The Power of Optimism: Breaking Free From the Pull of Pessimism
Stories of doom and pessimism command our attention, but can lead to negative beliefs and negative self-images, impacting our health and wellbeing. Through self-awareness and embracing a more optimistic outlook, we can find our path to personal growth.
On December 29, 2008, at the close of the worst year for the global economy in modern history, Russian professor Igor Panarin predicted the disintegration of the United States. He estimated there was a “45-55%” chance America would break into six pieces in 2010, controlled by a combination of Russia, China, Mexico, Canada, and the EU. This doomsday scenario wasn’t confined to some obscure corner of the internet. It was on the front page of the most prestigious financial newspaper in the world, The Wall Street Journal.
It’s understandable why stories like this get published on front pages every day—and why we’re drawn to them. Stories of doom and negativity command our attention. People listen with serious intent to outrageous tales of pessimism, yet no-one is buying outrageous tales of optimism. Pessimism sounds like someone trying to help you; optimism feels like someone trying to sell you something.
There’s nothing wrong with a healthy dose of pessimism to help keep us grounded; expecting less and getting more can be a pleasant surprise. But too much pessimism can stunt our character, creating and then reinforcing negative beliefs and a negative self-image. This has consequences.
Embracing a more optimistic outlook in life is a more effective path to personal growth and fulfillment.
Why we’re drawn to pessimism
We can define pessimism as a tendency to see the worst aspect of things or believe that the worst will happen. Part of why we’re drawn to pessimism is instinctual. It’s an evolutionary shield to guard against threats. Our ancestors treated threats as more urgent than opportunities to give themselves a better chance to survive and reproduce. That aversion to loss is still as powerful today. On average, people tend to experience the pain of losing something about twice as strong as the pleasure of gaining something of equal value. For example, losing $100 feels twice as bad as winning $100 feels good. As psychologist and economist Daniel Kahneman wrote, “When directly compared or weighted against each other, losses loom larger than gains.” There’s an evolutionary element to being more naturally disposed to something negative.
Another reason we are drawn to pessimism is that progress happens too slowly to notice. Take extreme poverty. According to the UN, more than one billion people have been lifted out of extreme poverty since 1990—around 80,000 people every day. This positive trend and optimistic narrative requires looking at an extended period of history, which people tend to forget and find hard to piece together. In contrast, disasters, setbacks, scandals, and catastrophes happen quickly. It’s easier to create a narrative around pessimism because the story pieces are fresher and more recent. News organisations know this well.
Psychologist and writer Steven Pinker has written about the distortion of reality by the way media exaggerates negative news and excludes the positive, citing the news policy, “If it bleeds, it leads.” This creates an availability heuristic: people estimate the probability of an event by the ease with which instances come to mind. If, for example, the news reports a plane crash just before you are due to fly, you’ll overestimate significantly the chances of your plane crashing, despite your odds of dying in a plane crash remaining unchanged at eleven million to one. (Car crashes kill far more people than plane crashes, yet almost never make the news.)
Pessimism also just sounds more plausible than optimism. Optimism often requires believing in an unspecified, unknown future situation, which can seem naïve. Returning to The Wall Street Journal story example, imagine if a similar academic article had appeared in Japan at the end of the Pacific War in 1945 when the country lay in ruins. But this article is wildly optimistic, not pessimistic. It predicts the Japanese economy to grow to almost fifteen times the pre-war size, life expectancy to nearly double, unemployment to stay below 6% for more than 40 years, and the country to become a world leader in electronics, admired by the United States as its closest ally. No-one would print it. It wouldn’t seem plausible. But this actually happened in Japan.
The consequences of pessimism
Pessimistic stories, perpetuated and reinforced by both the media and our wider society, especially in the age of 24-hour news cycles and social media, have negative consequences. Far from being better informed, those who become saturated with negative stories or engaged in constant online battles with strangers see a world that doesn’t align with reality.
This can lead to decreased wellbeing, impaired decision-making, and a reduced ability to cope with stress and adversity. It can also impact on relationships and social interactions with increased contempt and hostility towards others, and a sense of helplessness and fatalism, leading to isolation and alienation.
