![]() I have been studying optimists and pessimists for the past twenty-five years. Since you believe that there is still hope and you can still try to make things better, you are more likely to do so. When you think about the causes of negative events as temporary and external you are willing to move forward and try to make things better. It is a common observation that when something good happens, some people attribute it to ‘luck’ or something external but when something bad happens, even if it is not due to their mistake, they take the blame or start overthinking. On the other hand, even if the negative event is temporary, sometimes we are so irritated or stressed that we think of it as permanent and cause ourselves more pain. ![]() These seem like little positive things we do not focus on. It could be the perfect cup of coffee you had in the morning or it could be your friend calling you to check on you or it could be someone saying something kind to you on a bad day. Now you might be wondering what if this is not always the case? What if positive events are temporary?Īs I mentioned earlier, there are many positive events in a day that go unnoticed. Optimism in a scientific way or, in a psychological context, is about thinking about negative events as temporary and external and about positive events as permanent and internal. Optimism is not about imagining what is unreal or simply believing that everything will work out fine without any conscious effort on your part. “The optimist believes that bad events have specific causes, while good events will enhance everything he does the pessimist believes that bad events have universal causes and that good events are caused by specific factors”, says Martin Seligman. Most of the time, we fail to appreciate the good in our life as our main focus is on the alarming issues or negative things. If we are completely honest with ourselves, there are always more good things happening in our life than bad ones. There is something bad happening and at the same time there are also many good things taking place. Myth 2 - Optimism is Unrealistic Thinking More than anything Optimism motivates you to take action instead of freezing thinking that this situation could never change. Optimism does not really break your contact with reality, it shows you that there is a different perspective to all this. When you are optimistic you think about how bad it could have been and feel relief that at least the worse did not happen. It gives you hope that you can survive this, it makes you think about what are (still) the good aspects in a difficult situation. “Pessimistic labels lead to passivity, whereas optimistic ones lead to attempts to change”, says Martin Seligman. ![]() You need to believe that things can change and that whatever is happening is temporary. To find a solution, you need to first believe that there is a solution. Adopting a negative mindset will not enable you to find a way out. What we need at that moment is to understand and quickly adapt to the situation and try to find a solution. When you lose your motivation to try, and give up, you stand no chance of finding a solution. When you think what has happened is terrible and that there is no way out of this, you tend to give up trying. They lead to the fight-or-flight response. Stress hormones like cortisol are released. ![]() Our focus narrows down to the one thing that went wrong. This, in turn, causes us more harm as we take more time to adjust to the situation and sometimes, we cannot think of a way out. We engage in overthinking about the situation. When we fail at something or when things do not go according to what we have planned, we notice the negative and most of the time, we overestimate its impact. When things go wrong, our main focus is on what is urgent and alarming, which is mostly the negative aspect. Myth 1 - Optimism Breaks your Contact with Reality Here are some of the most common myths about Optimism and debunking them. Until I read about Optimism from a psychological perspective, I, too, had many misconceptions about Optimism. Many people think about Optimism as something which is “unrealistically positive”. There is not a halfway point, there is only choosing which truth to put in your personal foreground. The world can be a horrible, cruel place and at the same time it can be wonderful and abundant. Optimism is not about providing a recipe for self deception.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |