The positivity trap: Why being told to be happy is making us feel worse

We live in a world obsessed with being positive, where we’re told to smile more, think happy thoughts, practise gratitude, and ‘manifest’ our way out of difficulty.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? But for millions of us, the reality is exhaustion, stress, poverty and burnout. It’s no wonder so many people are miserable.

Worse still, the world has failed us, and then blamed us for it. The more we’re told to ‘stay positive’, the more we end up burying the truths we need to confront.

Don’t get me wrong, positivity can be powerful. I love optimistic people. But I found that forcing myself to be upbeat during a long, steady decline in my own happiness only made things worse.

When I hit my lowest point, it felt like I had even failed at being positive! That fake smile was the most damaging lie I could tell.

This is the positivity trap. A comfort blanket that only hides the pain we’re taught to ignore.

Many of us are not okay. We’re broke, burnt out, stressed and unwell. We’re stuck in dead-end jobs, impossible relationships and a cycle of discontent. And pretending to be grateful for all this, rather than acknowledging how bad things are. only delays the pain.

Mental health statistics bear this out. One in four people — over two billion globally — will experience a mental health issue at some point in their lives, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). Meanwhile, Gallup’s 2023 report found that over 60 per cent of workers globally are disengaged and dissatisfied at work.

Yet instead of facing these problems, we’re told it’s our own fault. That we’re not manifesting hard enough. That our attitude is wrong. That if we just stayed positive, everything would be fine.

In this climate, so-called ‘self-help’ actually becomes self-blame. I read dozens of positivity and personal development books, only to find them built on fake optimism.

They didn’t help. It was only when I stopped varnishing over the pain and embraced the darker emotions I’d always been taught to avoid that I was actually able to begin healing.

In short, it’s not about ‘getting over it’. It’s about going into it.

Think about it. We’ve been handed plasters for wounds without removing the glass beneath our feet. Many of us are still walking in pain while the systems meant to help us have failed.

My breakthrough came when I began facing my ‘negative emotions, the ones every self-help book told me to dismiss: anger, sadness, fear. I started treating them not as problems to be cured but as sources of insight and energy. In doing so, and contrary to everything you usually hear in the self-help world, I found a new path to health, fulfilment and mental freedom.

But if we keep clinging to outdated models of forced gratitude and one-size-fits-all self-help, we risk staying trapped in a loop, trying endlessly to fix ourselves when, in fact, the system is what’s broken.

Millions of us are waking up each day pretending we’re fine, hiding our truth behind vision boards, mantras and gratitude journals, while all the while silently yearning for change. It’s time we got real.

We haven’t failed. The system has failed us. Life has become one giant dollop of stress. We’re juggling debt, divorce, illness and overwork, and told to be grateful for it all.

As Churchill (supposedly) said, “You can convince some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but not all the people all of the time.”

Maybe it’s time we stopped convincing ourselves. If we can start talking honestly — from the heart, without shame — about how we really feel, we may finally begin to break free.

Angus Kennedy is a bestselling British author, speaker, media personality and the world’s first anti-self-help guru. Once dubbed the “Real-Life Willy Wonka”, he rose to media prominence as Britain’s leading chocolate expert through his work as editor of Kennedy’s Confection magazine and founder of the London Chocolate Forum. Now known as Mr Negativity, Angus is challenging the toxic positivity peddled by the self-help industry with his upcoming book, The Positivity Trap — a radical call to stop pretending that life is great and start embracing reality as it really is.

Featured Image, Belters News

Story by Angus Kennedy/ Belters News/ Female First