Power Of Optimism

Two hikers were camped out overnight in the mountains. A thunderous voice roused them from their sleep. The voice said, ''This will be the saddest day or the happiest day of your lives.'' It then instructed them to pack up their belongings, make their way to the river, gather stones in their backpacks that they couldn't look at until morning, and continue their journey, never to return to the river or the mountain again.

The hikers did as they were instructed and stumbled through the darkness to the river. They stuffed their packs with cold, wet stones and carefully trekked down the rocky trails that would lead them away from the mountain.

Shortly after sunrise, they reached a valley and decided to set up camp to rest for a while. But first, they pulled out their packs to examine the stones they'd collected from the river. To their surprise, what they'd thought were river rocks were actually diamonds and rare gems. Both hikers sat in silence, overwhelmed by the bounty before them.

The first hiker said, ''Now I know why this is the saddest day of our lives. We should've gathered more stones.''

''You must be kidding!'' the second hiker said. ''This is the happiest day of my life. Look at the wealth we attained by simply taking advantage of an opportunity that was offered to us.''

Therein lies the perfect example of the saying: ''A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.''

The word ‘optimism’ comes from the Latin word ‘optimum’ meaning ‘the best’ In psychology, optimism is a set of beliefs and traits that helps individuals in reflecting on the positive aspects of life rather than negative ones. It is a personality pattern that displays resilience and personal strength.

Based on this understanding, many of us wonder, if we can ever learn to have a positive outlook?

Learned Optimism is a concept from positive psychology by Martin Seligman who provides us a framework to cultivate a positive perspective.

Let us understand this framework which is known as 3 Ps – Personalization, Permanence, and pervasiveness and. The aim of this model is to understand how we explain the causes of the good and the bad things that happen to us.

Dr. Seligman called it an explanatory style because it's our style of explaining the good and the bad things that happen in our lives. It's our habitual and reflexive way of thinking and we can assess our explanations on three dimensions. 

The first dimension is Personalization (Source)- Internal versus External. 

So some of us, when something bad happens, our brains focus on an internal explanation for why that bad thing happened. We believe that we are the cause of that bad event, internal. Other people, when something bad happens, believe that external factors are the cause of that bad event, other people or circumstances. And so, one dimension of explanatory style is internal versus external

Internal versus external, and you could be anywhere along that continuum or spectrum.

The second dimension is Pervasiveness (Scope) - Global versus Specific. 

So when something bad happens in your life, does your brain focus on the causes of the problem that are going to lead to lots of other problems, too? 

That it's going to bleed into lots of other areas of your life? Or do you explain the causes of your setbacks as very specific causes? 

Yeah, it led to that negative outcome, but it's not going to lead to negative outcomes in every aspect of my life. 

So, the second dimension is global versus specific, and you could be anywhere along that continuum. 

The third dimension is Permanence (Time)- stable versus unstable. 

When something bad happens, does your brain tend to focus on the stable causes of the problem? 

The things that are unchangeable, that are permanent, that you can't do anything about. 

Or does your brain tend to focus on the unstable causes of the problem? The things that are fleeting and temporary, and that you can exert some control over? 

So, the third dimension is stable versus unstable, and again, you could be anywhere along that continuum.

And what Seligman says is that another way to think of optimism is, optimism is the tendency to, when bad things happen, to explain bad events as external, it's not all your fault. Unstable, that whatever caused that bad event is changeable, you could do something about it. And specific, that whatever caused that bad event is local. It's not going to negatively impact all areas of your life. 

So, optimism is external, specific, and temporary for explaining setbacks.

This model reiterates the saying, ‘Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we respond’. Our thoughts create our experiences of life, and that is why it is obvious that worrying thoughts create anxious feelings, while hopeful thoughts create hopeful feelings.

Having known the mindset of an optimist, let us uncover ways to become optimist:

1.      Use positive language: Replace words and phrases like ''impossible'' and ''I can't'' with words that emphasize strength and success: ''challenging'' and ''I must.''

2.      Create the right environment: Listen to music that uplifts you. Watch inspirational movies and shows. Read motivational books. Don't spend too much time on downbeat material. Mix it up, with a leaning toward the positive.

3.      Keep your Perspective: Understand the whole truth of the situation. You need time to process things, and when you start seeing both sides of the coin, you become relaxed, and the negative energy that surrounds you starts to fade. Avoid taking conclusion

4.      Segregate the thoughts. Stay clear on each issue instead of letting them become a jumble. When there are too many things running in your mind, then you can't think of positive thoughts. Solve one problem at a time, and meanwhile, don't think about the others. It will help you stay positive.

5.      Use if-then plan: To overcome emotional responses to situations in which we feel fear, sadness, fatigue, self-doubt, or disgust use if-then plan. Simply decide what kind of response you would like to have instead of feeling stress and make a plan that links your desired response to the situations that tend to raise your blood pressure. For instance, “If I see lots of emails in my Inbox, then I will stay calm and relaxed,” or, “If a deadline is approaching, then I will keep a cool head.”

Don’t allow the challenges of life to take away your joy. 

There are lots of reasons to complain and be miserable if that’s how you look at life.

There are lots of reasons to be enthusiastic and joyful if that’s how you look at life.

How do you look at life?