Although it sometimes seems like pessimism is permanent in the way a person views the world, decades of psychological research by Dr. Martin Seligmann and his colleagues from the University of Pennsylvania have shown that pessimists can become optimists. However, this transformation does not take place by simply whistling a happy tune, or mindless platitudes (“Every day I am getting better and better…”) or trying to blindly think positively. Your mind is not fooled by that.
No, the change takes place when we learn how to think differently. This is called “cognitive thought” where “cognitive” refers to the mental processes of reasoning, in contrast to the emotional highs you get from listening to an inspirational speaker, or thinking that if you just think positive, everything will be OK.
There are two key elements that must be understood for this optimistic viewpoint to take hold in your thinking. They are wrapped up in your self-talk and our beliefs about what happens to us.
But first, a word of caution
Learning to be optimistic must be approached with caution. While optimism does have some outstanding virtues (which we’ll see in a minute), a question arises that we must address. Does my learning how to be optimistic mean I must also sacrifice being realistic?
Absolutely not. I am not suggesting an absolute, no-holds-barred, unconditional optimism that blindly accepts everything happening to us with half-opened eyes. Rather, I am offering a “flexible optimism,” one which can release you from the “tyranny of pessimism.” When misfortunes strike, we will learn how we have a choice about how we can look at those misfortunes. We will also see there are usually alternatives.
It goes back to ‘self-talk’
Learning to be optimistic does not consist of simply saying positive things about everything. In fact, in the decades Seligman and his colleagues have been doing their research working with thousands of their clients, they have discovered a primary key to learned optimism. Know what it is? It is in what you say to yourself when you have failed. There is a Bible verse that reads, “It rains on the just…and the unjust.” To illustrate, I talk to my students about the difference between being younger and being older. When younger people plan something that does not happen as expected, they get very surprised. However, when older people plan something and it happens as expected, they get just as surprised. Why? Because the older we become, the more we have learned planned events seldom work out as we thought they would. Life inflicts the same setbacks and tragedies on all of us, whether we are pessimistic or optimistic. (This is also called “wisdom.”)
However, studies have repeatedly demonstrated optimists recover faster. Professor Madelon Peters, along with his colleagues at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, have shown optimistic people who are less scared before an operation, often have fewer pain complaints after a year, function better, feel more recovered and experience a higher quality of life. In another study from the “Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,” researchers surveyed 99 men at age 25 and rated their degree of optimism about life in general. Doctors then examined these men at age 65 and found the optimists had survived middle age in better health.
All of this would be bad news if pessimists were doomed to always be pessimistic. However, they are not. They can indeed learn to be more optimistic by first understanding where those feelings come from (which will surprise you), and then learning a set of skills about how you talk to yourself when you suffer a personal defeat.
Feelings come from where?
Most of us connect how we feel with events in our lives. If good things happen to us, we feel happy and satisfied. If bad things happen to us, we feel sad or mad. As a result, we spend our time and energy attempting to rearrange our circumstances in order to insure our happiness. The flies in the ointment are those people who are in miserable situations and are completely happy and content. We have also met people who are in wonderful situations to die for, and literally wish they could.
This dichotomy suggests our emotions and behavior are not always dependent on what is going on around us. We can buy that brand new car we have always wanted, or acquire that “perfect” job, or develop a relationship with that “wonderful new someone.” The reason is there is something else going on. Something that strongly influences how we feel. This additional factor is what we believe. In other words, our feelings do not primarily come from what happens to us…they come from our “beliefs” about what happens to us.
Steven Campbell is the author of "Making Your Mind Magnificent" and conducts "The Winners Circle" every two months at Sonoma Mountain Village in RP. He can be contacted at 480-5007 or steve@anintelligentheart.com. For more information, go to www.anintelligentheart.com.