Finding Neutral
Trevor Moawad, a mental conditioning expert (kids, you can do anything if you make up a title for it…), met his future in-laws a few years back and they remarked at how positive he was, like it was some strange wound on his forehead. When they asked him if positive thinking really works, his answer was simple, “Well, I know negative thinking does.” He’s right. Just look at how most of us gravitate to the bad news, scan the internet for headlines that hint at negativity and conflict or worry about people or things we have no control over.
Negative thinking is undefeated.
However, Moawad also spoke about positive thinking and how that is actually a dangerous place to live, also. Positive thinking, that mental world where anything is possible and achievable can actually create a fair amount of anxiety and self-inflicted pressure. It can set us up for disappointment when we don’t get the job that we convinced ourselves we’d snag or miss the mark on a personal goal we set for ourselves.
So what the hell do we do now? Negative thinking works and positive thinking leaves can us in a pit of despair if we miss the mark. Well, Moawad (who works closely with NFL QB Russell Wilson) has coined “neutral thinking”: idea that is more “non-negative” than positive thinking. He says that we are hard-wired for negativity. Our brain stems are always calculating what can harm us and what bad might happen. It’s a survival mechanism. The negative thinking caveman outlasted the positive thinker.
In an ESPN article, Moawad says, "And so early on, we taught these concepts around non-negativity, and then eventually we came to the idea of neutral thinking and neutral behavior, which is a recognition that the past happened, but the past isn't predictive. Your next behavior is predictive."
I’ve heard Nick Saban, who has Moawad work with his Alabama football team, say that the scoreboard is a snapshot of the game. It’s not predicting what will happen, it’s simply telling him what has happened up to that moment. The before and after are only connected if you want them to be.
Obviously, sports are a neat and tidy area for this type of thinking. It’s boiled down to a fixed set of time. The game ends and the the next one begins down the road. But this thinking has to exist for Russell Wilson every day. He has to wake up after a loss, accept the loss, and then not allow it to predict his performance on that day. He has to see that his behavior, what he does and what he doesn’t do, is going to set him up to compete at the level he desires.
In my interview with Matt Parziale said he doesn’t set goals anymore. Matt is a highly competitive amateur golfer who plays in tons of events each year, some among professionals. He told me that setting a goal to win a tournament is silly. Everyone shows up hoping or wanting to win. Instead, he focuses on just hitting a golf ball. He allows negative thoughts to enter his mind and then drift away. He’s not fighting them with positive thoughts; he argues that wastes his energy on the course. “Your thoughts are fake,” was a quote that stood out to me during our conversation.
We’re living in a time period when negative thinking is an economy. Turn on the news and it’s there. Open up social media and it’s there. I think people are overwhelmed and exhausted right now because of a million things: An election, a pandemic, racial tension, jobs, kids, not seeing family. We try with all our might to fight off the negative with the positive, and maybe that’s adding to our exhaustion. We can make choices to avoid the negative things in our life that make us think negatively (no cable news or no social media). We can also stop trying to overcome the negative with overly positive thinking because I think it also can drive us crazy.
Instead, we can talk and think like Russell Wilson did when the his Seattle Seahawks were down 16-0 to the Green Bay Packers in the 2016 playoffs and came back to win in overtime.
Here’s how Moawad describes it in the ESPN piece:
"If Russell is positive in that situation, he's constantly talking -- 'We're going to beat Green Bay. We're going to beat Green Bay' -- because much of positive thinking is connected to outcomes. Neutral thinking is truth-based thinking focused on behaviors, and Russell's language is all about competing. There's time. He's not pretending that he didn't throw four picks. But what he's being very clear of is there's still five minutes left. And that's the truth, and even the most skeptical people recognize that that five minutes has not happened yet, so how are we going to play those five minutes? And we don't have to concede those five minutes because of the first 55 minutes."
It’s a fascinating topic and I plan on reading Moawad’s book It Takes What it Takes in the near future. But until then, I’ll certainly be thinking about the mindset I put myself in each day and what behaviors I can eliminate to make life just a little bit easier.