Be Optimistic with Love

There are several components to success that need to be working in unison in order to live a completely happy and successful life. Many personal development and visualisation programs claim that, as long as you can imagine it, it will come to you. But the science - and I'm sure the results if you've tried it, too - seem to suggest that this is only part of the formula.

What if you're stressed, anxious or distracted in other ways, with a mindset that's not working in your favour? What if you, just like a finely tuned violin, have become off key and are not playing in tune with the rest of the orchestra?

In such circumstances, when it comes to reaching your goals, knowing what to do is usually the easy part. But actually getting yourself to FOLLOW THROUGH with what you need to do is sometimes another story. If you've ever felt like you lacked the follow through to get done what you know you need to get done, the good news is that one of the absolute best success habits I've learned to model is a state of mind I like to call "grounded optimism".

Grounded optimism is expecting to succeed, while also realising that you will likely bump up against some challenges along the way. With these more realistic expectations around your goals, you'll find you're often able to identify any possible challenges in advance and prepare for them ahead of time.In fact, just taking on this perspective seems to give off a mental vibration that makes your challenges become muted, as the universe begins throwing opportunity and unexpected short-cuts at you.

Here are two of the most effective steps experts have provided to cultivating a mental state of what I like to call grounded optimism:

1. Expect to succeed. From building a business to weight loss or even quitting an addiction, people who really truly 100% believe they'll succeed are much more likely to follow through with the actions needed to reach their goals.

   The experts say this has been proven again and again by many of the thousands of people around the world who succeed because of a strong sense of belief, and also has been demonstrated in various studies. You truly become the person you think you will be, so start expecting the exceptional!

2. Embrace the possibility in unexpected challenges and difficulty. This crucial second step is often missing when people teach about manifestation and visualisation with the power of the mind.

   To accomplish this, many people need to let go of the stubborn limiting belief that challenge equals pain or failure. Instead realise that challenge equals possibility. Your victories give you confidence, but it's your defeats that will give you strength. Now, I'm not telling you to focus on the negative. What I'm saying is you need to positively look at how you're going to overcome anything that gets in your way. (Remember, focusing on negative emotions will expand a negative influence in your life.)

   And being realistic about challenges is actually a huge gift to yourself that will strengthen your positive vibration, give you peace of mind, and endow you with true power and control over your life. By realistically assessing potential problems before they happen, you can prepare yourself to overcome any obstacle that gets in your way, so that step number 1 (expecting to succeed) comes easily and naturally.

   For example, while it's essential to your success that you use positive language, such as regularly telling yourself "I succeed at everything I put my mind to", that positive affirmation is not going to help you if you don't really truly believe it in your heart.

Suffering setbacks? Then ground yourself in love

What many find will power you through the dips of life is a long-term vision combined with the power of belief, and support from loved ones. There truly are benefits and beauty in the bad news, and there are ways to help you find that in any negative situation you meet.

There is no danger of developing eye strain from looking on the bright side of things. Staying strong is a UNIFIED matter of mind, soul and body - but the power of thoughts is conducted through the brain, so we must first focus on its technology to help us see how we can identify opportunity in adversity.

People often misread an event or circumstance as an adversity or setback. The problem is that we tend to judge events on the basis of their immediate impact, but, as life repeatedly teaches us, the long-term consequences of an action can be quite different from what we initially observe.

The bad is superficial and obvious; the good often takes investigation and long-term observation. It's important to recognise that the true result of an event may take a long period of time to come to fruition. Thus, misfortune and setbacks are frequently nothing more than illusions, which is why we so often fail to connect the long-term benefits to the seemingly negative situation that confronts us.

The truth is that adversity can serve as both a learning experience and a masked opportunity. In fact, I would take it one step further and say that there is an offsetting opportunity in every adversity and every obstacle. The trick is to develop the habit of automatically looking for the positive in every negative situation.

