Reddit reviews The Positive Power Of Negative Thinking

I recommend reading The Positive Power Of Negative Thinking. It contains anxiety relieving strategies that better suit people that can be described as defensive pessimists. It can also help you understand why your strategies do not necessarily work for her.

I recommend reading The Positive Power of Negative Thinking by Julie Norem.

It's been a few years since I read it, so I don't remember it in detail, but the idea, as I recall, is that what you're describing is more of a pessimistic behavior than an introvert one. I would expect the two correlate often, but aren't necessarily linked. Simply put, pessimism is considered thinking before you act/speak, not so much the popular "glass-half-empty" concept, whereas optimism is acting/speaking before you think. When I read the book, it seemed that the research was still relatively new, and somewhat controversial, so there may be better materials available, now.

As a pessimistic introvert, the book very much resonated with me. It doesn't follow the age old idea that optimists are successful because they are optimistic, and if pessimists want to be successful, they too must be optimistic. Instead, the research showed that pessimists acting optimistically were more likely to fail, and it suggests that pessimists should embrace their pessimism, and find ways to use it to their advantage in work/society.

Anyway, it was a short book without too many psychological/research details, and was a good overview/eye-opener for me. While the details have escaped me over the years, the general idea has stuck, and I find it much easier to deal with things like having to think before I speak.

edit: mixed up a few words

I hate that non self defeatist mentality. Believing that bad things aren't inevitable is courting disaster in my opinion. From a pessimist POV such unbridled positivity borders on self delusion.