Optimism

Pessimism and negative thoughts seem to show up in some way every day, do they not?? This is something we will never be able to fully control, especially the negative thoughts and actions from others, but we can begin to reshape our own thoughts and mental models to shine our light in the face of negativity. In all honesty, I've never understood how some people can be in a bad mood or operate daily with the attitude that they'd rather be doing something else. Life is good! If you're reading this, I imagine you're on your phone or computer using Wi-Fi. Maybe in your house with the heat on and a fridge full of food. You could even be reading this while you should be working, you know that job that pays you to have the things in life you actually do enjoy? I know, first world problems. We can always find things to complain about or that we wish were better, and that is fair. There is nothing wrong with striving for more. But as we'll see in the coming paragraphs, there are three key ways of living that help us shape a more optimistic mindset, and the research shows, it will make you happier, and it will even make you healthier!

I was recently asked how and why I'm optimistic or positive so often, especially in situations where others are being negative. It really forced me to sit down and think about what has built that "muscle" in my brain. In the moment I had almost no answers and it was sort of awkward because it was positive feedback and I generally struggle just saying thank you and accepting a compliment! But through some journaling, talking with Dani, and talking with a mentor, I believe there are three key ways of thinking that come together to drive an optimistic mindset.

Gratitude

Practicing gratefulness is all the rage these days in the "personal growth" space, and it should be! The power of an "attitude of gratitude" is wild, and there's more science to back this up than I know what to do with. There is one paper published by Harvard Medical School that is beyond fascinating. One of the studies looked at three groups of individuals over the course of 10 weeks. One group wrote about things they were grateful for throughout the week, another group wrote about irritations and aggravations, and the third group just wrote about their weeks with no guidance of what to focus on. After 10 weeks, the "grateful" group not only tested better in terms of happiness and optimism, but they also exercised more, had less aliments, which all lead to overall better health metrics, W-I-L-D!

The power of gratitude is obvious and coupled with the simplicity of creating this as a daily habit makes it too great not to weave it into your life rhythms. It's something I personally do and it's as easy as spending 60 seconds every night writing down three things you're grateful for from that day, or even doing it at the dinner table with your family to celebrate those wins and teach your children the power of gratitude. Some days it's three seemingly tiny things like hitting every green light on the way home from work, or it's a repetitive thing like being able to work from home on Mondays so I can sleep in a little extra and get some chores done around the house. However, I do challenge myself to try and think of at least one thing that is a little "deeper". Something like meeting a specific person who opened my eyes to a new way of thinking that has already shaped the way I do things. Regardless of how you do it or when you do it, JUST DO IT (I receive no royalties from Nike for free advertising....).

Contentment

When I was trying to unpack what optimism was to me, I asked Dani (my wife) why she thinks I'm more optimistic than the average person. She brought up a great point that I hadn't thought of. Her point was that some of it is that I'm privileged. My ego reared its head a little and said, "no way, I worked to be optimistic. It isn't because it was handed to me on a silver platter". However, I believe she's right to a point. Where I'm at in life is a better place than 95%+ of the world, and I realize a bulk of that is because I'm privileged to grow up how I did, where I did, as a white male in the United States. But where Contentment comes into optimism is that a lot of people are in that 95%+ bucket, and I'd say many of them are not optimistic. I would honestly say that my life is better than 99%+ of people in this world and that is driven by being content with what I have and not playing the game of always chasing more. One of the strongest fuels for pessimism is not being happy with what you have, especially the things you've worked hard for. A lot of people get a 3% raise or get a new car and instantly get upset the raise wasn't 4% or that they didn't get the car that was $5K more and had a couple extra bells and whistles. That's not a healthy way to live. We can digest materialism and contentment more in depth another day, but at the surface level, being able to be happy with what you have, whether it was given to you, or you worked for it, is key to living an optimistic life.

Hope

The last piece to the puzzle as I see it is Hope. This might seem like cheating as the Webster Dictionary definition of optimism includes things like "hopefulness" and "being hopeful". It is a fair criticism of this model, but I'd argue that being hopeful without gratefulness and contentment provide a shallow level of hopefulness that leads to a more artificial sense of optimism. Regardless, hope is important, no matter who you are or what your beliefs are built on. Yes, I'm a believer in the Bible, so my hope is tied very strongly to those beliefs. And whatever religion or sense of spirituality you believe in is probably what drives your hope. Is it not ironic that when bad things happen, you're in a pickle, you want something to work your way soooo bad that the first thing you do is look up and just say , "HELP!"? That's hope. You're hoping that something "magical" or spiritual can just swoop in and save the day. You don't think that natural worldly things can save you, or you'd be running around yelling "help me" and would probably end up in the hospital for a psych evaluation.

Hope can also come from things like our children or being embedded in a purposeful mission you see as doing good in the world. How often do you see an advertisement for a non-profit, or something/someone doing something good, and someone in the room says, "there is some hope for this world...". Hope is all around us. It's a motivator but also the light the sits at the end of the tunnel. When we're going through a season of darkness, hope keeps us on the track toward the light. One of favorite ways of thinking of hope come from Bob Goff, "hope doesn't go to sleep because it is dark outside; it lights a candle and stays up waiting for the rest of the story." Finding our source of hope is important, it's sort of like the motivator we rely on when we need something to pick us up. But it's also the part of optimism that allows us to bring light into the room when it's filled with doubt and pessimism.

Pulling it All Together

Do I think these three values or beliefs are the "answer" to optimism? No. But I do believe they are three more digestible chunks for us to focus on and implement into our daily lives and move us closer to being optimistic people. Optimistic people are usually the light of the room. They're the contagious people that everyone wants to be around (unless you're the overly optimistic person and come off a little cheesy🙂). So, pick one thing today and meditate on it, journal about it, try to find a way to get better at it, and I guarantee you'll start to see your life shift for the better and your light will shine a little bit brighter. I'll leave you with one quote from a titan of the business world. In his recent memoir, The Ride of a Lifetime, Bob Iger elegantly puts, "Optimism emerges from faith in yourself and in the people who work for you. It's not about saying things are good when they're not, and it's not about conveying some blind faith that 'things will work out'. It's about believing in your and other's abilities". So, give yourself a chance. Give others a chance. Let's make the world a little bit brighter.

Let's love and grow together.

- DDD