That's an interesting take you have on realism affecting the understanding and acceptance of a situation whilst the reaction occurs afterwards. I think people can be both realistic and positive at the same time but sometimes being realistic prevents positivity because the outcomes seems far out of reach. Our own judgement of what is realistic and what is not is so often wrong that in many cases the question can be asked: why be realistic at all if we are so often wrong? If you want something badly then just go and get it no matter what.

There must have been many successful people in all walks of life (business, entertainment, sport) who were told growing up or in their early careers that making it to the very top was not realistic. The chances were stacked against them. By being almost blindly positive though they reached their goals.

Ok, levitating or turning water into wine may be a little far fetched but in the vast majority of cases I think only the smallest dose of realism is needed to achieve something. Positivity far outweighs it.

I have not read that book but may have to give it a go. It sounds interesting.

There does need to be the smallest dose of realism…but it can be very, very small. Realism causes fear amongst many people. I’m sure everyone has achieved things which have surprised them and which did not seem realistic before hand. Everyone has had that moment when they said “I never thought we could do that”. I honestly feel that being realistic holds many people back from achieving what they are truely capable of. The people that are called crazy and are told that their ideas are unrealistic often go onto to make the biggest changes of all. There are many people who fail at these attempts too but in a lot of cases being realistic can be the same as standing still – change does not occur.

There is no simple formula to this but if I wanted someone to get something done that even I doubted was possible, I would hope the person doing it would have masses of positivity rather than my dose of realism. There is a chance it may happen then.

I will try and get hold of that book though!

I would be interested to hear if anyone knows of any “negative” people that have risen to high positions of power or success? I certainly can't think of any. I think that if you spoke to any highly successful sportsmen or women, they would probably tell you that positivity is one of the most important characteristics. As would businessmen, actors, politicians, doctors, nurses, teachers and so on…

I would be very careful though when saying that being realistic is as bad as being negative. I think being realistic in this sense is the acceptance that you are in a difficult situation, but negativity is the way you react to that acceptance. I think it is entirely possible to be positive whilst being realistic. I may be wrong though, I am definitely not a psychologist!

Yours positively,
Jed

I'm not sure I fully agree with your assertion that realism is almost as bad as being negative. Our optimism and positivity should always be in touch with the real world IMHO. Have you read Jeffrey Gitomer's book The Little Gold Book of Yes! Attitude, Robert? It really captures the balance between being positive and reaching for the stars at the same time, I feel.