, I not only assumed the worst outcome, but I accepted it. I imagined my life after failing, mental ran through my parent’s, teacher’s and friend’s reactions, and thought about what I would do afterwards. After doing all of that, failure no longer frightened me. I’d emotionally adjusted to it as if it had already happened. As a result, I got through the test with a minimum of anxiety, performing better in the process.

Tada! Negative Thinking. Positive Results.

My defensive pessimism didn’t stop at graduation, of course. It was useful then, and it’s useful now. When covering a subject that makes me feel a little bit on the weird side, I tell people that I’m insane. I neatly sidestep the potential anxiety about them drawing that conclusion, by drawing it for them, and leaving them to argue in favor of my sanity. Likewise, I often refuse to set concrete goals - and when I do set them, I build in an escape clause of “I’ll never reach this” and think about what I’ll do when I don’t reach it.

You can see elements of this in my “Plate Spinning Productivity” concept: I don’t expect to succeed at all of my projects, only to keep them somewhat in action, and Iexpect to drop some here and there. Defensive pessimism is also in my fondness for the reverse engineering style of How-To lists: it’s easier for me to see how to fail at something, than to map out a path to success.

I’m not sure where all this negativity and anxiety came from. Maybe because I grew up in a stressful environment, where the unlikely negatives actually happened. Maybe because my mother (who is an incorrigible Eeyore-style doom and gloomer) modeled the behavior for me. Maybe because I was praised for intelligence and talent, and not for actual effort and success. Maybe my brain is just hard-wired for anxiety. Maybe I’m too much of a lateral-thinker to only consider one possible (successful) path for fate to follow. It’s probably a combination of all of those factors, and I don’t see my coping mechanism changing any time soon.

Oddly, none of this turns me into an Eeyore. I don’t mope and muttering about how there’s really no point to anything. I’m a cheerful pessimist. Curiously optimistic in my negativity, I look hopefully towards the horizon, new projects, bright and shiny successes. My particular brand of negativity is pointed, focused, and strategic, allowing me to accept and let go of the fear of failure, so I can allow for the possibility of success.

So to all you overly optimistic positivity pushers out there? I promise not to burst your bubbles, and mention the pitfalls in ahead on your path. But can you maybe, just maybe, stop preaching at me about the rainbows and sunshine ahead? I’m trying to productively enjoy my thunderstorm, and prepare for the imminent hail, tornados & trips to Munchkinland!

Don’t worry, Be happy!