Tired of Negative Thinking? 3 Reasons It’s Your Default

Do you ever find yourself in a negative thinking spiral? Where you catch yourself thinking a negative thought, and then you say something like this to yourself, “Why am I thinking this way? Why can’t I just be positive? I have so much to be grateful for. I’m such a horrible person.”

So, of course, you’ve just compounded your negative thinking. Then you stumble across a meme or social media post of some kind that says, “When you focus on the positive, positive things will happen in your life.” And while you might agree with this sentiment, in that moment you’re thinking, “What-Ever!”

But why are you having this reaction? Maybe it’s because you don’t know why negative thinking is your default. You don’t understand what you’re up against when you try to change your thought patterns. So let’s take a quick look at 3 reasons you might default to negative thinking.

1. Our brains favor negative thinking. Kind of . . . I don’t know that our brains actually “favor” negative thoughts, but psychologists have found that our minds are built to look for negative information. Which makes sense if you think of it from a survivalist’s perspective. 
2. Negative messages are all around us. I think we all know this, but knowledge alone isn’t going to help us redirect our negative thinking. We have to become so aware of it that we instantly notice when a negative message is trying to create a pathway in our brain.

Keep scrolling for the 3rd reason you default to negative thinking.