Why a Positive Mindset Is Important When You’re Dealing with Hardship

For better or for worse, frustrating situations are an inevitable part of life. Sometimes even the best laid plans just don’t play out in practice. We’d even argue that unforeseen events and complications that pop up to throw us off track are kind of the norm.

While there are all sorts of tools and services that can help resolve everyday sources of frustration in our day-to-day lives (such as a good septic tank service, for example, and trust us we know this one firsthand), there are just as many instances when we fail to take proper action primarily due to our mindset.

Given that fact, here are some crucial reasons why keeping a positive mindset is important when you’re dealing with frustrating situations.

A negative outlook can lead to passivity through ‘learned helplessness’

“Positive thinking” sometimes gets criticized for being disingenuous and for keeping people from expressing and identifying with the full spectrum of human emotions.

While toxic positivity is definitely a thing, and it is true that refusing to acknowledge negative situations and feelings is a bad idea, the way we choose to frame things still makes all the difference.

A positive approach to a stressful situation should involve framing things in phrases such as “how can I best resolve this?” By contrast, a negative outlook all too often ends up robbing us of our agency, convincing us that there is nothing that can be done.

There’s a famous concept in psychology known as “learned helplessness,” which has been demonstrated in multiple studies over the years. The basic gist is that when subjects experience a state of helplessness often enough, they will come to act passive and helpless even in situations where they have the ability to change things.

Looking for solutions with a positive mindset is step one to helping you to avoid the passivity of learned helplessness.

Positivity can help counteract long-term mental and physical distress

There is always going to be a certain level of distress and upset that we experience on an emotional level, when our hopes or plans are frustrated. Chronically remaining in the state of sadness and stress that can result from this can lead to all sorts of negative consequences including long-term emotional and physical distress, and trickle down effects that affect to our everyday habits and relationships.

Maintaining a positive mindset where you maintain the belief that you are capable of improving your situation, thriving, and handling stress and difficulty can work wonders in terms of counteracting this distress both on a mental and physical level.

You will be able to see better solutions

Whenever you are in a frustrating situation where you can’t easily identify the best path forward, you can be sure that there are almost always other avenues you could pursue. It’s just a matter of being able to identify them, which can be difficult to do when your head isn’t in the right space. When you keep a positive and encouraging mindset in general, these good paths tend to just present themselves far more clearly and frequently.

If you remain in a negative mindset, however, we often lack the insight and creativity required for problem solving.