Day 9: Negative Wants and Negative What-Ifs
Week 2 Diagnosis
Negative wants and negative what-ifs are the first two patterns of thinking you need to be aware of in this second week of the course. Week 1 was about seeing your self-talk clearly. Week 2 is about getting specific. Identifying the precise patterns that are working against you. Not the general ones. Yours.
Negative Wants
Negative wants are a pattern of thought that damages your ability to achieve. They take your eyes off positive things and away from any real, tangible, well-formed goal. Instead, a negative want focuses your mind on what you don’t want.
I don’t want to be overweight.
I don’t want to be unhappy.
In regards to self-talk, a negative want focuses the mind on the problem and not the solution. In doing this, the only resource the mind can find is how bad it feels having that problem, not the alternative of actually using your mental resources to find a solution instead.
The Taxi Analogy
Imagine you’re sitting in the back of a taxi and the taxi driver asks you where you want to go. Now imagine all you can do is tell the taxi driver where you don’t want to go. This is a real-world example of how a negative want is not going to get you anywhere.
Think about that for a second. You’d sound mad. Take me somewhere, but not to the station, not to the shops, not to my house, not to the park. The taxi driver would just stare at you. Because you haven’t actually told them where to go. You’ve just listed everywhere you don’t want to end up.
That’s exactly what you’re doing with your brain when you use negative wants. You’re giving it a list of things to avoid but no destination to head towards. Your brain can’t navigate on negatives. It needs a target. It needs a direction. It needs to know where you’re going, not just where you’re not going.
The Problem with Negative Focus
A negative want makes you think and dwell on the negative things around the problem. This is exactly what you don’t want to do if you want to improve the situation you’re in and especially if you want to free your mind from worry and negative self-talk.
The trick to changing this pattern is to notice what you’re wanting and make it a specific and positive want instead. Consider someone who says they don’t want to be fat anymore. That’s all they can say. They don’t want to be fat. When asked what they do want, they look confused. So ask it differently. If you woke up tomorrow and things were different, what would you be instead? Healthy? Fit? Able to run with your kids? Now you have something to work with. Not a negative want. A destination. Something your brain can actually work towards.
How to Flip a Negative Want
When you catch yourself using a negative want, ask yourself a simple question: if I don’t want that, what do I want instead? Force yourself to answer in positive terms. Not what you’re moving away from, but what you’re moving towards.
I don’t want to be unhappy becomes I want to feel content. I don’t want to be broke becomes I want to be financially stable. I don’t want to be lonely becomes I want meaningful connections.
Same destination, different framing. But that framing makes all the difference to your brain. Because now it has something to work towards. Now it can start finding resources, making plans, taking action. All the things it couldn’t do when you were just telling it what to avoid.
Negative What-Ifs
The second pattern is negative what-ifs. A negative what-if is the pattern we use when we’re worrying about an untoward event that could happen in the future.
What if I fail?
What if she says no?
What if I miss?
What if I don’t do it?
When your self-talk uses negative what-ifs, it causes you to think of a bad or even the worst possible outcome that could happen. Often if those worries stick, you fail to take opportunity just because something bad, however unlikely, may happen in the future.
Negative what-ifs make you feel like you’ve failed before you’ve even tried.
The Catastrophisation Spiral
In the most extreme form, a negative what-if turns into catastrophisation, where you mentally worry your way towards the worst possible scenario.
I made a mistake, that means I’m going to get fired. I’ll never work again. Then I’ll lose my house and my partner is going to leave me.
See how it works? One small thing cascades into disaster after disaster, each one more unlikely than the last. But in your head, when you’re in that negative what-if spiral, each step feels inevitable. Each catastrophe feels certain.
Your brain doesn’t distinguish between solving a real problem and solving a hypothetical disaster scenario. To your brain, they’re both puzzles. Both need working through. Both feel productive. Except one actually helps you and the other just makes you anxious.
The danger with negative what-ifs is they feel like preparation. They feel like you’re being smart, being cautious, thinking ahead. But you’re not. You’re just rehearsing failure. You’re practising anxiety. You’re training your brain to expect the worst.
Flipping the What-If
When you catch yourself in a negative what-if, deliberately flip it to a positive what-if. What if I fail becomes what if I succeed. What if she says no becomes what if she says yes. What if it all goes wrong becomes what if it all goes right.
Your brain will resist this at first. It’ll tell you you’re being naive, unrealistic, setting yourself up for disappointment. That’s just the worry habit talking. Because here’s the thing: both scenarios are equally hypothetical. If you’re going to make up a future in your head, why make up a disaster? Why not make up a success?
Neither one is guaranteed. Neither one is real yet. But one makes you want to try and the other makes you want to hide. One opens doors and the other slams them shut before you’ve even knocked.
From Tokyo to Paris: Simone Biles and the Trust What-If
You read about Simone Biles in Day 4, where her inner voice had collapsed under pressure at Tokyo 2021. But the story didn’t end there. Biles came back to competition in 2023, and what she described about her rebuilt self-talk is a masterclass in flipping the what-if.
After Tokyo, she has spoken about rebuilding her inner voice around something like a single trust statement — not I am perfect, not nothing will go wrong, not what if this time is different, but simply trust. A deliberate choice to answer the negative what-if spiral with evidence rather than more anxiety.
When a negative what-if says what if the twisties come back, a trust statement like that cuts through it. Not by pretending the fear didn’t exist, but by replacing the unanswerable worry with something grounded. Something short, specific, and evidence-based. A statement earned through years of preparation, rather than borrowed from nowhere.
That’s what flipping the what-if actually looks like in practice. It’s not toxic positivity and it’s not denial. It’s choosing a different question to answer. One that your brain can actually do something useful with. Biles went on to win three gold medals and one silver at the 2024 Paris Olympics. The negative what-ifs didn’t disappear. She just stopped letting them be the loudest voice in the room.
Practical Application
For now, just start noticing. Notice when you’re using negative wants. Notice when you’re what-iffing. Don’t try to change them yet. Just notice. Because awareness is the first step. You can’t change a pattern you don’t recognise.
Keep a mental tally. How many times today did you tell yourself what you don’t want instead of what you do want? How many times did you what-if yourself into anxiety? Just notice. Just count.
Because once you start noticing, you can’t un-notice. Once you’re aware of these patterns, you’ll catch yourself mid-sentence. I don’t want to… wait, no. I do want to… That’s the moment of change. That’s where it starts.
References
- Beck, A.T. (1979). Cognitive Therapy of Depression. Guilford Press.
- Bandler, R. & Grinder, J. (1979). Frogs into Princes: Neuro Linguistic Programming. Real People Press.
- Burns, D.D. (1980). Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. William Morrow.
- Borkovec, T.D., & Inz, J. (1990). The nature of worry in generalised anxiety disorder. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 28(2), 153-158.
- Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
- LeDoux, J. (1996). The Emotional Brain. Simon & Schuster.
- Neff, K. (2011). Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself. William Morrow.
- Sapolsky, R.M. (2004). Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. Henry Holt.
- Seligman, M.E.P. (1991). Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life. Knopf.