I endorse positive psychology, because its aim is to discover what makes us humans happy, and unlike conventional psychology it doesn’t focus on what makes us unhappy. That resonates with me.

Thinking about the impact of negative language and negative thinking on negative attitude….. as you do, or maybe as I do….  I realised what an extremely negative approach is promoted by the ‘trial and error’ method.

Trial and error in its essence means: learning from mistakes. Which is a very positive message. Why positive? Because it gives a great value to the mistake. It doesn’t matter you make a mistake, because it is a learning experience, which you would have missed had you done it right in the first place. However, doing it right would  not have given your the indepth understanding you gain when you first make the mistake, then have to correct it.

I know I am really picky here, but this positive message in the ‘trial and error’ approach gets totally lost in the choice of words.

I did some empirical research (meaning I just asked a few people) about their perception of trial and error, and I did not find one single person who warmed to it. ‘Hate it’, ‘Can’t stand it’, ‘Irritates me, why don’t they sort it out themselves’ and ‘Why can’t they just tell me’.

The negative feedback was crisp and clear.

If the inventor had given it thought, he could have presented a positive message that would have been embraced.

Trial and learning!

I wouldn’t mind going through that process, but it doesn’t sit well with me to go for the error! A small change has a huge impact!

How does language impact on your positivity?