The Kind of Optimism You Need in a Crisis

The kind of optimism you need in a crisis

When you have a crisis you don't need the kind of optimism that just sugarcoats everything.

It's like putting on the rose-colored glasses and looking at things like ”Oh, it's going to be all right. Let's play some Bob Marley ’Every little thing is going to be alright’”.

While I like Bob Marley, that's not really the kind of optimism we need in a crisis.

That might help us get to sleep a little bit better, maybe reduce our stress level. But when we’re in a crisis we are in optimism mode to make us prone to action.

And so you don't want to be on the pessimistic side. Where things are so bad, no matter what you do is not going to help the situation and that makes you prone to inaction for you and your team.

You don’t want to be on the overly optimistic side because then you think just whatever I'm going to do is going to work and it's all going to work out.

What about in the middle realistic optimism? The kind of optimism that you believe you can succeed but you also aren't overly Pollyanna about it.

And it means you're getting more prone to take action. You're going to plan, you're going to prepare because you know the road to success is going to be challenging.

If you set that expectation for yourself and your team. You're going to be prone to action and ultimately experience much more success.