You must be positive. You must smile. You must believe in yourself. Then you will be successful.

There is such a thing as toxic positivity. It is often observed in the corporate world, where management expects everyone to appear happy and positive about their jobs and their future prospects.

Unfortunately, pretending your negative emotions don’t exist and trying to be positive even when you don’t feel them at all, and when the situation is realistically bad, is not healthy. It may easily lead to heightened stress. Feeling that your experiences and feelings are ignored, and you are not in control of your own life. Ultimately, this can lead to burnout.

There are certainly situations when putting on a brave face and a big smile is the right thing to do, even if you don’t feel like it. However, doing it for extended periods of time can backfire.

If management continues to motivate the team by saying, “Be positive, hard work will ultimately pay off,” and the “ultimately” means in several years, perhaps all they achieve is an increasingly disengaged workforce. If everyone sees that the company is not doing well, with layoffs and a downward trajectory, and yet the managers continue to smile and appear unnaturally positive, they lose the credibility of the team. It creates two worlds with a huge amount of distrust between management and employees.

How can the employees trust someone who is so obviously lying? And if they are not lying, then they are not sharing the positive things they know, which again creates mistrust.

It is okay to bring your whole self to work. And that also includes negative emotions. I’m not advocating you start yelling at people or being annoyingly whiny, but being able to have an honest conversation with your manager about your feelings and worries is important for a healthy relationship, even in the workplace.

Fantasy Bubbles Of Endless Positivity

We all live in various types of bubbles. For many, one of the more intriguing bubbles is that of positive thinking. Some of us were taught that positive thinking is the road to success, and thus, we create elaborate fantasies in our minds, assuming that our future holds nothing but success. This is supported by the numerous self-help books, coaches, and even advertisements that promote the idea of endless positivity as a guarantee of great success and a happy life.

Although it may seem that the focus on positivity and optimism is a relatively new phenomenon and is mostly promoted in the USA, we can trace some of its roots back thousands of years. However, it became more pronounced in the 20th century.

Where does optimism about a bright future come from? Most often, it is based on past experiences that led to success. We examine the present reality and find correlations that lead us to conclude that the current circumstances will likely turn out well, similar to those in the past. That is why it may be more difficult to be positive about the future if we are being hit by one disaster after another. We see that whatever we did wasn’t of any use, things still ended badly, and we assume this streak will continue.

A second type of optimism is not rooted in past positive experiences, but rather in desires. We just wish so badly that things are great that we can force ourselves into a positive mindset about the hypothetical future. While the first type of positivity is based on logic, the second type is based on emotions.

When Positivity Helps And When Not

If you have positive expectations about the future based on your past experience, then positivity will help you achieve it. Let’s say you are facing a tough presentation for a large audience, but you have done that with great success several times in the past. Your positive mindset is based on real past success, and it will help you overcome anxiety and stay motivated, so you can succeed again this time.

On the other hand, positive dreaming about success when you have never done the activity before won’t help you achieve the goal. In fact, it may even prevent you from trying hard enough, and you may not prepare as well as you should have. The chance of you failing increases. As Gabriele Oettingen notes in Rethinking Positive Thinking, after twenty years of researching positivity, “Positive fantasies, wishes, and dreams detached from an assessment of past experience didn’t translate into motivation to act toward a more energized, engaged life. It translated into the opposite.”

For example, in 1988, Oettingen recruited 83 students entering the workforce. She asked them how probable they saw finding a job and asked them to write down any positive fantasies they had about the job and rate how often they had these fantasies. Two years later, she checked back with them. The more often students experience positive fantasies about their future jobs, the less successful they tend to be. They simply tried less hard than those who didn’t fantasize. They sent out fewer applications and received fewer job offers, resulting in lower earnings. Positive fantasies backfired.

Does it mean that everyone who has positive fantasies is going to fail? No. We are talking statistics here. For some, it may work very well, but statistically, it won’t for most people. If all that was needed for success were a positive daydream, then we would all be super successful. Life doesn’t work that way, and those who daydream about a better future spend less time working on making it happen.

