28 Feb Take the 30-Day Positive Messaging Challenge
If you’ve read my posts or heard me speak then hopefully you’ll know that I’m NOT an advocate of unbridled positivity.
In fact, I’m much more of a fan of REALISTIC positivity; which is being positive as best you can BUT ALSO facing up to the realities of the world.
Positivity, in this context, can be very helpful; which is why I’m happy to share with you this Psychology Today article by Kimberly Key …
If knowledge is power, wisdom is discernment. Wisdom tends to come after experiencing life’s inevitable hard knocks. People make mistakes and learn lessons through the experience. Over time, wisdom can be gained. With this thought in mind, I found it interesting that older people have been found to respond favorably to positive health messages that are motivating over negative messages that tend to be more fear-based (Notthoff & Carstensen, 2014; Strough et al., 2015; Sullivan & Lachman, 2016). I personally wonder if this doesn’t apply to everyone. Anecdotally, I have heard that Psychology Today contributors tend to find that their positive-based posts are read more than other items. (Trending topics like narcissism remain popular because we love reading things that help us understand and validate our painful encounters with other people.) Still, if positive messages are more motivating for people who have lived longer and have generally gained more knowledge and wisdom, wouldn’t it make sense to try to employ positive messaging with others in our lives?
Being positive is not always easy. In fact, it often might seem harder than climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. For example, I was going to write a post about toxic stress and inflammation and try to implore people to adopt a number of lifestyle habits that could help. Then I thought of the positive-messaging research and how negative a post about the dangers of stress could sound. Similarly, I find myself (almost compulsively) sharing research tidbits with loved ones with the desire to “help” them. I know better; I get how this can backfire, yet the helpful information comes sometimes just comes streaming out of my mouth. I may not be as bad as Chicken Little when I’m giving these enlightened little speeches, but hopefully, you get the point. I am sharing a message steeped with consequential warnings and this is not exactly motivational and positive…
… keep reading the full & original article HERE