It can take years to develop this habit if you mindset has been negatively programmed since childhood, but when you rewire your brain, even when something seemingly terrible occurs, you can immediately take a deep mental breath and start thinking about where your purpose is trying to lead you. Most successful people discover that some of the unexpected roads this has taken them down are nothing short of miraculous.

A classic example of this phenomenon that is especially dear to my heart is the story of how a famous author's first book is rejected by numerous publishers. Then when it is accepted, it becomes a massive success. This is more usual than you might suspect. Iconic writers that have been rejected include Rudyard Kipling, William Golding, Dr Seuss, Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, Marcel Proust to name an eclectic few.

So, what initially appeared to be an enormous adversity was, in fact, a hidden opportunity. Life is all about repeating thus lemons-to-lemonade trick, and if you do it often enough seemingly major obstacles will turn out to be great opportunities waiting to be exploited. And the more you do it, the more you'll learn.

Best of all, each new learning experience makes it that much easier the next time around. In the words of Richard Bach, "That's what learning is, after all: not whether we lose the game, but how we lose and how we've changed because of it, and what we take away from it that we never had before, to apply to other games. Losing, in a curious way, is winning."

"Looking on the bright side" bias

People often email to ask me, "What do you do when things are going bad? How do you keep going?" The answer for me is to focus on my vision and to be optimistic about the future. Looking towards a bright future motivates me no matter how rough the day might be.

It's important to have that positive bias in life, because the happiest people are those who see their lifetime as a positive and creative contribution to the human race. If you don't stay biased, you will lose your shield against the battering hailstorms of negativity that you will meet through your journey in life.

However, can a person be too optimistic? Everything needs to be in moderation, right? I put my hand up that I am an optimist, always have been. Every project I undertake, I expect to see to a successful conclusion. When events take a turn for the worse, I imagine how they will get better. My general attitude is that things will work out, even though - needless to say - sometimes they don't.

We all walk around carrying mental images of what the world is like and how the future will unfold. Some see the glass as half full. Others do not. Yet psychologists have discovered that the vast majority of healthy, successful individuals are optimistic, even when it isn't warranted. It turns out many of us truly are wearing rose-tinted glasses.

And now cognitive scientists are revealing that this illusion serves an important function: it turns possibilities into probabilities. Moreover, there is mounting evidence that those who take a pessimistic attitude - even if they are sometimes correct - are risking their careers, their personal relationships and even their health.

As neuroscientist, Tali Sharot writes in The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain,

The data clearly shows that most people overestimate their prospects for professional achievement; expect their children to be extraordinarily gifted; miscalculate their likely life span (sometimes by twenty years or more); expect to be healthier than the average person and more successful than their peers; hugely underestimate the likelihood of divorce, cancer and unemployment; and are confident overall that their future lives will be better than those their parents put up with. This is known as the optimism bias - the inclination to overestimate the likelihood of encountering positive events in the future and to underestimate the likelihood of experiencing negative events.

Studies show that large majorities of us believe we are smarter, friendlier, more honest and better looking than the average person. (And better drivers!) This, of course, is impossible. Most people cannot be better than most people. (Yet generally, we are just as blind to this superiority illusion as we are to our optimism bias.)

However where one is about being a slave to the ego, the other is being liberated from your ego, and the ego of others. being positive isn't being selfish - as the opposite to negativity, it's about being selfless. And being positive, even if self-delusional, has its benefits.

Scientific opinion on this issue believes that positive self-deception is not only healthy but invaluable. Optimism evokes new behaviour that often creates a self-fulfilling prophecy, a prediction that causes itself to be true.

Take the example of two middle-aged men - one an optimist, the other a pessimist - who find themselves in the ER following a heart attack. Other factors being equal, the optimist has a better chance of a full recovery.

Some believe positive thinking itself is so powerful as to change his prognosis, but most tend to think it's because it leads to favourable changes in his behaviour. The pessimist feels resigned. But the optimist is more likely to stop smoking, avoid fatty foods and salt, engage in moderate exercise and avoid stress-inducing situations. It's this change in his actions - if not the sunny outlook itself - that most experts believe improves his chances.

