Optimism Made Easy

This is my third entry that reviews the 12 practices to build your optimism muscle from Price Pritchett’s book, Hard Optimism: How to Succeed in a World Where Positive Wins. Here are the last four tips.

Practice 9: Practice Gratitude

Gratitude is my all-time favourite practice. It is so simple yet so powerful in changing your life. It starts with truly acknowledging that life gives us a choice - a choice to focus on what is wrong or what is right. What we focus on grows while what we choose to ignore fades.To practice gratitude, merely look around you and notice people, events, and circumstances for which you are grateful. If this seems like a stretch, you can start small – being thankful for hot water in the shower; milk for your coffee; staples in your stapler. As you get good at gratitude, you will notice blessings everywhere.Pritchett assures us that, “Managing your outlook toward appreciation and thankfulness feeds the soul. It brings calm and contentment. It lifts your levels of happiness and hope… sets the stage for optimism about the future.”

Practice 10: Play to Your Signature Strengths

This practice reflects an interesting evolution in the personal development field over the last ten years or so. For the longest time, the emphasis was on developing your weaknesses. Now, the value of capitalizing on your strengths is recognized. The beauty of this approach is that it encourages you to know and honour yourself. The first step in playing to your strengths is to know what those strengths are. When you are using your signature strengths you feel in the flow, naturally strong and capable, and joyful.By focusing on using these strengths, you honour your innate talents and abilities. It is a celebration of your life’s purpose and the contributions you make. Optimism and positivity cannot help but flow from this place.

Practice 11: Go For Flow

When you are in the flow, you are completely engaged in the activity in front of you. The task feels challenging but doable, your full attention is consumed, and you feel vital and alive. You do not notice the passage of time and external pressures do not press in on you.Psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who coined the term “flow” and has probably researched it the most, explains what conditions lead to flow: “The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. Optimal experience is the something that we make happen”.

Practice 12: Act the Way You Want to Feel

A common theme in Pritchett’s book, and a critical life lesson in my opinion, is the existence of choice. We are free to choose the focus of our attention, our interpretation of a situation, and our actions. By choosing to focus, interpret, and act on situations in a positive and optimistic manner we create a joyful life that continues to build a positive momentum. If life experience is not convincing enough for you, the latest brain research supports the profound power of optimism. Research with new brain-imaging technologies shows that, even as an adult, your thoughts and actions change the neural pathways in your brain. Choose positive thoughts and actions and you build the physiology to support them. With your newly re-wired brain, feeling optimistic becomes natural. Don’t you just love when things come together like this?

Leave a comment telling me how gratitude has changed your life.