How do some people stay optimistic when life throws them curveballs? Life rarely goes easier on them. They've built habits of mind that help them recover faster and see more options.
Those habits pay off. Across hundreds of findings pooled together, happier people did better at work, in their marriages and friendships, with their income and with their health, and the happiness often came first. Optimists had about a third fewer heart attacks and strokes, and a lower risk of dying over the years they were followed. That's a link, and a strong one, though it guarantees nothing.
A positive mindset is something other than forced cheerfulness. Some popular advice, like picturing success or repeating "I am lovable" in the mirror, can backfire.
What a positive mindset is
Optimism is the expectation that things can work out, and that your effort makes a difference. It sits comfortably alongside bad news. An optimist can say "This is a mess" and "I can do something about it" in the same breath.
The word began as a philosophy. Leibniz argued in 1710 that ours is the best of all possible worlds, and the French called the idea optimisme, from the Latin optimum, the best. In 1759 Voltaire's Candide mocked it through Dr Pangloss, who keeps insisting this is "the best of all possible worlds" as disaster follows disaster. The everyday, hopeful meaning came later, and it's the useful one.
Optimism also has nothing to do with pushing bad thoughts away. People told to avoid thinking about a white bear for five minutes kept thinking about it, and when they were later allowed to think about it, it came back more often than for people who'd never tried to suppress it. Forcing a thought out tends to bring it back, and later tests found that rebound small but real. The ways below work with your thoughts.
If you're a natural pessimist, this can still change. Across 29 tests with more than 3,000 people, exercises like the ones below raised optimism by a modest amount, and imagining a best possible future worked best of all. Outlook is partly a habit, and habits move.
1. Question negative thoughts
Your brain gives bad news more weight than good. A single criticism outlasts a pile of compliments. That bias kept your ancestors alive, and it now colours ordinary days. Milton gave the idea to Satan, of all characters, in 1667: "The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven."
When a negative thought arrives, pause and question it.
Is it true? What's the evidence for it, and what's the evidence against? Would you say it to a friend? Then replace it with something more balanced that you can believe. "I'll never get this done" becomes "This is a lot, and I can get the first part done today." A believable thought holds up. A cheerful one your mind rejects starts an argument.
Pessimism has a pattern. A setback gets explained as permanent ("it'll always be like this"), pervasive ("it ruins everything") and personal ("it's all me"). Harvard men who explained bad events that way at 25 had poorer health between 45 and 60, even after accounting for their health when young.
So test each negative thought against three questions. Will this last forever? Does it touch everything? Is it all down to me? The honest answer is usually no, no and partly.
2. Picture your best possible future, and the obstacle
Visualisation helps, done the right way. People who spent five minutes a day imagining their best possible self, a future in which things have gone as well as they realistically could, grew more optimistic over two weeks than people who imagined an ordinary day.
The catch is what you picture. Glowing fantasies of the finish line alone, of already having the job or the body or the money, predicted less effort and worse results. Picturing the obstacle as well turned the dream into a commitment. So imagine the good future, then the main thing standing in your way, then plan for it: "When I'm tired after work and want to skip the run, I'll put my shoes on and do ten minutes." Gabriele Oettingen's lays out the whole method.
To try it, write a page about the life you'd have in a few years' time if things went as well as they realistically could: work, health, the people around you. Then spend five minutes a day picturing it, followed by the main obstacle and your plan for it.
3. Change what feeds your mood
What you take in and what you do both shape how you see things.
Ration the news. After the Boston Marathon bombing, people who spent six or more hours a day on coverage reported more acute stress than people who'd been at the scene. Check the news once or twice a day and switch it off.
Count what went well. People who wrote down a few things they were grateful for each week felt more positive, were more optimistic about the week ahead and exercised more than people who listed hassles or ordinary events. It takes five minutes and a notebook, or a ready-made one like .
Share the good news. Telling someone about a good thing that happened lifted people's mood beyond the lift from the event itself. Retelling it lets you live it twice. So when something goes right, call someone.
