Everyone knows the power of positive thinking, but few consider the power of negative thinking. People use it, they just don’t always know they’re using it. Even if used unconsciously, it is a very powerful tool, but if you stop and think about it, it can grow in power.

What do I mean by negative thinking? In the art of painting, negative space is space that does not contain strong visual elements. In watercolor, it can be totally white space unlike the rest of the painting which is full of color. Painters like Michael Atkinson and Fran Larsen use the unpainted portions of their watercolor to frame the focal points of their images. To them, negative space can suggest fog, water, sand, or whatever else is suggested or hinted at rather than expressly stated.

The negative of fog, water, sand or whatever can be much more powerful for the imagination than the concrete details. The negative, well used, is alive and vibrates. It can be whatever the viewer wants it to be. If the details are explicit, the details may or may not be what the viewer wanted.

In business, negative thinking is not doing something. It can be silence in a negotiation. It may not be spending money on what would otherwise be an expense. It could be just saying “no” and meaning it. Not taking positive action can be very powerful when done right.

In our modern culture so much attention is placed on positive thinking that we lose the power of negative thinking because we don’t consider it. That mistake?

I tried for 30 years to quit smoking. I failed so many times that I was disgusted with myself. One day, I decided to take another approach. Instead of quitting smoking, which is a positive action that forces me to do something and stick with it forever, I decided to quit. Phew! The idea of ​​that overwhelms me. I didn’t have to do anything. All I had to do was not smoke! As long as he didn’t do anything, he was finished with tobacco.

The same goes for weight loss. Diets are hard. We have to count calories, watch what we eat, when we eat it and how much exercise we get. If we stop eating, we will lose weight!

For every positive thought that has value, there can be a reverse application of that value when viewed from another angle.