Is positive thinking all that good? 
Yes it is. Wrong!
It's time to use a different approach.
Three weeks ago, while driving home from a friend’s party, ideas dropped in my head.
I scribbled a few ideas on my Tablet. Because I believe they were great ideas for blog posts.
My plan was to craft two blog posts from the ideas.
Publish one on my blog and the other as a guest post. As I write this post, I’ve not done anything yet.
You know why?
Positive thinking!
I said all of these to myself:
“These ideas will make a good article for my readers.” What if the topics/ideas aren’t relevant for my audience? “No it’s very relevant, they’ll love it.”
“Whether I write the post today or complete it next month, I’ll still get good results.”
“I know that my readers will read the post and choose to share it on social media networks.”
“I will always get new ideas, even if I don’t write on these.”
Did you observe how positive these statements (much like excuses) truly are?
Positive thinking can be good. I’m not saying that you should fill your mind with negative thoughts.
But the truth of the matter is that achieving success in life, particularly in driving visitors to your blog and attracting clients to your services business, you need something more than “positive thinking.”
You need to TAKE ACTION.
Okay, let’s not deviate from the title. Here are the 10 ways positive thinking is stopping you from improving your blog traffic and achieving success in life:
1. Positive thinking is “thinking”
This is the part where most content marketers and bloggers miss it.
Positive thinking is primarily “thinking.” Not acting.
When you read most self-development books and articles, you’ll see how myopic (lacking in foresight) some of the authors are. They encourage you to ‘just’ think the right thoughts and every other thing will fall into place.
Trust me; this has been the major reason why your blog is not growing. Inasmuch as you’re thinking positively, fasten your seatbelt because there is work to be done. You’ve to go out there and do the work.
2. It drains your energy
Your energy is the “forceful effort” to achieve results. When I started blogging actively in 2011, I wasted a lot of time, on trivial activities such as commenting on blogs, tweeting every now and then.
As a result of this, the energy I had that made me launch a WordPress blog disappeared.
I was literally looking for it. I thought I was prepared to fly? When you’re thinking positively and not actually doing what you MUST do, your energy (vigor) will fizzle out.
And when it fizzles, failure is imminent. Fan the flame. Don’t just think of blogging success. Go for it.
3. It gives you false belief
A report by Yale University, written by Paul Bloom and Tim P. German gives two reasons why you need to abandon “false belief,” in your life. “Who told you that simply writing articles will generate visitors to your blog?”
Didn’t you read from someone else that marketing is the ultimate key to increasing website traffic?
Listen up. Thinking that your blog will grow overtime is positive, but I like to call it “positive-negative system.”
You may be excited with that single positive thought, but you’ll not find it exciting after 6 – 12 months of running a blog – with less than 100 visitors/readers daily. Use a belief system that accepts the reality of life, and you’ll always win.
4. Positive thinking makes you lazy
You can make ideas happen starting today.
Blogging and content marketing is all about productivity. Which means achieving great results with the limited time you have.
Truth be told, positive thinking makes you lazy, because all of the excuse you sometimes give that hinders you from stepping out to build a network, write a guest post, study your audience or launch a product will only result in one outcome – complaints.
I know a lot of people who do nothing. But expect so much result to dawn on them. If you believe in luck, then understand that “Luck is for those who are prepared for opportunities before they come.”
A lazy blogger goes nowhere. The only way to gauge how great your thoughts are is when it prompts you to work and achieve results.
5. It makes you procrastinate
In line with being lazy, positive thinking also gives you a reason to procrastinate. Instead of getting to work right now, and doing the job, you put it off.
I ask a lot of bloggers why they don’t write a lot of guest posts, and their reasons sometimes make me want to puke. “I’ll write one next week.” When I’m ready I’ll start contacting A-list bloggers.”
And they never really get the chance to do it. Before you know it, they’re complaining that blogging doesn’t work.
They procrastinate. And when you procrastinate, you’ll not be able to write blog posts, research the right keywords, study the keywords to understand the intents and build strong networks with social media power users.
6. Lay in your comfort zone
Yes, "everything you want is out of your comfort zone!"
Just because your blog generates up to 1,000 daily visitors doesn’t mean it would continue like that. There are phases in every business. There was a time when my blog’s visitors grew to 1,500+ per day.
I began to rest on my laurels (achievements). I stopped updating my blog with new and in-depth posts. I no longer reply comments and engage my readers. I even stopped optimizing the once-in-a-while content that I write with long-tail keywords. How stupid I was!
My traffic slipped from 1,500+ to less than 500. Did you know why this happened?
