"𝐓𝐨𝐱𝐢𝐜 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲." Someone said this in a team meeting at Eloomin this week, and it hit me hard. Because how often do we mistake 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬?
It’s telling ourselves that everything will be okay, even when the signs are pointing in the opposite direction. It’s believing that optimism alone will solve our problems, without facing the underlying issues.
Like any bad relationship, it started with small lies I told myself:
"This is just a rough patch. It’ll get better." "I just need to stay positive." "If I work hard enough, things will fall into place." Sound familiar?
I didn’t notice the red flags, not when a project I believed in wasn’t landing, not when I kept getting rejection emails, not when user feedback clearly pointed out flaws I didn’t want to see.
I kept telling myself that optimism would fix it. That if I just believed in it enough, the outcome would change.
It didn’t.
And that’s when I learned: Toxic positivity ignores reality.
We do this all the time, at work, in job searches, in product launches, in relationships. We tell ourselves:
"It’s just a slow start!" when all the data says it’s not. "Something will work out!" instead of adjusting our strategy. "I just need to stay positive." when what we really need is to face the truth. I'm constantly changing my strategies when things don't work out, I try numerous methodologies to face my reality and I wish I had realized this sooner, t𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐡𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐬𝐧’𝐭 𝐧𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐭𝐲, 𝐢𝐭’𝐬 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐭𝐡.
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