Are You Pessimist Or Optimist?

Hello my darlings!

I had an awesome week! My aunt was in Chicago and I was very happy to spend some time with her. I am so thankful for my family!

I finished remodeling of my bathroom floor, and I completed very interesting course about morality. I love to be productive!

I keep learning new things about happiness. And I just started a new course about the psychology of happiness and found out about the differences between pessimists and optimists. I thought that it was very useful information and I want to share my new knowledge with you, my dear readers!

Here is the link to the video for today's post: Pessimist Or Optimist?

I want to start with the state which is called Learned Helplessness. Imagine a person who faced some very unpleasant situation and had no control over it. Next time he faces similar situation, but he has control. But because of his past experience, he is not trying to make his life better, he gives up and not using his power, his ability to improve something. It happens when the person develops Learned Helplessness. It is very similar to depression, but it is not generated by genes, it is learned from experience.

Luckily, there are a lot of kind and caring people in this world, and some compassionate psychologists made a research which helped them to find out why some people get this learned helplessness and give up, and other people has no impact from negative past experiences and keep moving on. About one third of people kept trying to change the situation even if in the past they had no control. And these people had optimistic way of thinking. This optimistic thinking helped them to overcome difficulties. And people with pessimistic thinking got learned helplessness which made them unproductive and passive.

So if you don't want to be depressed, all you need to do is to stay away from pessimistic thinking and stick to optimistic one!

Now I will share four main differences between pessimists and optimists, so you can figure out which way of thinking is closer to yours and modify it if it's needed.

1. Permanent or Temporary? Pessimists tend to think that the situation is permanent. If something happened, it will last forever. And optimists like to think that any situation is temporary, that at some point it will come to an end and a new life will grow!

2. Pervasive or Local? When something bad happens, pessimists usually think that this unpleasant event can undermine their whole life, that everything depends on this one bad thing. For example, if pessimist failed some test or project, he can think that he is a loser and that he never will be able to achieve any success. Optimists think that one particular event cannot define their personality and that there will be new interesting and exciting opportunities!

3. Personal or Not Personal? Pessimists take everything too personally and optimists usually don't. For example, if pessimist got rejected, he can have the following thoughts, "I am not worthy, I am not lovable, I got rejected because something is wrong with me and no one will ever love me". Optimist, who doesn't take things too personally, would think, "I guess we were not meant to be together, it happens. I can find another partner, who would be a better fit and I can build new meaningful relationships". So optimist doesn't blame another person, and doesn't blame himself either, he just moves on.

4. No Control or Control? Pessimists don't believe they have control over situation. Why even try then? I tried once, it didn't work, I am not going to try again. Optimists believe that they can have control in some cases. And even if they cannot control external events, they still have control over their own emotions and actions, and they keep working on themselves and don't give up!

Now look at this list and think of who you are and who do you want to be? I used to be more pessimistic type, to be honest. But my will power helped me to change my thinking to optimistic. And I know that life is much easier and much more productive, when you are full of optimism! I said a lot of times in my blog that happiness depends a lot on productivity. The more you use your potential, the happier you are. Optimism keeps our eyes open and we can see new opportunities coming our way!

Nothing can break you! Believe in yourself!

Be Strong And Love yourself!

From Dasha With Love!

Love Wins!