Optimism goes beyond thinking positively, it helps us to base hope in a cognitive and rational way; it is also a skill that we can all learn. "Changing the destructive things you say to yourself when you experience setback or failure is one of the core skills of optimism" - says Dr. Seligman founder of Positive Psychology.
Learned optimism
By nature there are more optimistic people than others, however it is not a difficult habit to acquire since it is basically the interpretive style that you use to explain what is happening in your life. The 3 P's of optimism help you understand how you assimilate positive and negative events:
1. Permanence
Is this something permanent? Or is it temporary? Generally, for optimists, setbacks or failures are just a "losing streak", and good things are constant in their lives. For the pessimists the good things are the "temporary", those that do not last and the bad things are permanent.
2. Permeability
Permeability refers to how an event in one area of your life can "permeate" or affect other areas. When something happens to you, is it a reflection of your entire life? Or do you locate it in a specific area? The ability to isolate the negative in a specific event, and the ability to expand the positive into all other areas, is crucial to our well-being.
3. Personalization
It is the way in which we attribute the causes of positive and negative events to ourselves. The good thing, the pessimists attribute it to an external cause: “it was luck”; while optimists attribute it to an internal cause: "it is the result of my effort." As for the bad, the pessimists attribute it to an internal cause: "I always do the same thing"; while optimists attribute it to an external cause such as: "it was a bad day."
It is a fact that optimism "per se" is not going to solve our problems, but it will surely help us to change our perspective so that we can take care of them and face them.
Source:
- Learned Optimism - Dr. Martin Seligman. If you want to know how your 3P's are, visit the University of Pennsylvania's www.authentichappiness.com page and take the Optimism test.
