It’s healthier to see the glass as half full rather than half empty. When we’re optimistic and looking forward to better experiences in life, it helps us to move forward no matter what life brings our way.
Optimism helps us to deal with difficult times. It gives us the emotional and mental strength we need to persevere because we know that in the future, we can experience peace and happiness.
However, it is possible to misuse optimism. When it’s not correctly understood and applied, over-optimism can lead to greater stress and dissatisfaction.
If you’re someone who doesn’t believe that optimism works or feels like it can’t help you, then this post is for you. We’ll examine some myths around optimism that stop people from having a healthy optimistic mindset. Let’s go!
You have to feel optimistic all the time
As human beings, it’s not possible to have perfect control of our thoughts and feelings at all times.
It’s natural for us to feel rising tides of optimism and pessimism that are influenced by our own experiences, thoughts, and the world around us. Sometimes, even a simple thing like missing a meal, getting stuck in traffic, or receiving negative feedback from a customer can affect how good or bad we feel.
We can’t be optimistic all the time and it’s healthy to accept this fact. Forcing yourself to be optimistic can make you feel worse especially when you’ve had experiences that tend to have powerful negative associations.
It is far healthier to process your negative feelings by being present with your emotions. At a later time, when you have experienced and accepted your grief, sadness, or other emotions, you can build up your feeling of optimism again.
Optimism means denying reality
For many people, the idea of optimism doesn’t resonate with them because it seems like being optimistic is the same as denying reality.
For example, if your business experiences high employee turnover and dissatisfaction, being wilfully optimistic in the face of it is a misplaced application of optimism. After all, some 79% of people leave a good job because they don’t get appreciation or feel valued.
When you get signs that things aren’t working well, you need to address them. Being optimistic is not about feeling good or forcing ourselves to think that everything is working as it should.
You need to be grounded in reality and accept signs that there are problems in your personal life and work. The role that optimism plays is to keep your mind open to different possibilities and outcomes in life. It helps us remember that we don’t have to expect only negative outcomes and as a result, we’ll be open to different actions and ways of thinking that might otherwise not occur to us.
You don’t have to take any action
One of the biggest myths related to optimism is believing that it’s enough to think positive and expect success and happiness to happen on their own. This is not the case.
Optimism plays a critical role in motivating people to take action and overcome personal and professional setbacks.
If we only expected poor outcomes, we wouldn’t have the mental strength needed to build relationships, enter a career, or grow businesses.
Stay optimistic about life and the future, but also keep taking action and keep learning to see actual changes take place in life.
You need to connect with other people, do online courses, work harder, and think differently for your hopes and dreams to become reality.
With healthy optimism, you’ll be far more likely to meet your goals in life than if you indulged in unfettered pessimism.
Over to you
In this post, I will share some of the common myths that put people off about optimism. Being negative and pessimistic may make you cautious to some degree but such attitudes also create stress and lower levels of happiness.
You can develop healthy optimism by staying grounded in reality. The benefit of being positive is that it opens you up to multiple possibilities in life. Whereas negativity only focuses on unwanted outcomes.
In this post, I’ve shared the key myths that keep optimism from making an impact in your life. Be aware of them and open yourself to more possibilities to experience happiness and success.