There’s a lot of talk about toxic positivity vs optimism these days. Toxic positivity is an overly positive outlook on life that has been around for decades. But now, more and more people have become aware of the difference between toxic positivity vs optimism. Toxic positivity is a term used to describe a person with an extreme, unhealthy level of optimism. They have often seen as someone who is pessimistic.
However, while there are many similarities between these two types (toxic positivity and optimism) of people, they aren’t all that similar. Quite a lot separates them from one another both physically and emotionally. Toxic Positivity vs Optimism. What’s the big deal? Let’s see because It’s your life.
Table of Contents
What Is Toxic Positivity?
Toxic Positivity is a belief that the world is a good place and that everyone is happy and well-intentioned. It is a term that describes the behavior of someone who is overly positive and appears overly invested in other people’s happiness and success and may seem over-involved in other people’s affairs.
In other words -Toxic positivity can also apply to people who try to be too positive. If you’re constantly telling your friends how great they are and how everyone loves them, this might be a sign that you’re unhappy with yourself and trying to cover it up.
It’s important to know when you’re feeling down on yourself and what could be causing this negative emotion. If you’re not happy with who you are as a person, then it could be hard for anyone else to love you for who you are; however, there are ways in which others can help bring out your inner strength. (Let’s talk about them later.)
Why Toxic Positivity Is Bad?
Toxic positivity has become more prevalent in recent years as people seek to avoid experiencing negative emotions and feelings. Toxic positivity can be a dangerous mindset to maintain in our modern society. It can lead us to ignore or dismiss evidence of social problems.
It can also lead us to ignore our struggles and weaknesses, instead focusing on ourselves and our achievements. It’s important to remember that no matter how much we may try to convince ourselves, the world isn’t perfect because of many injustices and inequalities in this world that need fixing.
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How Do You Recognize Toxic Positivity?
Toxic Positivity doesn’t have to be an essential part of who you are. You don’t have to be a “toxic person” — you just need to learn how to identify your toxic positivity and how to break free from it.
Here are some ways:
1. You’re Putting Yourself Down
You’re not being positive but putting yourself down because you overly put so many positive expectations rather than facing negativity in your life. It’s a very important distinction. If you’re talking about yourself, stop doing that. It’s not healthy for your mind or spirit. As that will eventually drain your energy and make you feel like crap.
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2. You’re Repeating Yourself
You can’t change the world if you only talk about the good things that have happened to you, or how everything is awesome right now. No one wants to hear that all day long. They just want to know what’s next for them in their lives whether it’s a new job, a new relationship or even just getting out of bed in the morning energy. They want something fresh and exciting from you every single day of their lives.
So, stop repeating yourself over and over again. You know better than anyone else in the world what needs fixing in your life right now; speak from that place again and again until people start believing it’s true for themselves.
3. You Worry Too Much
You might feel like you have to do everything perfectly, but there’s nothing wrong with taking things one day at a time instead of trying to control everything at once. It’s important to remember that our worries aren’t real. They just make us feel bad about ourselves because we think we’ve failed as human beings if we don’t achieve perfection every single day.
4. You Give Too Much Validation.
If someone asks how your day was at work, and you tell them everything went great, did well at school today, etc., Even if they don’t ask for more details about these events themselves. But you try to give too much validation about yourself whether it is true or not that your day exactly went well.
5. You Don’t Take Criticism Well
When someone criticizes your behavior or attitude, it can be hard not to take it personally or feel attacked. But instead of getting defensive and angry, try taking criticism as an opportunity for growth: Ask them what they’d like from this experience, and then work on making improvements in the way they suggest( but only if you feel that there’s a need to improve something
This way, they’ll feel supported rather than criticized.
6. You’re Constantly Trying to Please Everyone
You may think being positive and happy is the best way to get people to like you, but it’s the worst. If you try too hard to be positive and nice – people will start to see you as needy and desperate for approval. Worse still, if you keep giving people a reason to dislike you, they’ll have even less incentive to like you in the first place.
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7. You’re Too Hard on Yourself
Being positive can be hard work, but it’s worth the effort when you see the results of your hard work in your life a happy marriage, a successful career, and so on. Don’t try to do everything once. Try to focus on what you can control (your habits) and let go of everything else as well as possible.
What Is Optimism?
Optimism is the belief that things will turn out well, regardless of what has happened in the past. Optimism is a positive, adaptive emotion that can help you overcome challenges and achieve your goals. The word “optimism” comes from the Latin word “Optimus,” which means “best.”
Optimism is an essential factor in achieving success because it enables you to see opportunities where others see obstacles. If you have an optimistic outlook, you may be more likely to take risks, ignore threats and accept setbacks as temporary.
A person with optimistic beliefs can also look on the bright side of things even when things are not going well for them or personally because they believe that things will get better.
It’s also important to be optimistic about things that don’t matter as much, such as your finances or job security. If you’re pessimistic about these things, you’ll have a harder time making plans and sticking with them when they are difficult.
How Can You Be an Optimist Without Being a Toxic Positivist?