Those who are more realistic and don’t paint the future in unrealistic bright colors and those employing defensive pessimism are more likely to succeed than eternal optimists.

Positive fantasies can help some of our needs, but any needs that require a significant amount of effort and energy will be harmed by positive fantasizing. Positive fantasies in these situations can lead to procrastination, reduced effort, a focus on easy tasks, and an avoidance of the tough ones.

Fantasizing about a positive future has its place only in areas that are not within your control. Let’s say you already took the test in school and are now waiting for the results. There is nothing you can do to influence the outcome anymore. Having positive thoughts about the future will make you feel better. It is a short-term anxiety-relieving solution, but it has no impact on the long term. Eventually, you are going to be hit with the results of the test.

Visualizing A Positive Future Can Help

Visualizing a positive future can have positive short-term benefits and alleviate the pain of sadness or depression. However, it will also exacerbate the situation in the long term, as the person becomes increasingly detached from reality and develops a sense of learned helplessness.

There is a way that having positive dreams about the future can actually be beneficial. It helps you to realize what is truly important to you. For example, suppose you keep daydreaming about being a parent. In that case, it tells you that you probably really want to become one, and the conscious mind that tells you that you are afraid of the responsibility should be ignored. By dreaming about the future, you can experience various situations and outcomes virtually. It helps you discover what you worry about, including both the positive and negative aspects of potential decisions. It can help you make the right decision.

The Problems With Fantasizing About The Future

The problem with fantasizing about the future is that it drains you of the energy you would require to complete the activity. Gabriele Oettingen notes that in her studies, students who positively fantasized reported less energy than those who had neutral fantasies and also accomplished less work during the week. Simply put, when we are presented with a big challenge, we may decide to dream about how it will look once we achieve it. This feeling is so good and relaxing that we ultimately take no action to achieve it in reality.

The problem with positive fantasies is that they skew our view of the world. We naturally seek information that supports our biases. When we dream about a positive future, we are then unconsciously blind to any information that doesn’t support this view of the world. Let’s say you daydream about living on a remote tropical island. You picture the beautiful weather and nice beaches. You go online and see the pictures of others enjoying their tropical vacations. You fall in love with the idea of living on a tropical island. What a paradise.

Luckily, you expend enough of your energy on the daydreams and are so happy with that state that you never actually move to the island. If you did, you would discover the unpleasant truth of the hot weather, annoying mosquitoes, a lack of food and clean water, and a lack of entertainment. You would also miss your friends and family, not to mention the absence of the internet. Your pleasant dreams blinded you to the flip side of living on a remote tropical island.

These two aspects of positive fantasies, unrealistically positive views of the results and a lack of motivation to actually implement them, are working against each other, leaving us frustrated and feeling stuck in our current circumstances.

Using Mental Contrasting

Oettingen suggests that mental contrasting is a superior visualization technique to positive future visualization. The practice is rather simple. Write down or think about several positive outcomes of completing the goal. Focus on the most significant benefits and take a moment to visualize them. Then write down several obstacles you may encounter that may prevent you from achieving your goal. Select the largest ones and visualize these obstacles again. That’s it. You motivated yourself to achieve the goal, but you also realized there would be roadblocks, and you were ready to tackle them.

Researchers have demonstrated that mental contrasting can have a lasting effect, lasting up to three months or until the goal is achieved. For example, suppose you want to eat better to improve your health. In that case, you can mentally contrast this with the obstacle standing before you, a big piece of chocolate cake. Seeing the cake as a negative obstacle will help you to avoid it and improve your diet.

Mental contrasting can help you in self-discovery and insights into your (de)motivation. It can help you change your habits and affect how you see the reality of your life. It helps you to understand your dreams, goals, and obstacles in your way. It helps you develop mitigation strategies to overcome those obstacles, and as a result, it can increase your inner motivation.