It was because I was a positive thinker. I had read a lot of self-development books. And by the way, self-development is essential – I encourage you to discover yourself – it’s worth it.
But I rested within my comfort zone. I didn’t continue. If you want blog visitors, you’ve to be consistent. There is no shortcut.
7. Positive thinking gives you a “reason”
…to stay calm and watch things unfold. Most times, they don’t.
“I know that my topic is good, even if I didn’t promote it, they’ll still share it.”
Are you serious?
Positive thinking all by itself is worthless. Because it’ll always give you a reason to step back. You can lock yourself up in a dark room and do some Yoga. But if you don’t act on your thoughts, nothing happens.
Do you want more people to visit your blog? Do you want to avoid problem clients & attract high paying clients who will appreciate your creativity, then clear the stumps off your head (and heart). Any reason that will not make you act right now should be eliminated.
8. Positive thinking is mostly about YOU
It's not about you ANYMORE. Change your approach.
Have you ever had any positive thoughts about the other person? Hardly!
Positive thinking is too self-centered. That’s why it doesn’t favor bloggers, because everything about blogging is giving. You’ve to give and give until there is so much more left to give.
Until you remove yourself from the picture, and focus on your target audience, you’ll continually revolve around 20 – 100 daily visitors. Super bloggers like Jon Morrow, Darren Rowse, Brian Clark and Neil Patel are reckless givers. I mean, they give everything.
9. It doesn’t embrace challenges
Students at Singapore’s University didn’t build the first 3D-printed car with ease.
The faced some daring challenges. But didn’t give up or pretend.
Positive thinking hates to embrace challenges.
As a blogger and content marketer, you’re bound to experience and encounter tough challenges. It could be the challenge to build an email list or grow it. It’s a challenge to improve conversion rate. And get repeat visitors.
What about the ultimate challenge for bloggers – lack of quantity and quality visitors?
Most of the time, a positive thinker will assume there is no challenge at all. In fact, I’ve been in this particular situation, so I understand exactly what this means.
My mom once asked how my blog was doing in 2012, just a year after I started blogging. I didn’t want to break my mom’s heart, because she warned me against all of these internet marketing stuffs – and just get a job.
Everything is working fine mom. My blog is growing.” I answered.
But it was not. I lied. I was afraid of what mom would do to me, if she finds out that I’m slaving away and working 14 hours every day.
Bottom line: My dear blogger and content marketer, please accept your challenges. Don’t ignore or act sluggishly towards them.
The truth is that once you can overcome the challenge, you’ll be on top. And no matter how it comes back against you, you’ve already learned your lessons. It’s easier now to dominate and ride on the wings of the Eagle.
10. It’s the lazy pattern of blogging
Positive thinking makes you stick to the status quo (the way it has always been done).
There are several pattern used by bloggers. For example, those pro bloggers who started blogging back in 2000s followed a similar pattern. The competition was less. There were lots of topics to talk about, and enough grounds to explore.
Just by writing fresh blog posts daily or few times weekly guarantees you success. There were no facebook pages, Instagram, Pinterest and none of the list building plugins was available.
But today, blogging has totally changed. It’s now about who you connect with, and how in-depth, useful and timely your content is. No longer on the keywords you’ve on the title.
SEO has also changed. Google Hummingbird particularly made it so.
Social media marketing has remained the same. Because it has always been about connection, sharing and communicating. It was never used as a platform for direct response marketing or sales. And it’s the same thing today.
The old pattern of blogging relies heavily on writing and posting new content regularly. The new method of blogging is all about paying closer attention to understanding your target audience, and promoting your blog posts massively.
That’s how Brian Dean, Danny Iny and Gregory Ciotti grew their blogs to the point where they now live the dot com lifestyle (kind of).
What do you’ve to say?
I started this post by saying that I don’t frown at positive thinking. I love it. I embrace it. But I don’t let it get in front of TAKING ACTION. If there is only one proven formula for generating blog visitors, it’s getting out and connecting.
Pat Flynn, Derek Halpern, John Lee Demas and others are masters at taking action. Even Seth Godin, who is more or less an Icon in the blogging space, promotes his content more than any other expert that I’ve mentioned in this post.
Do these experts think positively all the time? Hardly.
Even if they do, we don’t see that. Positive thinking is abstract. It cannot be seen. It’s the result of working smart with a clear and written goal that we see.
You want more organic traffic?
Believe you can get it (positive thinking). Then research your market and write in-depth content consistently that will answer specific questions or solve definite problems for your readers.
Then go out there and promote the posts like a maniac. Your blog’s traffic will increase will. You’ll attract high paying clients, too.
What’s your take on this? Can you drive visitors to your blog through positive thinking?