The second of the 12 happiness boosting activities listed in “The How of Happiness” by Sonja Lyubomirsky is:
Cultivating Optimism
What exactly does she mean my this?
Optimism is “looking on the bright side, finding the silver lining, noticing what is right (rather than what is wrong), giving yourself the benefit of the doubt, feeling good about your future or simply trusting that you can get through the day.” (The How of Happiness page 101)
There are a couple “levels” of optimism
- Small optimism (“that dental check up wasn’t so bad”)
- Big optimism (“World Peace is soon at hand”)
- Very Small optimism (“I can get through today”), essentially thinking that things in general will turn out OK.
All of these are good, but when I talk about optimism I am generally referring to “Small” optimism, the “you” specific, day to day things you can be positive about.
Optimism is like gratitude in that you are generally looking at the positive side of events, but where gratitude tends to look back at what has happened or is happening, optimism looks at the present and the future, celebrating what is good now, and anticipating good things.
Also I should point out that optimism is NOT about avoiding reality or being self-deceptive. optimism IS about seeing things as they are, BUT generally focusing on the positive. Yes the world can be a war-torn, cruel place, but it can also be wonderful and beautiful. It’s all about where you choose to look, which “truth to put in your personal foreground”. It is acknowledging everything, but choosing to focus on the positive.
Remember in the last post I talked about Counterfact – it applies here to, optimism is seeing how even in a potentially bad situation, you came out alive and relatively well, all things considered.
So, what can you do to be more optimistic in general? Here are some thoughts:
- Once a day imagine a realistic and wonderful future. (note there are different areas you can focus on on different days: love life, work life, home life, etc)
- Create a Vision Board of your best possible future (send me an email for more details on how to do vision boards)
- When you notice a negative thought about the present or future, stop and try to replace it with a positive one. Ask yourself: what evidence do I have that this is true? Could the opposite be true? What are other possible explanations? Etc
- In negative situations, try to find the positive. Ask yourself some questions: What did I learn from this? What else could this mean? Are there any opportunities here? Could good come from this?
- Write down your goals in a diary or other form, and over time look at them, break them down into sub-goals and put some steps in on how to get there, then look at how easy it is to do just one of those step. Keep anticipating and work toward these goals over time. remember also there may be many paths to a goal (if the one you are on didn’t work out)
- Do a “Future Self” exercise and imagine or write about your ideal future self. Be realistic and postive and see where you might be in 5 or 10 or 20 years. What wisdom or knowledge does your future self have to share?
- Notice the beautiful things in the world.
- Notice good things that happen to you or to others.
Again, you need to find what will work best for you.
Tomorrow we will talk about one of my favourite activities: avoiding over-thinking and social comparison.
Until then, keep laughing, and looking forward to a bright future.