However, not everything is as rosy as it sounds. Mental contrasting can be highly effective for you if you have a generally optimistic disposition, based on past successes. However, it can have a negative impact if the person doing the mental contrasting feels that they would generally fail at similar tasks in the past. Positive expectations based on past experience about achieving a goal increase effort and, therefore, chances of reaching that goal.

When using mental contrasting, this expectation intensifies, as does the expectation of potential disappointment if the goal is not achieved. Those with negative past experiences of not achieving their goals often have even lower expectations after mentally contrasting, and may even completely disengage and not try.

The implication of this is clear. Success breeds success. If you have a lifetime of successes, you are more likely to be optimistic about the future, and you are more likely to believe you will succeed in the next thing. And so you are more motivated to try harder and have a bigger chance of success. If you feel like a failure, you will likely project this onto your current efforts; chances are, you will not perform at your best and fail as you expected. Whether you expect to succeed or fail, you are right.

Implementation Intentions

There is another concept that complements mental contrasting nicely. Implementation intentions. As Gabriele Oettingen notes in Rethinking Positive Thinking, “Statistical analysis of almost one hundred of these studies found that implementation intentions had a medium-to-large impact on actual behavior, significantly increasing the likelihood that people would achieve their goals”

Implementation intention, or a plan for how to achieve a particular goal, is especially strong when using “if-then” statements. “If this happens, then I will do that.” It allows us to prepare for the most common roadblocks, issues, distractions, or hurtful habits and ensures we don’t get stopped in our tracks or derailed. It builds on mental contrasting as it requires us to imagine everything that could go wrong. Implementation intentions prepare us mentally so that, when things go wrong, we don’t freeze but respond appropriately and move on.

WOOP Concept

Oettingen summarizes the use of mental contrasting with implementation intentions and wraps it into a WOOP concept: Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan.

The WOOP exercise works as follows.

You start with a Wish about your personal or professional life that may be tough but still achievable in a given time. Ideally, pick one that is the most important to you.

Then, we move to the Outcome. What do you see in your mind as the best solution to the wish or problem you want to solve? Imagine it as vividly as you can.

Then we move to the Obstacle. What is the biggest internal obstacle that prevents you from achieving the outcome? What behaviors, habits, beliefs, or mindsets are holding you back? Focus on internal obstacles, not external ones that are not under your control. Because you selected an achievable wish, you already know that you can deal with the external stuff. This part of the process is the most challenging as we may not always understand ourselves and what truly holds us back. Once you identify the biggest obstacle, visualize it as vividly as possible.

Then move to the last part, the Plan. Think about an action that would be most effective in overcoming or mitigating the obstacle. Consider what will trigger the obstacle and have an if-then plan. If the obstacle happens, then you will do this and that.

Sometimes, to find the real obstacle and a meaningful way to mitigate it, you need to dig deeper and ask a series of “why” questions. You may wish to be a good guitar player in a year. The obstacle you see is that you may not push yourself to practice enough. Why is that? Because you don’t have time. Why don’t you have time? Because you spend it watching TV. Why is that? It’s not that I’m too interested in what’s on it, but I just switch it on when getting home and sort of start watching, and the time flies by. You found the trigger. You can then formulate a mitigation plan: “If I get home, I will not switch on the TV, but instead, I will grab the guitar and play a few chords.”

You can run this exercise in your mind, or if you are more of a visual and kinesthetic person, you can write it down. Make it as concise as possible so the key points stand out and the important parts don’t get lost in lengthy sentences. A couple of words for each phase is enough.

Putting It All Together

True success does not come from blind positivity or endlessly smiling through pain. It comes from grounded, realistic optimism combined with deliberate action. While positivity has its place, especially when built on past success or when used to manage stress in uncontrollable situations, it becomes harmful when it ignores reality or replaces effort with fantasy.

Instead of indulging in idealized dreams, we benefit far more from tools like mental contrasting and implementation intentions. These approaches acknowledge our goals, recognize our internal obstacles, and equip us with practical plans to overcome them.

It’s not about forcing ourselves to be positive all the time. It’s about permitting ourselves to be human, to feel doubt, to face discomfort, and to move forward with clarity, intention, and resilience.

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