Member-only story
Stop Being Overly Optimistic to Achieve Success
How excessive optimism can make things worse and why a pessimistic-realistic attitude helps you more
New year, new you. Always look on the bright side. Smile and the world will smile back. Look for the positive and you can find it. You can achieve whatever you want. You are capable of great things. Don’t settle for being ordinary.
Right…
We’ve just closed a year that was mostly labelled as an unprecedented shitshow of a dumpster fire (these are the new words I learnt in 2020) and as we enter into a new year we need to be optimistic, right? We need to have hope that things will get better. We need to believe that life will get back to normal — whatever normal means for us. We need to have plans and ambitions. Sure, we need to have a positive attitude, especially when the going gets tough. Or when things are looking up. So, basically all the time.
It is scientifically proven that optimism has plenty of benefits, in many areas of life. Optimism increases pain tolerance and even life expectancy. Being optimistic can work miraculously in your relationships, it improves your health and your overall performance too.
But too much of anything does more harm than good and we, humans, usually fail to do…
