Negative outlooks and negative thinking is something that tends to fester and become like a self feeding mechanism in terms of our thinking and outlook.

Negative thinking can be attributed to any number of things. It can for as an accumulation of experiences and outlooks that begin to add up and into barriers but whatever the cause a major effect is the correlate formations of limited thinking and ceiling thinking, where I think that I can only go so far on all fronts based on the way things are going now. This kind of situational thinking can be accentuated and exacerbated by the repetitiveness of a real situation someone might be in that keeps unfolding in similar fashion and the interpretation on that becomes that things have to be this way, when in fact that might be false only if another way of thinking can be found and executed on.

The net of all this is that the person is dealing not only with negative thinking but seeming limitations around this thinking. The glass ceiling is getting really low.

Therefore it is difficult just to say, think positive and then figure that this will bring you somewhat out of and away from the negativity. It is not only negativity that is involved but also perceived limitations that are related to the negative view. With in this situation there also would need to be recognitions of the limited thinking that has also formed and in some ways is now a self imposed barrier.

Analysis then needs to be done as to what the limitation seems to specifically be based on and why. The negativity needs to be addressed on more than one front to really be able to cope with it and possibly reverse it in practical ways. Each rock that negativity stands on needs to be unturned and looked under for a real snake. Otherwise, there is a false fear and false stepping stone to negativity that has become operative and therefore real in forming limitations and barriers.

The exact situation and circumstance this is the subject of the negativity needs to be looked at also for the locations of the limitations within the negativity. While the limitation might be located in say one or two aspects of a situation, it might lead to a fuller permeation of the circumstance to where it becomes an overall blocking mechanism to going forward in a possible pursuit. The barrier reef blocks access to the whole island.

You do see for example advertisements on TV for products to help people with their hair. It someone feels that their hair isn't that great, that becomes a negative view and the ultimate problem is that it might complete a negative view, rather than being just a partial view that you can shake off. But something as simple as that might get into a possible contemplated scenario of say going out on a date with someone new and even though any number of other aspects of this can potentially go well if the person does actually proceed, they might find that the negativity about the hair clouds there whole view of how the date might go, and therefore becomes an actual limitation on their willingness to try the date.

This example shows how a relatively small thing, a general dissatisfaction with ones hair and how it might look, could extend further into negative realms of thinking that just blooms and also festers into a perceived limitation that subsequently affect actions that now may not be taken because of this possibly warped manner of thinking. What is happening here is that one stepping stone to the negative and the limitations and barriers that are found there, has tipped the scales and just about overruled all the positives of the situation that are yet in the realm of potential positives that could be found is you proceed forward. Therefore the individual needs to get off the stepping stone of the bad hair and how they feel about it, at least for this moment, so they will actually go on the date and let potential positives actualize and become a reality and then by letting the positives come into view, the evaluation process becomes more objectified in reality and balanced into possibilities that work.

There can be a strong self connection and cross connection between negative thinking and perceived limitations from that.

The negativity becomes like a swirling dust storm going in all directions when it could have been contained and limited to one or two directions.

The limitations often come from perceptions that form into real blocks in possible pathways that otherwise still could be explored to a degree and intensified within the exploration process.

This is why it is not always enough just to say I can think positive to reverse the situational thinking of being in negative mindsets and outlooks as there might be a tendency to have gotten almost totally lost in the clouds of negativity.

While it is important to begin to think positive, and this is part of the process that needs to be found and gone into, it is also necessary to see that there are correlate limitations that have formed around these issues with having the negativity. You someone need to scrap the barnacles of negativity off as they have become attached viewpoints.  And therefore confronting negativity also involves confronting limitations that arise from the negativity or involve crosswinds of negativity where any possible direction seems ultimately hindered in the crosswinds.

And these limitations that build up can be what is being bumped into as you begin to go forward and it might be the real bump in road as much as anything else as perceptions form into realities. Of course you can expect bumps in the road but the biggest bumps might be your own thinking on this and therefore a highly reactionary tone to relatively smaller obstacles even if you do proceed.

