Positive quotes can provide inspiration during times of change, but does positivity impact motivation in the long run? The Mayo Clinic says that positive thinking can increase your life span, reduce your stress levels, and improve various areas of personal performance. Positive quotes are a great place to start, if you are in a low mood and need to get motivated. But there’s one big problem with positivity. Do you know what it is?
Positive quotes can pick you up and offer quick advice. But a constant positive outlook is not sustainable. Psychology Today says that, according to different studies, human beings have between 12,000 and 80,000 thoughts per day. Trying to think one thing all the time is like trying to stop the wind. In our minds, thoughts ebb and flow. Attempting to always look on the sunny side can actually create toxic positivity – and that’s as bad and as phony as it sounds.
As a motivational speaker, my job description requires a thorough understanding of what really works when it comes to motivation, including performance and well-being. Notice that life isn’t always positive. Constantly seeking to maintain a cheerful disposition requires effort and energy, which can drain you when challenges persist. When positivity fails to align with your reality, it can leave you feeling disconnected from yourself or even demotivated because you’re not being authentic.
Positivity is a positive start, but it’s never the whole journey. Motivation comes from the ability to acknowledge a challenge – not using positive quotes to deny your situation or your feelings.
Finding Acceptance When it Comes to Positive Motivation
If you find yourself on a sinking ship, do you want to be an optimist (believing that everything will be ok as you drown), a pessimist (certain that nothing you do will make a difference as you drown) or a realist… accepting the situation and bailing water to fix it?
When it comes to real and authentic motivation, acceptance is the first step.
Step one on the path to real motivation: accept what is. Make it ok to feel what you are feeling, instead of trying to meet some expectation that you discovered in a positive quote. Accept the situation, the relationship, the results. No judgment, just acceptance. If you deny your feelings, and deny the situation, you move from denial to guilt and inadequacy. Accept your feelings about the situation, whatever they may be, and you move towards resilience.
More than Motivation: Slogans are Not Solutions
The great American newsman of the 20th Century, Edward R. Murrow, famously said that “Our greatest obligation is not to confuse slogans with solutions.” So why do we turn to positive quotes? Turns out, there can be something powerful inside a few well-placed words.
Consider this positive quote from Former Notre Dame Coach, Lou Holtz: “Play Like a Champion Today!” That’s a powerful positive sentiment – but what if you don’t feel like a champion? What if you don’t see yourself as a champion? Do you need to wear a disguise, or change your identity, in order to find motivation?
Being a champion is determined by what you do, not just how you feel. The act of engaging in the process—of playing the game—is what defines a champion.
To find motivation within positive quotes, step two is crucial: Remember who you are, not who you think you are. Especially in a fleeting moment of doubt. (Remember, thoughts come and go, and you are not your thoughts). What if you possess more potential and capability than you realize? Maybe there is a champion inside of you and you just don’t know it yet. Consider the difference between exploration and obligation. In the context of exploration, a positive quote can point towards new possibility regardless of our moods.
Gurus, Positive Quotes and Real Motivation
Step three is simple: Take action. And if you want to go to the advanced class on motivation, take massive action. Overwhelm your problems.
That’s right: give your problems the kind of overwhelm that they have been giving you. Take massive and multi-layered levels of action to conquer what you are facing.
Curious how to do that? Imagine what “massive action” might look like to a neutral third party, a bona fide genius, or an emotionless robot, placed in your same situation. If resources are keeping you from massive action, get motivated around finding those resources.
The evidence of powerful positive quotes is found when those positive quotations remind us what is missing. A sailor does not give up or scream at the sky when the wind shifts. That sailor does what needs to be done, adjusting the sails and even sailing into the wind. Positive quotes allow you to shift your mindset and recognize that you have the capacity to keep moving forward. That can be a powerful reminder when the winds are changing.
Here are three of my favorite positive quotes:
“The past reminds us, it does not define us.” – Author unknown
“It’s never too late to be who you might have been.” – George Eliot, author of Silas Marner (real name: Mary Ann Evans)
“Never look back, unless you are planning to go that way.” – Henry David Thoreau, American philosopher
Like a sailor when the wind shifts, you can maneuver your sails, get out the oars, or maybe even fire up that 250 horsepower motor…and you can keep going. When you accept what is, remember what you want, and take massive action, you have all the motivation you need. And you can quote me on that.