Learned Optimism

Henry Ford once said,

“People are as happy as they decide to be.”

Shawn Achor says that, “I can only predict 10% of your happiness by the external events in your life, 90% of your happiness is determined by the lens through which you view your world.”

There was a time in my life where  I would have referred to that as typical modern day “pyscho babble”. But now, having had the benefit of several traumatic events in my life, I can see the wisdom of these words.

My own mother, who lost 3 children after she gave birth to me, would often say that “happiness is a skill”, and I really did not know what she was talking about until I had endured loss and pain and went down that rabbit hole of sadness, apathy and self-pity.

The only way out of that hole is a deliberate, intentional decision to train the brain to look for and to focus on what is working instead of what is not working.

Elizabeth Gilbert, a successful author, wrote in her autobiography about a key teaching she learned from her mentor in India. She told her, “ Liz, you choose your thoughts like you choose your clothes.”

That message has stuck with me. Just as I would not put on my clothes, look in the mirror and go, “Crap, I look awful!” and then still go out in them. Instead, I change them until I look in the mirror and go, ” WOW, I feel great! I am ready for the day.” It is the same with our thoughts.

Do you know the average person will have 4000 thoughts a day? Those thoughts will either be “healthy, helpful and productive” for what you need to do that day or they will be “unhealthy, unhelpful and unproductive” for what you need to do that day.

So with that being said, if you are feeling a bit down, anxious or afraid, ask yourself, “What am I thinking? What story am I telling myself? Is this story healthy, helpful and productive?”And if not, choose to view the same situation in another way. Ask yourself how else you can look at it. What might be an interpretation of your situation that leaves you feeling a bit more calm, confident and inspired? Choose to think those thoughts instead. Remember, just like habits, we have ones that serve us and ones that don’t . We cannot remove the unhealthy habits if we don’t have healthy ones to replace them with. (For example, replacing the cigarette for the carrot.)

This is where “learned optimism” comes in.

If you are going to tell yourself a story, you might as well make it a good one.

Choose a story that helps you feel energised to tackle the task or the situation in front of you , instead of defeated and powerless. Change “I don’t know what I am going to do, this is beyond me, it will never work out” to “ I have the resources, skills, perseverance, the network to address this.  I have overcome so many obstacles in the past, there is no reason why I should not overcome this. There are good people in my life that I know will help me.”

And so we have just demonstrated “learned optimism”.

Shawn Achor says that, “Happy people are successful, not the other way around.” This is because the brain in a state of happiness, rather than neutral or stressed, is biologically predisposed to be solution focused.”

Check our his Ted Talks by clicking this link. This is one of the best TED talks I have ever seen. I have watched it over 70 times and still get something new out of every view.

So watch the video, and until next time,

Be Bold. Be Curious

Jacqui