Six Steps to Optimism

The current climate is testing our resilience and optimism to the limits, but is your glass generally half-full or half-empty?

Most people tend to think their answer is set in stone, that you are, by birth, a natural optimist or a pessimist. When adversity strikes, you’ll either be shrouded by dark, stormy skies, or you’ll see the clouds parting to reveal brighter days. But I’m here to tell you that positivity is a choice, and not only that, it has a massive impact on your choices, your health, your career and your potential for the future. We need optimism more now than ever and with the vaccination numbers rising and infection rates falling - it's time to start to start lifting our heads.

This might sound like an exaggeration but having spent the last decade interviewing and working with the top performers in the world of sport and business, I’ve found there are some absolutely essential traits that they all share. Optimism is high on that list. So today, I’m going to use their advice to give you six practical strategies to start thinking more positively, so you can turn situations of fear and doubt into those of opportunity and success.

So let’s get started with the first step:

1. Understand the voice in your head

What’s the first sign of negativity? The nagging voice in your head that contaminates your thoughts and drags you into the swamp of self-doubt. You’re a failure, you’ll never be good enough, you’re going to disappoint everyone, nothing will ever get better from here.

The truth is, negativity is a natural mechanism in your brain that’s trying to keep you safe from danger. We interviewed Dr Dehra Harris, a former Medical Director and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Washington State University, who dissected negativity from a biological perspective, to help us understand why our brain bombards us with these thoughts:

“If you think about the unbelievable task of taking all the information you get in a single minute... and our amazing brains have to funnel that down into only the parts we need to remember. So one of the best ways we do that is we attach emotion to it. So when your brain's looking at all of these things to know, it can say, that one. The one when I felt afraid, or the one when I felt really happy. So it's like putting a little flag on top of an endless array of tiny little mountains of memories.

Failure, especially in a public way or something like a sport, puts a very large flag on the memory. So when your brain goes back in and it has all these experiences to recall from, it goes to the one with the really big flag.”

So negative thoughts occur because our brain is reminding us of moments of shame, embarrassment, or defeat and saying: don’t let this happen again. Our brain is trying to keep us safe but it’s our choice whether we believe it as the ‘truth’ or whether we debate it and carry on regardless.

Rather than seeing this voice as our own, we can play a simple mind game by naming it or arguing with it – perhaps it’s the voice of a negative parent, a critical teacher or even our opponent trying to keep us from playing our best game. Whatever field we’re in, this voice will remain a lifelong rival and without a game plan it’s volume and influence will grow. So let’s explore some strategies for keeping it in check. Former England cricket Captain Nasser Hussain told Sporting Edge that playing 'mind games' with himself on the morning of a big match was an essential coping strategy to handle the pressure and expectation.

This article is article is taken from Jeremy Snape's 'Inside the Mind of Champions' podcast

2. ‘Stockpile’ positivity

 Instead of trying to ignore the negative thoughts, a far more effective strategy is to acknowledge them and replace them with something more helpful. The brain, for all its complexity, struggles to focus on multiple things at once, so by feeding it something positive you can actively drown out the doubt and the pessimism. So how does it work? Neuroscientist Dr Tara Swart explains how we can defeat the negative voices:

“Our brain is really only responding to how we feel about things, not what's actually out there. So uncertainty for the future, for example, can have more negative effects on the brain than something actually going wrong. So absolutely, I believe that if you're able to reframe your thoughts and store up positive statements and stories so that as soon as you start to think something negative or anxious, you can replace that thought with a positive one. Once you're in that negative spiral, it's difficult to come up with a positive statement, but if you've got a store of them, it's easier to replace them.”

The biggest takeaway here is that perception is reality. Store up positive thoughts and reconnect with a positive story, do whatever it takes to switch the doubt in your mind. It could be thinking back to your best game in sport, your best ever sales pitch in business or your best ever exam results as a student. Maybe it's using a mantra of some keywords to switch away from that negative spiral. The common theme is taking your thinking up a level, and choosing to win that internal debate.

Dr Tara Swart - Neuroscientist shares her insights with Sporting Edge

3. Give energy out, get energy back

Being upbeat and energetic might seem like the hardest thing when you’re in a mire of negative thinking, but it could actually be the medicine you need. We sometimes call it an abundance mindset, whereby giving motivation and mentorship to other people, actually gives us more energy back than we put in. And I think we can all practice this at the moment, especially with the negative frame many of us are sitting in. It’s not about false hope but being kind to people and giving them encouragement they need – to develop the courage to move forward towards their goals. And as the people around you chase down their dreams, when we start to see them grow and make progress, then that actually inspires us in return.