Research shows that when we alter our perceptions and dreams about the future in positive ways, it reduces anxiety and improves physical and mental health. It also motivates us to be proactive. That's because human brains have a strong propensity to transform what we imagine into reality. Optimistic beliefs - even if they are unjustified - are often the precursor to positive actions.

You might think we should just confine our suggestions to one's own bailiwick - but facing challenges is something we all know about. And there are examples from all walks of life. For example, successful stock market investors have an optimistic long-term view that simply doesn't have an off switch. That doesn't mean they don't hedge our bets or take concrete steps to reduce risk and volatility. But they also tend to have an abiding faith in the ability of entrepreneurs, businesses and capital markets to meet people's economic needs.

In the depths of the financial meltdown in 2008, Warren Buffett penned an op-ed piece for The New York Times in which he encouraged investors to snap out of their funk:

"Today people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They shouldn't. They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that pays virtually nothing and will only depreciate in value. Equities will almost certainly outperform cash over the next decade, probably by a substantial degree... Most major companies will be setting new profit records five, 10 and 20 years from now."

With the storm clouds gathering - and Wall Street titans falling like flies - few people agreed with Buffett's assessment. Some thought his forecast that American corporations would report record profits in five years was insanely optimistic. They were wrong. And so was Buffett. The companies that make up the S&P 500 were earning all-time record profits just 18 months later. And they have hit new records every quarter since.

Of course, optimism alone - wishful thinking - doesn't change much. And sometimes circumstances are entirely outside our control. It really didn't matter that the passengers aboard the Titanic were looking forward to a relaxing ocean voyage. But those who struggled with hope above hope will have made up some of the miraculous survival stories that surround the cruise disaster.

In many situations, optimism is the key difference. Here's what the experts say about the science: when you expect a positive outcome and it doesn't happen, the frontal lobes of your brain go into overdrive, frantically trying to figure out what went wrong and how to make the necessary adjustments. But when you expect a negative outcome, setbacks create no surprise or conflict in the brain. Changes and improvements aren't forthcoming because failure was already anticipated.

Studies show that pessimism promotes passivity and hopelessness. Research by psychologist Martin Seligman demonstrates that pessimists often behave helplessly, harming their chances of achieving desirable results and even feeding depression.

Other people, too, are hugely affected by the expectations you place on them. Employees are more productive when you expect excellence and industry. Students do better when teachers believe they are exceptional, even when they aren't.

Here's another example I found after surfing for examples of optimism, coming from the annals of American basketball. When the Lakers beat the Celtics in the 1987 NBA championship, coach Pat Riley didn't just predict the team would win again the next year, he offered Laker fans and the world his personal guarantee.

In an interview, Magic Johnson said, "Of all the psychological things that Pat's come up with, this is probably the best." Team mates showed up at camp believing their coach's credibility was on the line. The Lakers did win again. And when a reporter asked Riley during the victory celebration if he could guarantee a third consecutive championship, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar jumped up to cover his mouth. He later explained that he couldn't take another year of that kind of pressure.

Optimism doesn't mean we turn a blind eye to negative circumstances - or that we will never entertain darker thoughts. But, more than we realise, our expectations influence both our perception of reality and our actions - and so alter reality itself.

There is a huge pay-off in seeing grey skies as just passing clouds. Optimists expect to have meaningful relationships, good health and happy, productive lives. They live longer and make better financial plans, and they despair and worry less. They avoid needless anxiety and adjust better to stress. To protect against the killing electricity of negativity, you need to ground yourself.

Optimism isn't about avoiding reality, it's about facing it, and dealing with the struggles in a positive manner. Optimism is a source of vitality and hope, courage and confidence. It motivates us to set goals, to take risks. It encourages persistence in the face of obstacles. As Winston Churchill said, "For myself, I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use being anything else."

Yours in love,