Things You Didn’t Know About Successful People

Dear friend, if you’ve placed second in a writing contest, will you jump for joy and push for better results the next time or will you be discouraged and find an excuse not to join again?

In life, you are always faced with choices. You may opt to have a pessimist’s view and live a self-defeated life or you may decide to take the optimist’s route and live a challenging and fulfilling life.

So why nurture an optimist’s point of view? Well, optimism has been linked to positive mood and good morale, to academic, athletic, military, occupational and political success, to popularity, to good health and even to long life and freedom from trauma.

On the other hand, the rates of depression and pessimism have never been higher. It affects middle-aged adults the same way it hits younger people. The mean age of onset has gone from 30 to 15. It is no longer a middle-aged housewife’s disorder but also a teen-ager’s disorder as well.

Here’s how optimists are in action and what research says about them.

Optimists expect the best.

The defining characteristic of pessimists is that they tend to believe bad events, which will last a long time and undermine everything they do, are their own fault.

The truth is optimists are confronted with the same hard knocks of this world. What differs is the way they explain their misfortune---it’s the opposite way. They tend to believe defeat is just a temporary setback, that its causes are confined to this one case.

Optimists tend to focus on the solution to the 'problem' at hand. They use 'positive reinterpretation.' In other words, they reinterpret a negative experience in a way that helps them learn and grow. Such people are unfazed by bad situations; they perceive it as a challenge and try harder.

They won’t say “things will never get better,” “If I failed once, it will happen again” and “If I experience misfortune in one part of my life, then it will happen in my whole life.”

Positive expectancies of optimists also predict better reactions during transitions to new environments, sudden tragedies and unlikely turn of events. If they fall, they will stand up. They see opportunities instead of obstacles.

So why not be an optimist today? You just need to shift the way you think and I know you can do it.

Think positively and have a more fulfilling and satisfying life.