The Dangers of Abusing Positive Thinking

Perry Marshall published a great post today on his blog entitled “The Flagrant Abuse of Positive Thinking“, which is well worth a read.  He quotes Admiral James Stockdale and then provides eight precautions to prepare yourself for success:

“You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end (which you can never afford to lose) with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

Here are some wise precautions that will prepare you for adversity and ensure your success:

• Assume that vendors will be slower than they promise – and that you may have to stand on their heads to get things done (not that you should accept this if it’s going on though!)
• Assume click prices and advertising rates are going to go UP, not down
• Assume Google’s gonna slap you sooner or later, even if you’ve got the most righteous product on God’s green earth
• Assume your best source of customers could dry up with no advance notice
• Assume the buying cycle is longer than you think it is, not shorter
• Assume it’s gonna get harder to raise capital, not easier
• Assume some unforeseen problem, like a product defect, legal challenge or financial setback may pop up
• Assume your top 3 plans might not work out, so have #4 and #5 in place too

Once you’ve assumed all that and planned for it – NOW you can look forward to great success, knowing that you’ve anticipated virtually every obstacle and can make it through. Because when you put those constraints on your plan, you’ll NEED to add a magic ingredient.

We all need to have faith and belief in ourselves and that our endeavors are both worthy and achievable.  At the same time, the real challenge is negotiating the stepping stones of reality on the journey that ultimately delivers us the success we seek.  Being positive about our goals and ambitions is fine, so long as we face the realities of the journey each day along the way and move forward – one step at a time.

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