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What is optimism?

Optimism is when you expect things in the future to turn out for the best.  Optimism, like gratitude, is also about trying to find the positive side of a situation. But while gratitude means being positive about the past or present, optimism is about focusing your energy on the good things to come from a situation and believing that more wonderful things will come your way.

Check out 'What are the benefits?' to find out how being optimistic helps you
 

What are the benefits? (Why be optimistic?)

Optimistic thinking has a lot of advantages.   Not only do you enjoy what is happening in your life now and look forward to good things happening ahead, but research has found there are other, less obvious benefits too.  

Push through

Optimists are more likely to continue on or find new ways of getting through when things don't go their way. Because optimistic thinking gives you confidence things will turn out for the best, you do not get discouraged as easily.

When stuff gets hard

Optimists are better able to deal (both mentally and physically) when things get stressful. Taking an optimistic approach means that you accept the reality of the situation, and choose to make the best of it going forward.

Achieve your goals

Optimistic people set more goals for themselves (harder goals too!), put more effort into reaching these goals, and are more likely to keep at it if something goes wrong.  Feeling confident that you can get where you want to be in the future (optimism!)  is motivating, helps you take initiative and means you won't give up easily.

Feel good

Optimistic thinking means you believe that good things are in store for you and that makes you feel good. You experience more positive emotions, feel good about yourself and what you can do, are less likely to feel depressed or anxious, and it also helps you feel motivated and active.
 

Where's the Proof?

Psychologists have done scientific studies that show being optimistic has a really positive effect on your health, happiness and wellbeing.

A range of different studies have shown that young people who are more optimistic feel better about themselves, have higher self confidence, and feel more capable.²  One study showed that young people who were trained to be more optimistic were less at risk of depression even 2 years later (compared to a group who didn't do any optimism training).³   Optimism also has an effect on the way other people feel about you; optimistic people feel less lonely, are viewed more positively by their friends and experience less bullying.⁴  And perhaps most importantly, studies have found that even if you are not naturally a positive thinker, it is possible to increase your level of optimism (see the Optimism Experiment box for an example).  
Check out How do you build it? for ways to improve your optimism.  
 

How do you build it?

There's no trick to optimism.  Optimism is really just a choice about how you interpret situations and continue to look for the positive spin.  It's hard at first, but the more you keep trying the more likely it is that this way of thinking positively will become habit for you.  Below are some strategies that might help you with optimism.  

'Best possible self' activity

Optimism is about anticipating a bright future and this activity can help you become excited about what the future might hold.
Spend 10 minutes thinking about “your best possible future self” – a vision of what life might be like for you 1, 5, 10 or 20 years from now if all your dreams are realised.  Who would you be and what would your life look like if everything has turned out the way you wanted?  Try and answer questions like - where do you live? Who with? What work do you do? What have you accomplished?  What places have you travelled to? Do you have children? Think of all aspects of your life and write them down. You might feel silly at first, but this kind of exercise is a really great way to consider how good the future really could be.

Goals diary

Goal diaries are a great way to keep up your optimistic thinking.  Keeping a diary of these goals, and breaking them up into smaller goals, can help motivate you towards them.  Looking forward to good things and then making them happen is what optimism is all about.  

Optimistic Problem Solving

Using realistic optimism can help you solve problems and move forward.  It means that you:

- Properly look at the reality of the situation. What actually is happening?

- Don't panic or blow it out of proportion. Instead, look at the problem as something that is temporary and can be solved or adjusted to.  Contain the problem.

- Depending on the situation, have confidence that you can find a solution, adjust to the change, move forward or recover.  This way of thinking will then make it easier to find actual ways to overcome the problem.

That is optimism.  Realistic optimism.  Having confidence that things can and will get better makes dealing with a problem a lot easier.   

When things don't go your way

Being optimistic means that when something goes wrong, you try to look for the positives.  You know the sayings "When one door closes another one opens", "Not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck" or "Every cloud has a silver lining"? These bits of optimistic advice can be annoying to hear while you are in the middle of a tough or stressful situation, but they can help you get some perspective.  Being optimistic does not mean that you pretend everything is going to be fine or ignore the reality of what is happening.  It means that you look at the situation for how it really is, choose to focus on the good and look for ways for things to turn out better in the future.
 

Optimism in action

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