Possibility Thinking
What is possibility thinking and what can it do for you? It's kind of like taking a stroll in a beautiful meadow and thinking of all the opportunities you've not been seeing. You might think of it as positive thinking on steroids.
And it can change your life.
Norman Vincent Peale: The Father of Positive Thinking
Years ago positive thinking was the rage among self‑help gurus and was the vogue in the pop psychology culture. Once I went to hear one of the architects of the positive thinking movement, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, speak about the power of positive thinking.
Transfixed by this wonderful man’s presence and the incredible energy of his message, I found his way of thinking empowering and transforming. I had read his books and followed his career, but I was not prepared for the tremendous personal power and kindness he exuded.
I came out of that seminar a much more positive and focused thinker, feeling that my life must have potential that I hadn’t yet envisioned.
A few years later, in graduate school, I learned the importance of thinking logically and healthfully. I became a cognitive therapist who specialized in helping clients adjust their faulty thinking patterns and to think more rationally.
This experience helped me to become even more positive in my thoughts and actions. I stopped interpreting events in derogatory ways, based on illogical and negative assumptions, and learned to think clearly and constructively about them. Without realizing it, I was getting closer to grasping possibility thinking.
In time, I began to think in a way that highlighted the search for the hidden possibilities in a given context and learned to re-frame the most stubborn problems as opportunities in disguise. Slowly but surely, I was moving closer to real possibility thinking which involves looking at situations in new and creative ways to open up unrealized pathways for change.
Possibility Thinking: Become Aware of the Hidden Possibilities
While it is important to think positively, it is equally important to go beyond positive thinking and become aware of the possibilities in every situation, viewing life not as a struggle to survive but an exciting array of challenges and opportunities.
It takes mental discipline to find the possibilities in a bad situation, but they are there. If we see the possibilities, we can view the situation in a more positive manner. By constructing more than one perspective or viewpoint, we can realize the potential in any situation and open the door to greater flexibility and more constructive action.
Possibility thinking starts with the conviction that you make a difference, that you are capable of doing greater and greater things. Searching for the possibilities sometimes involves the mental skill of finding options and possibilities that may be right under one’s nose. The simpler they are, the more likely they will elude us.
These possibilities become apparent when we reconfigure our interpretation of a situation, or look at an old situation with new eyes, using an opportunistic thinking style.
Possibility Thinking: A Case Illustration
A client of mine dreaded changes the administration was making at his place of employment. He disliked the supervisor, and disagreed with his policies. Each week, he saw the situation as becoming graver. Desperate, he began to look for another job.
I asked him to take a step back from the situation and to try a few different ways of viewing the changes, although he may not agree with the new perspectives.
First of all, he eventually realized that not all of the new management policies were disagreeable. For instance, the new manager allowed greater freedoms on the job and actually trusted staff more than the previous one.
Second, after taking a hard line initially, the new boss began to soften his approach in time. My client not only survived his performance evaluation, but did quite well on it, although he had anticipated the worst.
Third, my client was sure the new boss had it out for him, and interpreted several events as giving him the proof. I asked him to re‑examine each event and to scrutinize his assumptions. He found that each event could have been seen differently and realized that there was no way he could actually prove that the new manager wanted him to leave the job.
Then we got down to some bloodhound work, scenting out some new possibilities. According to my client, there were no possibilities inherent in the new job situation.
But upon revisiting the changes that were being made at work, my client began to find what he had refused to see all along. There were new possibilities for growth because of the new way things were being done. A project that he wanted to start was given the green light. This could not have happened under the old boss. As he began to see the new leader differently, more opportunities emerged — opportunities his old, inflexible way of seeing things had blocked.
It took some effort for my wonderful but discouraged client to completely surrender the old way of interpreting the changing landscape at work, but once he did so he found that he was no longer disgruntled. He decided to stay and make the most of what the new manager had to offer rather than spend his time complaining or justifying his anger.
What a trooper he was. He ended up doing great things. He had mastered his old habits and learned the secrets of making any situation work for him.
We may not like certain aspects of a particular change taking place in our lives, but if we approach it in the right way, searching for the hidden possibilities and teasing out the surprising opportunities, we will be able to make the most of the situation.
