Definition of Optimism
-hopefulness and confidence about the future or the successful outcome of something
Quotes
“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”
“I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.”
Importance of Optimism
Never flock with the failures, always go with the winners. Avoid black-and-white statements. Your thoughts, attitudes form your acts and the results. You must believe in what you do, in what you want. You must believe that you can succeed and you will. All the forces of the Universe will join to help you to get what you want if you believe it.
If you are a person who is looking forward to a life “half-full” rather than “half empty,” you will have a better chance of obtaining more life satisfaction and enjoyment
Examples of Optimism
Examples may help you understand how to change from pessimism to optimism. Let’s say you are worried about a problem at work and your stress causes you to feel anxious and depressed. The more you think about this problem, the more you worry about losing your job. Anxiety and depression have this tendency to become cyclical and self-perpetuating. In this anxious state, you become even more pessimistic and feel the situation is beyond your control. Now let’s try to change your outlook about this problem. The essence of anxiety and pessimism is the perception that the problem is out of your control. First it’s important to focus on what factors are possible to control. Rather than worrying about losing your job, think about the specific factors which may be causing the work problem. At this point, your outlook probably fits Seligman’s description of pessimism. You may think, for example, “I’m not smart enough” (a personal explanation), “my lack of ability affects all of my job performance” (a pervasive explanation), and “I’ll never improve” (a permanent explanation). If you can’t immediately think yourself through this pessimism, try the “best friend” technique. If your best friend was down in the dumps about this work problem, how would you help your friend cope? You probably would counter the personal explanation with a situational explanation; for example you might say, “You missed the last two deadlines, but the timelines were really tight and few people could met that goal.” You would help your friend see that the problem is not pervasive, but instead situational and likely temporary. You might help your friend focus on good job performances in the past when the deadlines were not as tight. In these ways you would be helping your friend see that the problem is not permanent and change is possible when the situation is analyzed. You might say, ” You’ve done well in the past, but since you had some problem with tight deadlines lately, you can try to make some changes such as organizing ahead of time to meet deadlines or talking to the boss about expanding job timelines.” After going through this exercise, then you can be your own best friend and talk yourself through the work issue, ending up with a specific action-oriented problem explanation leading to a positive plan to change the problem in the future. Anxiety and depression can then be put aside more easily so you can focus on the issue at hand and work to resolve the problem.
For example you have adopted a healthy eating plan to lose weight. One night you succumb to your desires and eat a large piece of chocolate cake. A pessimistic explanation of this event might cause you to feel guilty and depressed and might even cause you to give up your new diet. Your personal pessimistic explanation could be, ” Now I’ve blown it. I have no willpower”, while your permanent pessimistic explanation might be, ” I’ll never be able to keep up a healthy diet.” A pervasive pessimistic explanation could add to your misery, ” I can’ t stay away from any fattening foods. I’ll never be able to keep to a diet.” Now consider how an optimistic explanatory style could help. Your less personal or situation-specific explanation might be that, ” Well, I ate the cake at night. The problem might be the time of day. I need a healthy eating plan for nighttime when I’m less resistant to chocolate cake.” Seeing the problem as temporary, you might think, “One piece of chocolate cake is not a relapse. It was only one piece of cake and does not mean that I can’t keep away from cake in the future.” Instead of settling on a pervasive explanation, the optimistic you might narrow down the problem to chocolate cake only, having confidence in your ability to keep to the diet, just resolving to stay away from certain temptations. If the pessimist in you still wants to see eating the cake as an example of a personal failure, you can dispute the pessimistic thoughts and look at the evidence. “All I’ve done is eat one piece of cake. Instead of feeling bad about the cake, I should feel good because I followed my healthy eating plan for three days straight.” Or you can look at an alternative explanation: “I do have a weakness for chocolate cake, especially at night when I’m tired. So I’m not a failure; all I have to do is figure out a plan to keep the chocolate cake out of my house.” You can look at the implications of the adverse event. “The piece of cake is only 200 extra calories. I can make that up easily.” Additionally you can look at the usefulness of your explanation. If you keep espousing the failure explanation it will just lead to depression and guilt which will probably lead to more eating. A more useful optimistic explanation could be, ” If I think about this as just one piece of cake, I can factor 200 calories easily into my eating plan. If I keep feeling depressed, I’ll start eating just to feel better.” If you need a little more persuading you can try the “best friend” tactic. Picture your best friend who is feeling depressed because she ate some chocolate cake. What would you tell her? You’d probably take the optimistic approach, making her feel better by describing the problem as a minor transgression, helping her feel good about her dieting accomplishments thus far and strengthening her resolve to get back on her eating plan. So, why not be your own best friend? You can use this reasoning to help put the problem in perspective and move on. Once we start to feel good about ourselves, we are more able to concentrate on positive changes such as healthy eating plans. Once we realize that a lapse does not constitute a relapse, then we realize that we can occasionally make mistakes, take a mistake in stride and still make progress toward our goals.
