"I have to stay positive."

"Why are you always so negative?"

"I know, I know, I need to stay away from my negative thoughts."

"It's okay. Everything is going to be fine."

Come on, everyone! Let's stay away from negativity and look at the bright side."

"We have to stay positive."

We can see that on social media, we can see that in conversations with friends and even at work. Why, so often, do we tend to tell them that everything will be okay when people have a challenging situation?

It seems like positive emotions are the only ones we can have.

What's going on?

Why is there no room to feel it all?

What will happen if we open the door to give ourselves permission to feel it all?

In this article, I will invite you to look beyond the positive and see how maybe we got the Positive Psychology idea all wrong because of Social Media or some unclear movement.

So wrong that until I did some deep dive to research and get a better understanding of what is Positive Psychology I didn't realize how much harm we can be doing to ourselves, to the people around us, and as leaders of our team members and peers when don't allow anything but positive in the room.

There is even a new term for this phenomenon—toxic positivity. Toxic positivity is when the environment and the surroundings tell us that we need to stay positive all the time; there is no room for negative feelings or thoughts. And that experience can lead to shame, anxiety, and even low engagement and mental health issues in the workplace.

So let's see how, as leaders, you can influence a different experience when you identify toxic positivity in your team or with your leadership.

Hi, I am Noa, and I work with leaders, executives, and founders of companies like you to go beyond their leadership. Are you ready? Let's go.

So let's take a moment to understand what positive psychology is. During the 90s, the Positive Psychology movement was established by Martin Seligman; the main idea behind this movement is that when people reach therapy, rather than diagnosing what is wrong with them, they choose to look at their strengths, what emotions, thoughts, or behaviors serve them, and work for them.

Sometimes I say that when people meet with me for the first time, they are all gray; it can be seen as if they might have lost connection with the part in them that makes them shine and feel at their best. Sometimes in one conversation or even more, you can see the colors coming back when they are reminded through a coaching conversation that they are creative, resourceful, and whole human beings with many strengths that helped them get to where they are today; they need that reminder.

Unfortunately, with the rise of social media posts in the past few years, most of us focused on showing the "good stuff" in our day. No one will want to see my frustrated face when the kids fight with each other in the back seat of our rented car during our family trip to Yellow Stone Park. People would like to see smiling family pictures with a background of beautiful views and my smiling face with a cup of coffee. We started to see faked reality that communicated without words: "show me the positive, don't be toxic with your low emotions and lost suitcase; no one wants to see that on their daily feed."

But the Positive Psychology movement did not intend to eliminate the space for emotions or thoughts that don't serve us. Understanding them can help us create a new perspective on ourselves and the world surrounding us and be more gentle with ourselves when we feel low. We learn to give permission to be with these emotions and thoughts without freaking out that something "bad" will happen if we experience them.

What do we miss when we don't allow anything but positive?

You think about it more.
Every time we don't want to think, talk, or feel something, the research shows that we think about it 49 times more. Giving yourself permission to be with the "unwanted" thought or emotion will save you time and spiraling with the self-deprecating thoughts that might sound somewhat like: "Why do I keep thinking about it???"
The Negative Bias.
In a few of my articles and videos, I mentioned these phenomena. Our ancient brain was programmed and even obsessed with searching for our mistakes and failures. Why? Because one mistake had cost us our life. So even though we don't live in the out, the mechanism is still with us. So whether you want it or not, our brain is programmed to search for the negative first.
Our emotions
Some people break the word emotions to e - motion, energy in motion. Our emotions are not staying the same all the time. At the last minute, I probably had a lot of different emotions going through me, and so did you. I don't know a single person that is happy all the time. Our emotions, like energy, change many times. We are happy, sad, frustrated, excited, and so on. Emotions come and go, and we can learn to remind ourselves that one emotion, even a negative one, will not stay forever.

The problem is that when we don't create room for ourselves, another person, or as a team (or family) for any thoughts or emotions but positive, we unconsciously can create an experience of toxic positivity, where some people can feel it is not safe to share what they feel or think. The research shows that suppressing emotions can lead to shame, anxiety, and disengagement in the workplace. (Talaifar & Swann, 2020, Campbell-Sills, Barlow, Brown, and Hofmann, 2006.)

Here are a few ways you can reassess your approach to leading yourself or a team without stepping into Toxic Positivity:

Let them be
We tend to jump into fixing emotions and thoughts. Most people need us to be with them. It can feel uncomfortable because we were trained most of our lives to fix problems. Sometimes just acknowledging where the person is can do much more, even if you cannot solve the experience for them.
Empathy and Compassion
I wish you, the leaders of the people I coach, were with me in the coaching conversations when clients share how much your compassion and empathy opened the door for them to see themselves the same way. We can be hard on ourselves. When our leaders remind us of our strengths and our need to be gentle with ourselves, we can access something within through this open-heart acknowledgment and give ourselves permission to be gentle and compassionate with ourselves. It is one of the most powerful moments I see in my interactions with my clients; Don't underestimate your ability to inspire and simultaneously remind your people that it is okay not to be at your best all the time. It is okay to recover; it is okay to breathe; it is okay not to be okay. When you give permission to your people, you reframe for themselves how they see themselves.
The words: should, need, have
Those three words, should, need, and have, can bring a lot of judgment and shame to the other person or ourselves. When hearing these words, call on your people. For example: "I hear a lot of shoulds or needs in this conversation – I am curious what do you want?"

