Numerous studies have shown that optimists are physically and psychologically healthier than pessimists. Photo: File.
While instructions to ‘’stay positive’’ can sound hopelessly unrealistic in today’s challenging work environment, Travis Bradberry has some advice on cultivating positive attitudes that are both good for your career and your health.
Most of us have received the well-meaning advice to “stay positive” at some stage of our careers, often along with an encouragement to “do more with less”.
The greater the challenge, the more this glass-half-full wisdom can come across as Pollyannaish and unrealistic.
It’s hard to find the motivation to focus on the positive when positivity seems like nothing more than wishful thinking.
An obstacle to positivity is that our brains are hard-wired to look for and focus on threats.
This survival mechanism served humankind well back when we were hunters and gatherers, living each day with the very real threat of being killed by someone or something.
Today, this mechanism breeds pessimism and negativity through the mind’s tendency to wander until it finds a threat.
These ‘’threats’’ can magnify the perceived likelihood that things are either going, or will go, pear-shaped.
When the threat is imagined and you spend two months convinced the project you’re working on is going to flop, this mechanism leaves you with a soured view of reality.
Maintaining positivity is a daily challenge. You must be intentional about staying positive if you’re going to overcome the brain’s tendency to focus on threats.
Pessimism is trouble because it’s bad for your health. Numerous studies have shown that optimists are physically and psychologically healthier than pessimists.
Martin Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania has followed people from age 25 to 65 to see how their levels of pessimism or optimism influenced their overall health. He found that pessimists’ health deteriorated far more rapidly as they aged.
Keeping a positive attitude isn’t just good for your health. Dr Seligman has also studied the connection between positivity and performance.
In one study, he measured the degree to which insurance salespeople were optimistic or pessimistic in their work. Optimistic salespeople sold 37 per cent more policies than pessimists, who were twice as likely to leave their employers during their first year of work.
Dr Seligman believes in the ability to turn pessimistic thoughts and tendencies around with simple effort and know-how. Here are three things you can do to stay positive.
Separate fact from fiction: The more you ruminate on negative thoughts, the more power you give them. Most of our negative thoughts are just that – thoughts, not facts.
When you find yourself believing the negative and pessimistic things your inner voice says, it’s time to stop what you’re doing and write down what you’re thinking.
Once you’ve taken a moment to slow down the negative momentum of your thoughts, you will be more rational and clear-headed in evaluating their veracity.
Evaluate these statements to see whether they’re factual. You can bet the statements aren’t true any time you see words like never, always, worst, ever, etc.
Do you really always lose your keys? Of course not. Perhaps you forget them frequently, but most days you do remember them.
Are you never going to find a solution to your problem? If you really are that stuck, maybe you’ve been resisting asking for help. Or if it really is an intractable problem, then why are you wasting your time beating your head against the wall?
If your statements still look like facts once they’re on paper, take them to a friend or colleague you can trust, and see whether he or she agrees with you. Then the truth will surely come out.
Identify a positive: Once you snap yourself out of self-defeating, negative thoughts, it’s time to help your brain learn what you want it to focus on – the positive.
This will come naturally after some practice, but first you have to give your wandering brain a little help by consciously selecting something positive to think about.
When things are going well and your mood is good, this is relatively easy. When things are going poorly, and your mind is flooded with negative thoughts, this can be a challenge.
In these moments, think about your day and identify one positive thing that happened, no matter how small. If you can’t think of something from the current day, reflect on the previous day or even the past week.
The point here is you must have something positive that you’re ready to shift your attention to when your thoughts turn negative.
Once you have identified a positive thought, draw your attention to that thought each time you find yourself dwelling on the negative.
If that proves difficult, you can repeat the process of writing down the negative thoughts to discredit their validity, then allow yourself to freely enjoy positive thoughts.
Cultivate an attitude of gratitude: Taking time to contemplate what you’re grateful for isn’t merely the right thing to do; it reduces the stress hormone cortisol by 23 per cent.
Research has found that people who work daily to cultivate an attitude of gratitude experience improved mood, energy and substantially less anxiety due to lower cortisol levels.
You cultivate an attitude of gratitude by taking time out every day to focus on the positive.
Any time you experience pessimistic thoughts, use this as a cue to shift gears and think about something positive. In time, a positive attitude will become a way of life.
I realise these three tips sound incredibly basic, but they have tremendous power because they train your brain to have a positive focus.
They break old habits if you force yourself to use them. Given the mind’s natural tendency to wander towards negative thoughts, we can all use a little help with staying positive.
Travis Bradberry is the award-winning co-author of the bestselling book Emotional Intelligence 2.0, and the co-founder of TalentSmart. His books have been translated into 25 languages and are available in more than 150 countries. He can be contacted at TalentSmart.com. This article first appeared on the TalentSmart website.
