Positive thinking can result in negative outcome if it is not translated into actions

Positive thinking is a conventional wisdom that has been used to achieve a positive outcome. The idea is if you imagine on something positive, you'll get rid of any of the negative thoughts that may inhibit you from achieving the intended goals, hence achieving positive outcome.

Unfortunately many people would stop on the imagination step and not pursue the intended goal, because it feels good in the short term. In the long term, you will feel demotivated as you wouldn't see any progress, resulting in a negative outcome. This is not to say that positive thinking is bad as it is still a good way to start something, the emphasis here is you should not stop on the imagination step (When you know your sickness, you are halfway cured). You have to translate them into actions, because Workflow trumps willpower.

---

References

Want To Be Happier? Evidence-Based Tricks To Get You There | Life Kit (opens new window) (Transcript (opens new window))

And when you dig into the science as Gabriele and her colleagues have done, what you find is that positive thinking isn't just neutral. It can actively hurt. So she finds that people who positively fantasize about weight loss end up losing the least weight. People who positively fantasize about getting better after, say, like a hip surgery actually do the worst. And so it's not so much that it's, like, futile. It's, like, actively bad for us in ways that we - our minds just don't expect.

Ahrens, How to Take Smart Notes (p. 142)

We know from sports hat it doesn't help when athletes imagine themselves as winners of a race, but it makes a big difference if they imagine all the training that is necessary to be able to win. Having a more realistic idea in mind not only helps them to perform better, it also boosts their motivation (Singer et al. 2001). We know today that this is not only true for athletes, but for any work that needs effort and endurance (Pham and Taylor 1999). Writing definitely belongs in this category.