As a leader, if you identify that your team or you lead discussions with a language that can facilitate toxic positivity, and there is no room for nothing but positive, here is something I will leave you to ponder on:

Emotions or thoughts are not "positive" or "negative": Although we have judgments of them, what if we asked: "What can I learn from this emotion/thought at this moment, what is it trying to communicate to me?"

If you liked this article and/or video, and you or someone you know would like to keep going beyond with their leadership, make sure to subscribe and share with others.

You're having a great day when suddenly, you have so much progress with the project you lead, and then when you meet a coworker during a coffee break, they are making an irritating comment. The rest of your day went well; during your 1:1 with your supervisor, they complimented you on influencing an idea in the last meeting with the team, and later on, you met with a peer to progress on another project, and you both worked well together. But when you arrive home, all you can remember is the irritating comment from your coworker during the coffee break.

Why, when you had a not-good, but great day with so many accomplishments, all you can remember is that one incident?

That phenomenon is called "The Negative Bias" or negativity bias. And in today's article, I will share what negative Bias is and how we can overcome it.

Hi, I am Noa and I work with leaders, executives, and founders of companies just like you to go beyond with their leadership.

When you look at your passing day, your week, or maybe even your past month? What are you looking at first?

What have you not accomplished?
What didn't work?
What worked?

Most of us tend to look first at all the things that didn't work. Why do we tend to focus on the negative?

There are different reasons; some are the way we were raised, by our parents our culture: "do better," "do your best," and "aim for excellence!!" "why 99 and not 100?" or "did everyone get 100?" these sentences shape the way we look at the world.

And today, I want to focus on another reason: our brain and, more specifically, our ancient brain. In the last few years, neuroscience research has become very strong. And what we know now about the ancient brain is that its role is to flag danger so we can know if to: "fight," "flight," or "freeze" in moments that can be risky for us and get in our way of surviving life.

One way is by flagging something that is different; the brain will communicate to us: "Hey! Be careful; this is different! It might be dangerous. Stay away."

Another way is when our ancient flags make mistakes: "Hey! That was not a smart idea! Next time you do that, you might get in trouble or lose your life! Don't let it happen again." This mistakes mechanism that our ancient brain flags are called the negative Bias.

But now, when we no longer live in the jungle, that negative bias mechanism can get in our way. Rather than focusing on what's working, we focus on that one thing in the day that didn't work and give it so much attention that we feel distracted.

For example, when we sense that someone is annoyed by us, maybe they even said something to communicate how they feel. We can sense our ancient brain triggers the negative Bias, and we will repeat that sentence in our head many times during the day, asking ourselves: "what could we have done or said differently?" or "why are they so annoyed by us?"

Another example is when we have an important presentation at the office. We wear the yellow shirt that makes us feel confident. After the presentation, a few people stop you outside to compliment you for the presentation. You stop to chat with one of your peers, who says: "by the way you have a coffee stain on your shirt. Do you want the special stain pen I have to fix it?" You thank them, but all you can think about the rest of your day is: "How did I miss this stain?" the compliments from others on your presentation disappear, and you are distracted by the stain.

So what can we do to keep the negative bias mechanism from distracting us? Neuroplasticity, or brain flexibility. Some call it rewiring our brains because our brain is like electric wires that send notifications. We can teach those wires to send new messages. The brain can learn to do that.

But this time, with our brain, the machines you use in the gym are replaced by new ones.

How can we do that? We train our brains like any other muscle we work in the gym. Like any change, change happens in repetition.

You see, what the neuroscientists have found is that we can reprogram or train our brain or pay more attention to what's working, progress, and strengths than the negative, what's not working, and weaknesses.

Studies show that people who look at progress and strengths as routine practice achieve more.

Now remember the focus is not on not allowing ourselves to see what's not working or even negative emotions and ALWAYS STAY positive; it is not about not letting our peers express challenges and non-positive experiences. We want to embrace and accept where we are and create a safe space for ourselves and others. And yet, if we notice that our focus is all the time on what's not working when the only feedback we give to others is on weaknesses, when we talk with ourselves and others about improving and doing better but never recognize what's working, maybe it is time to pause and ask ourselves if the ancient brain is distracting us. We might need to refocus and train our brains to notice: Strengths, Progress, and What's working.

How can we do that?
There are many options, but I will share the two that you can take:

1. Gratitude practice.

Take time in your day, week, or month to practice gratitude. Please check my next blog post and video to learn more about that.

2. Reflect on what's working and progress.

Take time at the end of your day/work day to reflect on your day, week, month, quarter, and year.

Here are a few questions you can engage in your daily/bi-weekly/weekly/monthly/yearly reflections:

What are the three things that worked today/week?
Where have you seen progress today? Work and life,
Where have you seen yourself using your strengths today/this week?
What are you grateful for?

Find an accountability partner to meet with or share your notes if needed. Ensure you always start with these 4 points before you dive into fixing or discussing what you could have done better.

The more your ancient brain meets this practice, the more you will notice progress with yourself, your peers, your team, your kids, and your life.

I Challenge You:

Do you need to give a performance review to someone you feel is not performing well? That can be very challenging. I will challenge you to take a moment with yourself before you meet with them and ask yourself: what does that person do that works? What is one strength that this person has?

Find at least one for each of these questions and then prepare again for your conversation with this person.

I have done the Progress Reflection Practice weekly for over 12 years. Still, each time I reflect on my week, my ancient brain will try to distract me from what's not working, and every week I will delete the first sentence that starts with what's not working and refocus myself and my ancient brain on progress. Remember, like any muscle, when we stop using them, it becomes harder to use them, and the more we use them, the shorter it takes us to overcome challenges. It is a life work of progress, just like any workout.