The reason why this is such a big deal, is that negativity on just one level can affect many levels of thinking on a particular approach to things, to where the one thing becomes predominant in terms of how it affects your outlook and approach. The negativity or perceived inadequacy really, becomes a complete hindrance to proceeding and then finding that there also might be some positives involved with this even though indeed some of the ideas of negativity are there that have a basis in reality.  Therefore, you cancel out all possible positives by heeding the negative sirens, those voices which drown out any positive ring tones that could still be heard.

A major process needs to be done is to sift through the negative and the positive as it seems to relate and then try and pre identify both. This is helpful because the negative tends to crowd out the positive to where you can't even see the positive that is actually there and part of the presenting raw material of what could be worked with. There is this idea, that there are some positives. While the perception of negativity might have some accuracy, this perception can thwart the search for remaining potential positives, and hence the limitations are amplified even further into the negativity. In a sense, the negativity is given the final say, not just a say, but the whole say on the situation.

From this situation, what you might want to do is limit the overall scope of what you are trying to do before or until more positive feelings, thoughts and outlooks can be found and worked with. This is not that same as imposing more true limitations but it is a matter of lessening the scope so at least you can get a starters view on the situation without all the negativity rushing or rampaging in as to what could really go wrong if you go into this big time.

So someone starting out writing a novel, then highly criticizing it their own work, could say I'll go 10 pages of writing without doing any critical review of it on my part.

Give yourself some critical free zones to operate in, where you don't give negative reviews and hold off in fact on any reviews of the matter.

But this wouldn't always be the rule either as sometimes you need as well to leap frog over the negativity altogether and lump it all away totally and get into a grander vision of what could be possible and forget about those limitations that are always wrapped up in window dressing of even further negativity.

This can be momentary in terms of how it is done, and it may not be sustainable in your thinking but you can allow for momentary considerations and views where all the negativity is lifted and these icebergs in your waters are blotted out for the moment so you could see what could possibly be beyond them. This from your point of view might be a make believe exercise but it is still useful in getting yourself to think about things beyond the barriers or limitations.

This could be establishing temporary "limitation free zones" and in part this might be a fictional exercise but it is still useful for the purposes of getting past barriers and seeing into the other side for some real positives that can be made manifest in reality.

But getting back to the dating example, it might be very possible despite your bad hair day, to be able to sit down with someone new and have a good and interesting conversation with some degree of mutual attraction. Beyond the barrier of bad hair, there can still be good conversations and mutual exchanges of interest and hope on the date.

A way that negative thinking can come in on this from afar is by trying to project this over the long term and maybe having bumps from a far away road of where this relationship could be in the unseen future come back in time and place to the present and make this scene more limited for the present. The possible future bumps in the road then cascade all the way back into the present and yet there might be some good sails that can be had from this situation had not the barriers of imagined future difficulties been so predominant in your current viewpoint.

Where you want to go seems like a whole other world, and just that thought overwhelms you and the slightest negativity interjected into that becomes nuanced into a no as you gather in the floating feathers of those wind draped negative views that are lightweight but when gathered even feathers have some real weight.

You may not want to go someplace or do something because it seems so unfamiliar and you are relatively frozen in the familiar. But the testing process of this, if viewed with negativity, can bring about barriers that would prevent positive exploration or finding something both new and positive.

Establish neutral or zone free testing scenarios, where you suspend evaluation while the testing of something unfamiliar is being made.

There can be positive stepping stones to somewhere but there can also be negative stopping stones and to reverse this negative process each of these negative stepping stones needs to be identified and eliminated. Essentially you need to step back and off these negative stepping stones first as it might be too big of a leap from the negative stepping stone straight across the brook to the positive stepping stone.

There doesn't have to be an overall strikeout on things.

Barriers can be crossed.

Indeed there are still potentials to be found and identified and sought out.

You can still potentially hit a home run despite all the strikeouts of the past and the barriers that they have formed in your thinking.