19 Powerful Positive Thinking Quotes and How To Best Apply It To Your Life

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Excerpt: Positive thinking can be a strategy or a distraction tactic. Read our list of positive thinking quotes and learn how to make the distinction.

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How NOT To Use Positive Thinking:

Before we talk about the power of positive thinking, let’s talk about the dangers associated with positive thinking and the negative effects it can have. Yes, you read that right. It sounds backwards doesn’t it?  Positive thinking should lead to positive results, shouldn’t it? …Not if the positivity we’re channeling is being used for the wrong reasons.

Positive thinking that is used to mask or suppress negatively-perceived, painful emotions in order to display more positively-perceived, happy ones is one of those reasons. This turns positive thinking into nothing more than an avoidance strategy that distracts us from the real problems at hand and can lead us to taking the wrong types of actions (or no actions at all). The danger with this, of course, is that emotions left un-dealt-with can lead to internal turmoil and can have very real, negative consequences on a person’s wellbeing.

If something sad happens, for example, and we try to cover it up with happy thoughts (like a kind of mask) we get an un-dealt-with-sadness that can swell into anxiety or depression. When something really upsets us and we try to distract our mind from confronting that “upset-ness,” those feelings might get pushed down and may continue to broil into resentment or hate. Every time we get into an argument that makes us angry and we try to chant positive mantras so that we can disregard the argument altogether, that anger turns into a type of poison that can eat at us from within.

In his book, The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle takes it a step further and says that when we cannot feel our emotions or if we are cut off from them, we not only will experience the negative consequences internally, but we may eventually experience them externally, as physical problems or physical symptoms that can also have real, life-threatening effects. When people don’t properly deal with their emotions, the short-term consequence might be a type of shallow happiness or numbness (which might be better than pain or a type of sadness), but long-term, as you can see, might cause more damage than good.

The reality is, things will happen that will make us sad. People will say mean and awful things, people we love will hurt us, some of our most beloved friends and family members will pass away. Things will happen that will make us really upset. People will lie to us, people will steal from us, people will treat us like they’re better than us and disrespect us. And of course, things will happen that will make us angry. People will cut us off in traffic, we’ll have awful customer service experiences, and we’ll certainly get angry at the cards we were dealt in life for some reason or another (or for many reasons and another). This IS the world as it is and this IS the reality that we’re going to face from time-to-time.

This is why we have to be careful with how we prescribe positive thinking, not just for ourselves, but others. Susan David, a Psychologist on the faculty of Harvard Medical School and author of the book Emotional Agility, comments: “Normal, natural emotions are now seen as good or bad. And being positive has become a new form of moral correctness. People with cancer are automatically told to just stay positive. Women, to stop being so angry. And the list goes on. It’s a tyranny. It’s a tyranny of positivity. And it’s cruel. Unkind. And ineffective. And we do it to ourselves, and we do it to others.” 

Whenever we try to pretend like everything is “fine and dandy” when there is a swell of un-dealt-with-emotions inside that clearly indicates that we’re not fine and not dandy, the only person we’re fooling is ourselves—and even worse, the person we’re hurting the most, is ourselves. So, where is the power in positive thinking and when is it okay to prescribe it?

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How To Properly Use Positive Thinking:

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In performance-based positivity, positive thinking is looked at as a strategy that can be deployed to best help deal with those same tough situations or emotions with better actions and more head-on resolutions. It’s based on the idea that if we’re going to choose to do something about a problematic situation in our lives we might as well do it from the best possible mental state we can manage so that we can take our best possible actions as a result. Positive outcomes, after all, don’t come from negative actions—only positive actions can lead to that. So, when we find ourselves in emotionally tough spots and when we’re facing deep-seated emotions, positivity and optimism become tools we can use to improve our mental state simply so that we can take better actions.

What might this look like? We might recite positive messages, ask positively oriented questions, read motivational quotes, listen to uplifting music, play inspirational videos, or even visualize optimistic conclusions. If any of these tools put us in a better state mentally and allow us to act more appropriately, then it’s a strategy worth adopting.

How it might manifest exactly and how effective these tools might be will obviously be different for everybody. And just because we’re using them doesn’t mean that we’ll be able to solve all of our problems or even that we’ll be able to get any kind of immediate relief when we do take action. But this optimal priming and the acts of courage that follow set us forward on the right path towards figuring it out and building up the skills that will get us the relief and solutions we’re after (and trying to figure it out will always trump not trying).

Keep in mind, too, that if the sadness, “upset-ness,” and anger feels like too much to bear, you don’t have to do it alone. There are more resources available today than ever before and if you don’t have any trusted friends or family members that can help, a simple Google search can put you in contact with a therapist or specialist who can certainly guide you. Not confronting emotions shouldn’t be an option because that will only make the feeling(s) stronger (by giving them power, momentum, and strength) while simultaneously making you weaker (because you wouldn’t be doing anything at all). Standing up and even taking one step forward shifts that momentum in your favor and sets you on a stronger path forward.

