Do you consider yourself to be more of an optimist or a pessimist? World events over the last couple of years have made it difficult for even the most optimistic among us not to sink into the depths of fear and despair. Today, on Simple Living Sunday, we’re looking at ways to boost our optimism and approach each day with a more positive outlook.
When I think about optimism, the words that Jack Layton—leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party—left us when he died in 2011 always come to mind.
My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic.
Jack Layton
Jack was a beacon of optimism in the face of challenges. We could all benefit from being a little more like him.
Three simple pleasures and highlights
Continuing my practice of celebrating the simple things in life, here are three simple pleasures and highlights of the last week.
- On Sunday, my husband and I went to a Kitchener Rangers hockey game. It was our first big public outing since before the pandemic. It felt good to be out again—and the Rangers treated us to a 3-2 win over nearby rivals the Guelph Storm.
- As another sign of things returning to normal, on Tuesday night, the band I sing with did a performance for family and friends. Again, it was another post-pandemic first. It had been almost three years since I had performed live in front of an audience. I had a blast.
- Although the weather this weekend is back to winter, there was a sign of spring this week when the red-winged blackbirds reappeared in our garden.
So there are definitely some reasons to be optimistic right now.
This week’s simple living focus: Boosting optimism
An optimist looks at things with a positive lens, believing that good things will happen and everything will work out for the best. On the other hand, a pessimist has a negative view of the world, expecting bad things to occur.
Most people lean naturally one way or the other. It’s hard to find statistics on how many people call themselves optimists. In a 2013 survey, Statista reported that 50% of Americans considered themselves optimists, while only 4% thought they were pessimists. The rest fell somewhere in between.
VeryWellMind reports several benefits of optimism citing mental health benefits like confidence, improved quality of life, and a decrease in symptoms of anxiety and depression. In addition to the mental health piece, optimism can decrease the risk of illness, increase our lifespan and help us sleep better.
Sounds wonderful but even the eternal optimist needs a little dose of reality. Being blindly optimistic and charging forward without considering the possible consequences can be as harmful as being overly pessimistic. That’s why the field of positive psychology has introduced a third option: realism. That’s good news for the more pessimistic among us.
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Three things to do this week
So how can we be just a little more optimistic this week? Let’s have a look…
Focus on what’s in your control
It’s tough to be optimistic with everything going on in the world right now, but you can’t carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. The best each of us can do is improve the things that are within our control.
This week, when you start to feel pessimistic, ask yourself if this is something that’s within your control. If it isn’t, even though it might be difficult, put it aside and move on to things you can improve.
Approach every day as a new day
No matter how much you might want to, you can’t change what happened yesterday. So why spend time worrying about it?
Part of being optimistic is keeping one’s head toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward.
Nelson Mandela
This week, vow to start each day with hope and positivity. Every morning, take a few minutes to reflect on how you’ll make today a great day. Positive affirmations can help with this. Check out 45 Positive Affirmations That Have Helped Me Through Tough Times from Helen at Crispy Confessions for some ideas.
Turn pessimism into optimism
It is possible to reshape your mindset to one of optimism. It’s about choosing to look for the positive in every situation.
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
Winston Churchill
Write down three things you’re feeling pessimistic about right now. Now, look for something positive—no matter how small—about each of those things. Write that down, too. When pessimism creeps in, look at the positive things you wrote down.
No matter how much we plan, life will continue to throw us curve balls. How we choose to react to those surprises will, in many ways, determine the outcome. So let’s be optimistic and make this a great week!
Do you consider yourself an optimist, pessimist, or somewhere in between? Tell me your thoughts below.
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I’m inherently negative, and I know that, but I’ve found some things to boost my mental state, particularly exercise and taking steps to achieve my life goals (an example in my case, is writing and growing in that industry, or eating healthy). And the good thing? Those are things within my control. Anyway, thanks for this post!
Thanks for stopping by Stuart. I live with a couple of pessimists. They keep me real. That’s great that you have found things to boost your mental state. I think we all have to focus on what’s within our control.
There’s nothing like birdsong to make you feel better about things at this time of year, even if it wakes me up when it’s still dark sometimes! I like you suggestion about finding the good in the depths of pessimism, Michelle, I’ll have to try and remember that.
Oh definitely! I love sitting on our deck listening to the birds in the trees behind our house.
Michelle, thank you for sharing! I wholeheartedly agree, the past two years pessimism,combined with disappointment, has challenged my optimistic outlook. Our optimism is at an all time low! Jack Layton would have made a great PM, his words of encouraging optimism are comforting.
I am an optimist living with a pessimist! I am optimistic the light outshines the dark.
Cheers!
Ha ha “I am an optimist living with a pessimist!” Why can I relate to that so well? 😂 I consider myself mostly an optimis with enough realism to keep things practical.
Oh, I am so happy to hear you performed live again. What a joy!
Oh it definitely was a joy. So much fun!
Wonderful post about reminding us to focus on the simple pleasures – I love this idea. Not sure if I commented about this before but few years ago I was in the habit of writing about a happy moment that occurred every day in my gratitude journal.. much of that was putting a positive spin on mundane situations and simple pleasures… it really taught me that we could easily look at a situation and be negative about it or we could look at it and see what lessons it is ultimately teaching us and turn that into a positive… I would say that I am a realist and an optimist .. which one I lean more towards I am not sure! 🙂
So true. I think we have a choice on how we react to every situation. I’d consider myself a realist with a healthy dose of optimism on the side. Have a great week!
I have been practicing the first two for the last 4 years and the last one for the last several months. And for any nay sayers it works when you put the effort into it. 🙂
You’re right Jay-lyn. It definitely works, but it takes conscious effort.
Great tips on optimism!
Thanks Monty! Hope all is well in your world.
All is well. Thanks Michelle!
Good to hear!