Pessimism, then, while somewhat instinctive and seductive, needs to be kept in check for our own health, happiness, and wellbeing. We can do this by adopting a more optimistic approach in our day-to-day lives.
Embracing optimism
Optimists don’t believe everything will be great. That’s not reality. Optimists believe that the odds of a good outcome are in their favour over time, even when there will be setbacks along the way.
In his book, The Rational Optimist, Matt Ridley highlighted three reasons optimism is a rational and reasonable outlook. He based them on historical evidence and human nature.
Human Progress. Despite occasional setbacks and crises, human progress has been steadily improving over time, with massive strides in areas such as health, education, technology, and wealth creation. This trend is often something we lose sight of because it’s not typically what is reported.
Innovation. We have a natural ability to come up with new ideas and solutions to problems, helping us overcome future challenges and continue to improve our quality of life. Writer David Brooks further expanded on this theme in The Atlantic: “The pessimists miss an underlying truth—a society can get a lot wrong as long as it gets the big things right. If a society is good at unlocking creativity, at nurturing the abilities of its people, then its ills can be surmounted. Creative energy is one thing [we] have in abundance.”
Resilience. Humans are resilient and adaptable, and we can rebound from the most daunting of setbacks and challenges. Problems correct and people adapt, and our optimism and creativity help us find new solutions and opportunities.
Optimists are hopeful and confident about the future because they would seem to have consciously or unconsciously recognised these patterns, trends, and capabilities, and incorporated them into their approach to life.
3 strategies for a more optimistic approach
In his TED Talk, “How to Eliminate Self Doubt Forever & The Power of Your Unconscious Mind”, personal growth expert Peter Sage pointed out that people will never rise above the opinion of themselves. By this he meant if we have a negative self-image and a pessimistic outlook, we are likely to limit ourselves and struggle to achieve our full potential. But if we have a positive self-image and an optimistic outlook, we are more likely to have confidence in our abilities, take risks, and achieve our goals.
Sage highlighted three practical strategies.
Stop putting the wrong things in.
We can reduce self-doubt by being more mindful of the thoughts, beliefs, and influences we allow into our minds. By minimising exposure to negative news and the negative aspects of social media, and surrounding ourselves with positive people (“Love your family, choose your friends”), we can create a more uplifting and empowering mental environment.
Start putting the right things in.
Besides avoiding negative influences, we can actively seek positive and inspiring content to help build confidence and optimism. We’ve never lived in a better time to access uplifting podcasts, videos, and books that can provide a more nuanced understanding of the world. We can also take some time each day to think about the things we are grateful for, perhaps in a journal. Mindfulness practices, such as deep breathing exercises, can help calm the mind and focus on the present moment, appreciating the positive aspects of your life.
Get the things that shouldn’t be there out.
Finally, we can reduce self-doubt by identifying and addressing the underlying fears and limiting beliefs that are holding us back. This might involve seeking support from a coach or mentor, or engaging in self-reflection and personal development work to identify and overcome negative patterns of thinking and behaviour.
Core to these strategies are being intentional and proactive in shaping your environment to cultivate a more positive and empowering mindset that supports your personal growth and fulfillment, arming you with a set of tools to help deal with the challenges of adversity when they arise.
Your world reflects what you put into it
Pessimism sells. It’s attractive, it’s plausible, and there’s an instinctual element because of our in-built aversion to loss. But overexposure to pessimism—particularly in our modern environment of 24-hour news across multiple media and social media formats—is not good for maintaining our health and wellbeing. We need to resist that pull and keep a check on it.
And here’s the reality: bad things happen, but so do many good things.
Good news stories are all around us, yet are rarely reported. Most of these good news stories are right here in our day-to-day lives. Small, simple moments we often miss like taking a walk in nature with a family member celebrating a milestone birthday; completing a professional development course to open a new door at work; or running a 10K with a group of friends for a local charity.
Embracing the power of optimism is in our hands because it’s a learned behaviour. It’s something we can cultivate through the ‘Stop, Start, Get’ strategy Peter Sage talked so eloquently about. This can help give us the best chance of finding peace, purpose, and fulfillment. After all, your world reflects what you put into it.
So put the right things in.