Optimism is a positive, constructive, and affirmative attitude toward life. It is not just only a passive belief that everything will turn out well in the end, but rather a realistic expectation of good things happening. By identifying your strengths, setting goals, and working towards them, you can be an optimist without being a toxic positivist.
Optimism – you can see the best in people and situations and believe that you can overcome any obstacle you may face.
Toxic optimism – If someone is over-optimistic, they will be ended up being toxic in their approach to life. This can lead to unrealistic expectations, which in turn can cause disappointment and anger as they don’t live up to their standards.
Toxic Positivity vs Optimism
Difference Between Toxic Positivity and Optimism.
The main difference between toxic positivity and optimism is that toxic positivity is more than just being optimistic. Toxic positivity has a negative impact on the person who has it.
| Toxic Positivity | Optimism |
|---|---|
| Type of positive thinking used to convince yourself of your importance | Type of positive thinking used to make you think positively about the things in life |
| Found in individuals who are too attached to their jobs, families, or other people | Found in individuals who have a lot of hope for themselves and the future |
| Tend to be very self-centered and sometimes introverted | Tend to be more open-minded and tolerant than toxic positivity people. |
| Views as a positive trait, but it can also see as a negative trait | Views as a positive trait, |
| Pessimistic | Constructive, and affirmative attitude toward life |
Toxic positivity is a type of positive thinking used to convince yourself of your importance and the things you do. Toxic positivity can be found in individuals who are too attached to their jobs, families, or other people. They also tend to be very self-centered and sometimes introverted.
While –
Optimism is a type of positive thinking used to make you think positively about the things in life that are good for you. Optimism can be found in individuals who have a lot of hope for themselves and the future. They also tend to be more open-minded and tolerant than toxic positivity people.
Toxic positivity views as a positive trait, but it can also see as a negative trait.
Optimistic people have the ability to see things in a positive light, while toxic people tend to see everything in a negative light.
Toxic people are not only pessimistic, but they also tend to exaggerate their fears and anxieties. It makes them insecure and unable to deal with stress or change. They may even become depressed or anxious when faced with any kind of adversity.
Toxic people often feel like they aren’t good enough, but they don’t know how to improve themselves either. They may try to control other people by telling them what they think will make them happy, but this only makes them lose control over their lives since no one else cares about what these people think.
Optimism means you are able to see the best in people and situations. You believe you can overcome any obstacle you may face.
Toxic optimism is when someone is so optimistic that they become toxic in their approach to life. It can lead to unrealistic expectations, which can cause disappointment and anger as they don’t live up to their standards.
We are all optimists. We just need to be the right kind of optimist.
The world is a good place, and we should try to make it even more than a better place. The problem is that we often don’t see the world as it is. Instead, we see through a haze of our own biases and prejudices.
This results in trouble seeing the real problems in front of us. And instead, we are focusing on beyond reality with tons of expectations.
It can make us blind to the very things that need fixing, so instead of being able to create something new and wonderful, we end up creating something that is just like everything else out there already.
Optimism without a dose of pragmatism can lead us into toxic positivity where everything goes for nothing because even if we progress on some fronts, other fronts get left behind. After all, “we’re too busy” or “we don’t have enough resources” left to go on our work.
Is Your Positivity Toxic?
I’m going to say something that may seem a little bit radical, but I want to try and give you some perspective.
I think that positivity is toxic sometimes because:
If you’re the kind of person who likes to be around positive people all the time, then you may not see it as such a bad thing. But if you think about it, there can be some negative effects of always trying to be or act positive.
First of all, when we go around being “positive” all the time, we become less capable of dealing with negative things in our lives. If something terrible happens to us, then the last thing we want is someone else to tell us how great everything is going and how lucky we are to have this experience.
That just makes us feel worse – because they’re not talking about how sorry they feel for us or giving a hand to solve the situation.
Secondly, we ended up spending more time trying to make other people happy than we try to make ourselves happy. We focus on what other people need from us rather than focusing on what we need from them (e.g., help me out here).
And if someone does something that upsets us or makes us angry, instead of reacting to that situation properly, we try to please others while hurting ourselves. So, I think to live in the reality we both need negativity and positivity no matter whether they are toxic or not.
Here are a few reasons why your positivity is toxic:
1. You may be encouraging people to think they are perfect when they aren’t.
2. By being overly positive you may be ignoring the negative things in your life that need attention.
3. If you are always saying “yes” to others and not taking care of yourself, you are neglecting your own needs and happiness.
4. It’s easy for others to take advantage of your positivity if they don’t see any negativity from you at all times.
Conclusion
All in all, I just encourage you to be honest and true to yourself. Talk about your problems, find someone to help you work through them, and don’t hold it in. The best thing you can do is build yourself up again as we’re all just human. We’re all going to fail sometimes, and that’s okay if you learn from it and keep pushing forward. Be positive, not over-positive.
References
Let’s boost your self-growth with Believe in Mind.
Interested in self-reflection tips, learning hacks, and knowing ways to calm down your mind? We offer you the best content which you have been looking for.
Let’s boost your self-growth with Believe in Mind.
Interested in self-reflection tips, learning hacks, and knowing ways to calm down your mind? We offer you the best content which you have been looking for.