Choose your company. Spend more time with people who leave you steadier than they found you. Less time with the ones who drain you is a gift to yourself.
Give something away. Students asked to buy something for a stranger in need felt happier afterwards than students asked to buy something for themselves. Remembering an old act of generosity showed no such lift. The lift comes from doing it, so lunch for a colleague or an hour for a neighbour counts more than the memory of one.
Move. Adults who did half the recommended weekly activity had an 18 percent lower risk of depression than inactive adults, and at the full recommendation, about two and a half hours of brisk walking a week, it was 25 percent lower. A walk feeds your mood as surely as anything you read.
Protect your sleep. Even small night-to-night losses of sleep predicted more anxiety the next day. Things look worse after a short night, so judge them after a long one.
4. Mindfulness and meditation
Mindfulness is paying attention to the present, and noticing thoughts without being pulled along by them. Across 47 comparisons against other activities, mindfulness programmes eased anxiety, depression and pain to a small-to-moderate degree, and the effects on anxiety and depression were still there months later. They did no better than other active treatments, such as exercise. So it's a solid tool, one among several.
Start with five minutes a day. Sit, breathe, and when your mind wanders, which it will, bring it back to the breath. The returning is the exercise. Jon Kabat-Zinn's is a plain, practical guide to starting.
5. Self-compassion, and the right kind of affirmation
Self-compassion means treating yourself the way you'd treat a friend who's struggling. People who scored higher on it had markedly fewer symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress. And after failing a test, people who treated themselves kindly were more likely to believe they could improve, and studied longer for the next one, than people given a pep talk about how clever they were.
Be careful with affirmations, though. Repeating "I am lovable" made people with low self-esteem feel worse, because the words clashed with what they believed. The kind that works is different: write a few sentences about a value that matters to you, such as family, honesty or your craft, and why. That steadies you without asking you to believe anything on command.
If you're a worrier
Some people cope by imagining everything that could go wrong, and then preparing for it. Positive-thinking advice can feel like being told to stop. Worriers who used this strategy still performed well, and did worse when someone tried to talk them out of it beforehand.
So if that's you, keep the worst-case thinking, and give it a job. Write down what could go wrong, then one thing you'll do about each, the same obstacle planning as in way 2. Worry with a plan is preparation. Worry without one is just noise.
If you're already an optimist
Optimism has a blind spot. People tend to rate themselves as less likely than others to have bad things happen to them, and more likely to have good things happen. That's handy for morale and risky for planning. So keep the optimism for your effort and keep the realism for your risks: be sure the next step will help, and still save for a rainy month, and get that odd symptom checked.
When positivity falls short
These habits are for ordinary ups and downs. If your mood has been low for weeks, you've lost interest in things you used to enjoy, or you've had thoughts of harming yourself, that's more than a mindset can carry. Reach out for help today.
Start with one
The people who stay optimistic through life's curveballs are no Panglosses. They see the mess clearly and still reach for the next step.
Five is a menu. Pick the one that fits your life this week. Question one thought a day, write down a few things you're grateful for at the end of the week, or sit for five minutes in the morning. A positive mindset is built the way any habit is, in small, repeated steps.
The goal is the optimist's two sentences, said together: "This is a mess." "I can do something about it."
Want to change the belief underneath the negative thought? How to Rewire Your Brain and Change Limiting Beliefs — where limiting beliefs come from and four steps to change one.
Wondering which affirmations to keep? Daily Affirmations That Work (and the Kind That Backfires) — why the mirror kind can backfire, and the kind that holds up.
Know someone who's been told to "just think positive" one too many times? Send them this. It's the version that works on a bad day.
Disclaimer: This article is general information. For advice about your own health, talk to a qualified health professional. If your mood has been low for weeks or you're having thoughts of harming yourself, reach out for help today.
Affiliate Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, All For Life earns from qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you. We only link to products we would recommend without the commission.
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