Once we can be more mindful of and learn how to better control our inner dialog, then we can deploy the strategies of optimism, positivity, and kindness, and we can focus on executing the best ideas that come to our optimally oriented mind—rather than focusing on how we can drown out the noise of our problems with positive thinking. It’s a powerful practice that reveals powerful tools that can undoubtedly change your life for the better—but it can also do the opposite if you’re not careful.

But don’t take it from me. I gathered for you a reassuring collection of quotes on positive thinking for you to digest below. These positive thinking quotes come from incredibly high performing and well known individuals and will only solidify the ideas I shared with you above. I hope they find you well and I hope this encourages you to take your next step forward on your journey. Sending you love and strength as you continue to figure out your way. ~ Matt

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The List: 19 Quotes on the Power (and Dangers) of Positive Thinking and How To Get It Right

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“Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.”

John Wooden

“You cannot tailor-make the situations in life but you can tailor-make the attitudes to fit those situations.”

Zig Ziglar

“Optimism is the most important human trait, because it allows us to evolve our ideas, to improve our situation, and to hope for a better tomorrow.”

Seth Godin

“As the physically weak man can make himself strong by careful and patient training, so the man of weak thoughts can make them strong by exercising himself in right thinking.”

James Allen, As a Man Thinketh

“We can’t escape pain; we can’t escape the essential nature of our lives. But we do have a choice. We can give in and relent, or we can fight, persevere, and create a life worth living, a noble life. Pain is a fact; our evaluation of it is a choice.”

Jacob Held

“Nothing truly stops you.  Nothing truly holds you back.  For your own will is always within your control.  Sickness may challenge your body. But are you merely your body? Lameness may impede your legs. But you are not merely your legs. Your will is bigger than your legs. Your will needn’t be affected by an incident unless you let it.”

Epictetus

“To live life to the fullest, you must stand guard at the gate of your garden and let only the very best information enter.  You truly cannot afford the luxury of a negative thought – not even one.  The most joyful, dynamic and contented people of this world are no different from you or me in terms of their makeup.  We are all flesh and bones.  We all come from the same universal source.  However, the ones who do more than just exist, the ones who fan the flames of their human potential and truly savor the magical dance of life do different things than those whose lives are ordinary.  Foremost amongst the things that they do is adopt a positive paradigm about their world and all that is in it.”

Robin S. Sharma, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

“What you tell yourself on a daily basis is more powerful than you know.  Seemingly harmless jokes, over time, turn into seriously destructive beliefs.  Our thoughts become our words, our words become our beliefs, our beliefs become our actions, our actions become our habits, and our habits become our realities.  So if your favorite joke is that you couldn’t get a date if you demanded one at gunpoint, and you spend every Saturday night alone, perhaps you should come up with a new one-liner.”

Jen Sincero, You Are a Badass

“‘Why me?’ rarely produces a positive result, while ‘How can I use this?’ usually leads us in the direction of turning our difficulties into a driving force to make ourselves and the world better.”

Tony Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within

“There is a hidden blessing in the most traumatic things we go through in our lives. My brain always goes to, ‘Where is the hidden blessing? What is my gift?’”

Sara Blake

“Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.”

Mahatma Gandhi

“Be determined to be positive. Understand that the greater part of your misery or unhappiness is determined not by your circumstances, but by your attitude. So smile at those who often try to begrudge or hurt you, show them what’s missing in their life and what they can’t take away from you.”

Marc Cherno

“The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly.  Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive.  To put it more accurately, it is not so much that you use your mind wrongly—you usually don’t use it at all.  It uses you.  This is the disease.  You believe that you are your mind.  This is the delusion.  The instrument has taken you over.”

Eckhart Tolle, The Power of No

“While positive thinking doesn’t always work, negative thinking, unfortunately, almost always does.”

Gary Mack, Mind Gym

“Choose the positive. You have a choice. You are the master of your attitude. Choose the positive, the constructive. Optimism is a faith that leads to success.”

Bruce Lee

“The Buddha said, ‘Nothing can survive without food.’ This is a very simple and very deep truth. Love and hate are both living phenomena. If we do not nourish our love, it will die and may turn into hate. If we want love to last, we have to nurture it and give it food every day. Hate is the same; if we don’t feed it, it cannot survive.”

Thich Nhat Hahn, Savor

“Denying negative emotions leads to experiencing deeper and more prolonged negative emotions and to emotional dysfunction.  Constant positivity is a form of avoidance, not a valid solution to life’s problems—problems which, by the way, if you’re choosing the right values and metrics, should be invigorating you and motivating you.”

Mark Mason, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

The art of positive self-talk is simply paying attention to your inner dialogue and directing it toward positive, performance-based language.  Most people don’t take the time to sit back and witness their own thoughts, which is an essential step toward realizing that our thoughts are not who we are.  They don’t control us.  They’re just thoughts.  The only power they have is what we give them—what we feed them.  Once you create that mental distance between you and your thoughts, you can start to tame and manage them.”

Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal

“Beliefs have the power to create and the power to destroy. Human beings have the awesome ability to take any experience of their lives and create a meaning that disempowers them or one that can literally save their lives.”

Tony Robbins

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Positive Thinking Quotes (in Pictures) For You To Share:

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