Three strikes of positivity

ANNA BONET, FEATURES WRITER

We all have an inner critic – a voice that tells us we’re not good enough – and mine can be pretty loud. I try to overcome this with a mind trick used in positive psychology. Every time you say or think something negative about yourself or a situation (such as ‘I’m no good at this’), you counter it with three positive things (for example: ‘I always try my best’, ‘I completed all my work this morning’ and ‘the sun is shining’). The idea is that we all have an innate negativity bias, which is why we feel the pain of criticism more deeply than the boost of praise, so it takes three positive thoughts to balance out a single negative one. Ever since I put this into practice, I’ve turned down the volume on my inner critic and enhanced my optimism.