Positive Outlook: Optimism is a Choice
How many times has a “setback” led to a positive opportunity?
It may seem naive to push for positive thinking in the middle of a crisis. Remember Pollyanna? That cheerful orphan with a button nose and a big bow in her hair who insisted that everything was all roses?
That’s not what’s happening here. So bear with me.
According to research, 86% of U.S. adults say the coronavirus will lead to important lessons for humanity. These range from practical lessons, such as hand-washing; to personal lessons, such as grasping the importance of our family and loved ones; to societal lessons, like the value of social-emotional learning or universal health care.
This ability—to see the good in an inherently challenging situation—is what Daniel Goleman calls Positive Outlook. One of four self-management competencies in Goleman’s framework of emotional intelligence, Positive Outlook refers to our ability to see the best in people, situations, and events. When people have Positive Outlook they:
See the “glass half full”
Cultivate positive emotions in challenging moments
Pursue their goals no matter what life throws their way
Focus on what’s working
See the best in themselves and others
Leverage strengths in order to solve problems and create productive outcomes
Positive Outlook is a prerequisite for effective leadership.
On a team level, Positive Outlook leads to higher levels of engagement, lower levels of conflict, and greater overall effectiveness. Part of this has to do with “emotional contagion”—when people in power dictate the mood of everyone around them.
On a personal level, the more positive emotions we experience, the better our health and wellbeing. Research from Johns Hopkins shows that people with Positive Outlook are 13% less likely than their negative counterparts to have a heart attack or other coronary issue.
The Brain on Positive Outlook
Positive emotions are associated with the left side of the prefrontal cortex and, luckily for us, we can intentionally activate this part of our brain. Evidence suggests that highly resilient people proactively cultivate their positive emotions by strategically eliciting them. They do this using humor, relaxation techniques, visualizations, and/or activities that prompt them to focus on the bright side.
As a coach, I often use ‘appreciative inquiry.’ Developed by Dr. David Cooperrrider at Weatherhead School of Management, this approach encourages clients to start by naming and building upon what is going well.
For example, I have a client who is moderating how she delivers feedback. Known for being straightforward and honest, she can sometimes come across as “too intense” or “too cold.” When we started, I asked her to tell me:
“What is the benefit of being so straightforward?”
And... “When have you successfully given feedback and what did that look like?”
By highlighting her strengths and leveraging what is working, we were able to establish a solid foundation for infusing her feedback with more Positive Outlook and Empathy. Instead of just cutting to what’s wrong, she started approaching feedback with a “what’s right?” mentality, taking time to connect more deeply with her team members before delivering a truth that could otherwise be hard to hear.
Another example comes from a client who struggled with anxiety. Her fears meant she would always walk into important meetings expecting the worst.
She would come across as stand-offish and nervous, which didn’t leave much space for speaking her mind or being open to the ideas of others.
Then she started using positive visualization. Before a big meeting, she would sit and imagine her desired outcome, “What am I looking forward to?” she would ask herself. “How will I feel if everything goes well?”
Then, in the evening, she would reflect on her day with these three prompts:
What did I do well?
What did I learn?
What am I grateful for?
With consistent practice, her confidence went up, her anxiety went down, and she became a much stronger source of inspiration for her team.
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Use The Power Wisely
When it comes to Positive Outlook, brain training is everything.
Practice, we must.
Why?
Because when given two stimuli of equal intensity—a positive and a negative—the negative will generally have a much larger impact on our behavior and cognition.
This is called negativity bias: it refers to our propensity to seek and respond more rapidly and consistently to what’s “wrong” in our environment.
Without getting too deep in quantum psychics, I’ll say this: where attention goes, energy flows.
This does not mean every positive thought renders a positive outcome or visa-versa. (If only it were that simple.) It just means that where we put our attention is where we end up putting our effort.
The other thing about Positive Outlook is this: it does not mean we ignore, delete, or subjugate the truth of what is happening.
As Carl Jung wrote, "Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is."
Positive psychology is often contorted by the belief that our job is to eradicate negativity. This has led to some horrific examples of gaslighting—where people who are experiencing legitimate hardship are basically told it’s their fault for not thinking positively enough.
It’s like telling someone impacted by systemic bias that it’s their fault they are being held back in their professional life.
Positive Outlook is not about bypassing someone’s experience or blaming them for what is actually rooted in a systemic issue.
In fact, many of the things we are experiencing— rising unemployment, millions of deaths, climate change, and coming to terms with the depth and prevalence of systemic racism—won’t be solved just by thinking positive. They will be solved by leaning into our strengths as individuals—by leaning into the facts and visioning a better future—not by ignoring the discomfort, but by facing it.
It’s like my dear colleague, Wesley Morris, said the other day, “Can you look at a compost heap and still smell flowers?”
In other words, can you stare into a heap of mess and sense into the possibility of new life?
The rot and the growth are one and the same. Our grief is what inspires us to look for a silver lining… our challenges teach us about what we want by bringing us face to face with what we don’t.
Dr. Jim Kim is a physician and anthropologist. He has guided numerous countries through pandemics, including the HIV/AIDS crisis. When he became president of the World Bank in 2012 he said this: “For me, optimism is a moral choice… If you are a person who is privileged, has resources, and you go into a situation where you are working with people who are very poor, if you are cynical and pessimistic and negative, that is absolutely deadly for poor people.”
While this quote gives a nod to the role of emotional contagion, it also gives credence to something else:
Positive Outlook is not just nice to have, but a responsibility— it's our duty to cultivate it in those places where we have influence and power.
It provides sustenance for hope. It provides fodder for vision.
As 22-year-old Amanda Gorman said in her poem at last week’s US presidential inauguration: “There is always light if only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.”