Challenge 15 - Optimism
“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”1
Today's challenge is to become more optimistic.
Did you know that how we see the world and our level of optimism significantly impact our quality of life?
Optimism, by definition, is a positive expectation for the future, a glass half full if you like, and may impact both physical and mental health. It also provides stress-buffering that helps people remain happy in the wake of adverse events, and recent studies have found an inverse correlation between optimism and depressive symptoms, which is handy right now.2
Can we change our outlook? Even if you are not born an optimist, we can change our default setting. Of course, heretics, environment, and socio-economics status influence our optimism levels you are. Still, according to Martin Seligman, positive psychology's founding father, we can cultivate a positive perspective that believes that optimism is modifiable and can be learned with practice.
Like all things, how you view the world is unlikely to change overnight, but some of the below ideas might help create a mindset to make positive progress in your life:
Visualize the best possible self. What might your life look like everything went as well as expected?
Look to the positive in things and keep the negative self-reflection in check.
Review your social environment and surround yourself with more positive people.
Stay informed but don't constantly watch the news cycle, reinforcing negative thoughts.
Start a diary noting the positive occurrences.
Acknowledge what you can and let go of what you can't control
Put things in perspective - counteract your extremely negative predictions with highly positive ones.
Acknowledge that negative things happen – life well lived will include some disappointments.
How might you build more optimism into your day? Tell us here
Reference
1. Winston Churchill
2. Optimism and Its Impact on Mental and Physical Well-Being. 2010. C.Conversano
Further reading
· Read: Train your brain to be more optimistic www.nbcnews.com
· Listen: Optimism and hope - All in the mind www.abc.net.au
· Watch: How to calculate a positive perspective - Learned optimism Martin Seligman
** Disclaimer – Part of the Fresh Start Effect / Build Your Ideal Day Program by Duncan Young. All content and media on the Build Your Ideal Day Website is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice and should not be relied on as health or personal advice.
