MAKING GOALS HAPPEN

The Benefits of Optimism

by Claire Baxter



Successful people are positive people.

Listen to successful people speak at conferences and you can't help noticing their positive energy. They seem to be surrounded by a force-field of positivity. So is it a coincidence that they are both successful and optimistic?

Hell, no.

Researchers have been studying optimists and pessimists for years, and they have established that an optimistic world view carries real advantages. Researcher Martin Speligman analysed the styles of sports teams and found that the more optimistic teams created more positive energy and performed better than the pessimistic ones. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found that swimmers with a pessimistic attitude showed more poor performances during competition than optimistic swimmers.

How does this relate to writers?

Persistence

Optimists don't give up as easily as pessimists, and they are more likely to achieve success because of it. We've all heard about the mega-successful authors whose books were rejected multiple times but eventually sold millions of copies. Because they believe in themselves and their abilities, optimists expect good things to happen. They see negative events - rejections, poor contest results, bad reviews - as minor setbacks, and view positive events as evidence of further good things to come. Believing in themselves, they also take more risks and create more positive events in their lives.

What if you're a pessimist?

According to psychologist Toby Green, by the time a person is seven, they've written their script. The rest of their life is spent living out their script - unless they rewrite the script and deliberately choose a character that wasn't available to them when they were seven.

Becoming an Optimist

You can learn to be an optimist.

When something positive happens in your life, stop to analyse your thoughts about it. Don't put it down to luck; give yourself credit for making it happen. Consider all the hard work you've put into reaching this point, your intelligence, dedication, ability. Directly or indirectly, this good event resulted from something you did. See it as a sign that you are on the right track.

When a negative event occurs, don't see it as your fault. Think of the extenuating circumstances that could have contributed to this failure, and remember that you will have many opportunities to do better in the future. See your next attempt as your next potential success.

Avoid negative people as much as possible, both in your writing world and in your non-writing life. Their negative energy will rub off on you and bring you down.

Doesn't luck exist?

Positive people do believe in luck. They consider themselves lucky to be doing a job they love, lucky to have met supportive people or to have achieved what they have to date. But positive people don't believe in waiting for luck to happen to them. They make it happen.

Using Positive Self-Talk

Become aware of your internal dialogue. How much of it is negative? Do you encourage yourself mentally, or do you criticise? Would you talk to a friend or your child the way you talk to yourself?

Whenever you catch yourself having a negative thought, stop it before it's finished. Say "Stop" aloud if you can. It will help you see how often you are having negative thoughts and what triggers them.

Then replace a negative thought with a positive one. If that's too hard, a neutral one or a question. Change "I can't meet this deadline!" to "How can I meet this deadline?". The question opens your mind to the possibilities.

The more you use positive self-talk, the more it will become the norm, transforming you from a pessimist to an optimist.

Affirmations Work

Use positive affirmations. To come up with some of your own, think about your life's goal and the behaviour, attitude and traits you need in order to make it happen.

Make sure they are positive statements and read as if true already. Not "I want…" but "I do…" or "I am…".

Repeat affirmations aloud as often as you can. Write them on post-it notes and stick them on mirrors and computers. Use them as passwords where possible.

To make your goals happen, remember to:



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