It’s interesting to realise that, when we’re giving advice or coaching to other people, we’re generally so much more positive in our feedback and narrative. If a colleague or friend failed at something, you would never berate or tell them to give up. You’d give constructive feedback, encourage them to stay positive, and remind them of how good they can really be. So another strategy to take away is to talk to ourselves like we’d speak to a friend. Why should we be our own worst critic yet everyone else’s best coach?! Showing self-compassion in challenging times can only help our cause.

4. Surround yourself with optimists

The flip-side to the previous step is, of course, trying to fill your life with as much outward positivity as you can. You become most like the people you spend your time with, so it's really important to make connections that are healthy and optimistic. And even when we can’t physically spend time with people in lockdown, you can actively seek optimism by picking up great books, listening to inspirational podcasts, and speaking to those people in your network that give you a lift rather than pushing you down.

I always think back to that story of Ahmed Kathrada and how he kept his optimism in prison for 26 years with himself and his comrades, including Nelson Mandela. They knew that if they stayed hopeful, resilient and defiant in those extreme conditions of isolation, they could eventually overthrow the oppressive apartheid regime. And it was the sharing of this optimism, the ability to pick each other up when things seemed hopeless, that was the key to their resilience. And it serves as wonderful inspiration for how we should shape our own social circles. It’s important to remember, though, that Kathrada, Mandela and co had an inspirational purpose to back up that positivity. And it was their mission which ultimately served as the basis for their resilience - which brings me to step five.

Ahmed Kathrada shared his story of sacrifice, optimism and resilience with Sporting Edge.

5. Visualise the light at the end of the tunnel

Even the biggest optimists need evidence of progress. For some of us, this might be progress towards your long-term dream, or you might just be striving for a happier, healthier life. No matter your goal, it’s important we see our efforts are gradually paying off - because it’s progress that keeps us most motivated and inspired. The same applies to our journey towards optimism.

So one way to visualise our progress is to create a gratitude journal. There's very strong research on this, but also lots of anecdotal evidence from friends and family who've done it as well. The idea is very simple: every evening you write down three or four things that you were grateful for that day. For example, you might be on a dog walk and you see a nice view, or there's a positive story on the news, or one of our colleagues does something great. The idea is you’re actively bringing attention to that positive moment, because later that evening it’s going in the gratitude journal.

So over the next days or weeks, you’ll end up with 20, 30, 40 moments of gratitude to challenge the negative voice in your head. It’s evidence - on paper - that good things are happening around us. And when we reflect back over a week or month, we can start to feel much more positive that things are on the way up and we’re heading towards our goal.

6. Convert optimism into action

The final step in becoming an optimist is the most straightforward: take the advice from this article and act on it. Whether you start challenging the voice in your head, stockpile positive thoughts, or create a gratitude journal, make sure this isn’t the end of your journey. To inspire you, here’s a quote on taking action from former tennis star Annabel Croft, taken from one of our Members Club insights:

“...when I stopped playing tennis, I had no education to fall back on. I had no qualifications, nothing. But I just hit the phone and went about trying to get into the TV world or the media world, which in those days actually was quite unusual. Nowadays it's far more common. But I said, right, nothing will happen unless I make it happen. I'm going to knock on as many doors as I can and create as many opportunities for myself as I possibly can. Because if I sit at home and mope and just think negative thoughts about how depressing everything is, then nothing will happen. And I always say that to my children, you know, go out and create it because nobody's going to do it for you.”

So choosing the challenge the lifelong rival in our head will affect our choices in life. We either become helpless to the winds of change around us, or we take control and create a better life for ourselves from the inside out. Whichever option we choose, our mindset will determine our success. 

If you’d like to surround yourself with the insights from the world’s best thinkers and performers – take a look at the virtual mentors in our Sporting Edge Members Club. It’s community of positive thinkers and high performers, looking to develop our mindsets and break personal barriers to success. You’ll get access to video insights from world-class figures in sport and business, including all those quoted in the article above, as well as live learning sessions and weekly microlessons with the rest of the community. You can currently join completely half price for one month, by clicking here and using code 'LINK21' at checkout.

I look forward to welcoming you in the Members Club and that the glass in front of you is at least half full. Good Luck.