23/09/2022
How to become an optimist
1. First of all, our own brain interferes with optimism. He fixates on danger, which breeds negativity and pessimism. Try to drown out the negative inner voice and train your brain so that it pays more attention to the positive things. When faced with difficulties, do not forget that problems and obstacles themselves are striking, and we often exaggerate them, that's the way we are; try to evaluate them objectively and not be led by your imagination. Train your self-awareness and remember that these difficulties act as triggers and provoke fear in you. Think about how you feel and try to figure out why you feel it. Is it possible to isolate a specific aspect of the problem and work on it?
2. The next step is to rationally analyze the facts, separating them from the fiction that your fears have generated. If you don't have all the facts, collect more information. (I will share my personal experience: many of the problems I had at work arose due to mistakes or misunderstandings, and not collusion of colleagues, although my pessimism always inspired me that people took up arms against me and tried to deliberately ruin my projects. Only after finding out all the facts, I I saw that there were no conspiracies and could not be.)
3. It's helpful to write down your fears, along with supporting facts and actions you can take to solve the problem. The trick is to acknowledge your fears and articulate them, and then turn on the logic and focus on the facts. If possible, highlight the positive side of the situation and see the negative as an opportunity for improvement. How to improve the situation? Once you start thinking about what can actually be done, you will begin to think positively.
4. Sometimes, before you solve a problem, it's better to first take a break and think about all the good things that you have in life. Focus on that and let the positive feelings fill you to the brim. Avoid negative people who only criticize and try to create a positive environment for yourself. Then deal with the problem. So you will tune in in advance to the positive and to find a solution.
This principle of looking for positive moments in a difficult situation is called reframing. For example, stop talking about problems as problems. State the problem as a task. It is enough to change the words, and the situation will change, because the task inspires, but the problem does not.
If it is very difficult to communicate with a person, instead of calling him bad words and avoiding him, formulate the problem differently. Think about what caused this behavior. What emotions does he experience, what fears influence his actions? So you will not accept the situation passively, you will tune in to find a solution.
Instead of dreading meeting an unhappy customer, see it as an opportunity to better understand their needs and find other ways to please them (and make money).
Reframing takes a lot of practice, but it's a surprisingly charismatic skill. By reframing the problem and seeing it as a task, you motivate people to take action, because only action can solve the problem. You are literally replacing fear with positivity.
