What Is Optimism And How To Increase It
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I consider myself an optimist. This is my nature and definitely something I have consciously cultivated for a big portion of my adult life. In fact, pessimistic people drain me, and I tend to considerably limit the time I spend with them.
I also have high reality testing resulting in realistic optimism. This means that I can see the obstacles and challenges for what they are and decide that I will learn from them and find a way to overcome them, instead of going down the spiral of self-deprecation, guilt, and negativity.
Let us not confuse optimism with toxic positivity, which dismisses negative emotions with false reassurances.
Deciding to take a positive, expansive perspective on life does not mean that we do not experience stress, sadness, frustration, anger, grief. It means that we learn tools to process stress-related emotions faster, dust ourselves off, and continue pursuing our life’s mission.
What is optimism?
In the book The EQ Edge, Doctors Steven J. Stein and Howard E. Book define optimism as the ability to look at the brighter side of life and to maintain a positive attitude even in the face of adversity. It involves remaining hopeful and resilient, despite occasional setbacks. It’s not a tendency to believe that things are going to turn out for the best no matter what. Nor is it the capacity to indulge in a perpetual pep talk. Rather, it’s the ability to stop thinking or saying destructive things about yourself and the world around you, especially when you’re suffering personal setbacks.
Optimism is a frame of mind and especially when combined with reality testing it can help us take the lessons and wisdom of every situation especially when the outcome is not the one we wanted.
How do I know if I am an optimist?
If you can answer ‘always’ or ‘almost always’ to these statements, then you have high optimism:
- I stay positive even when things get difficult.
- I am optimistic.
- I am hopeful about the future.
- I see the best in people.
- I have good thoughts about the future.
- I expect things to turn all right, despite setbacks from time to time.
- I have a positive outlook.
If you can answer ‘never’ or ‘almost never’ to this statement, then you have high optimism:
- I expect the worst.
How can I increase my optimism?
Mind your self-talk
I am a firm believer that words matter. They matter to other people and equally importantly to us. If we use language associated with blame, stress, darkness, those are the emotions and thoughts we will evoke.
If, on the other hand, we use encouraging, expansive, growth-related words, those are the thoughts and emotions we will have.
Let us imagine that you did not get the job you wanted. A pessimistic perspective would be to tell yourself ‘this always happens to me; I will never be promoted, I suck!’
An optimistic perspective would sound like ‘this sucks! I really wanted that job. It was not convenient for me at this moment. There will be other jobs and now I have more information and practice after these rounds of interviews.’
Both people may be equally frustrated. The optimist can see the result as part of the experience and not as part of his or her identity (‘this sucks’ vs. ‘I suck’) and use it to inform his or her approach for the next interview.
Start paying attention to the words you tell yourself. If you would say them to someone else aloud, then they are probably fine. If you would be appalled if you ever told your friend or family member these words, give yourself the same treatment and modify them.
Practice gratitude
As you know, the brain’s main purpose is to keep us alive. To do that, it is wired to see all the possible threats around us – the default is a negative perspective. This was imperative when we were roaming in the jungle, tundra, or forest, looking for food and fighting to not be food.
Practicing gratitude is a proven approach to counterbalance this setup of our brain. By looking for things to be thankful for, we force our brain to look for positive things around us. Think about the cup of coffee or tea you had this morning; be thankful for having water and a device to heat it up, for having that specific coffee or tea available to you.
Start with being thankful for one thing in your day and build from there.
Put negative thoughts on hold
This is a neat trick to stop our mind from going down the spiral of negativity, blame, frustration.
This is how it works: when you have a stress-related thought such as ‘my boss is a jerk’ or ‘I am such an idiot; I can’t believe I lost that client!’, write it down. Then, schedule time in the next 24 hours to handle those thoughts.
Deciding to deal with those thoughts later has two key advantages. First, by not continuing the negative thought process you stop at the first thought. Otherwise, you would continue piling thought after thought ad infinitum to the point of putting yourself in a dark mood unnecessarily.
Second, it allows you to cool down and see the situation more objectively. Instead of ‘my boss is a jerk’ you may end up with ‘I think John was having a difficult day; he used harsh language that I did not like, and I will talk to him about it. I don’t think this was not about me.’
“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.” Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Optimism is a frame of mind that can be learned, cultivated, and improved by tricking our brain from its default wiring.
Imagine how much easier our collective lives would be if more people worked on improving their levels of optimism. We would have more experimentation at work, ‘failure’ would not be devastating, and we would have more access to our creativity thus boosting innovation and performance.
What do you do to increase your optimism? Please, let us know in the comments.
As a leadership coach, I enable talent to achieve bold goals with high standards. My mission is to help underrepresented women in the financial industry transition from mid to senior level leadership positions by creating awareness, increasing emotional intelligence, and unveiling the tools and choices available to them.