3 Ways to Fight Your Pessimism & Boost Your Positivity! ✨
3 Strategies for Boosting Your Optimism
With so much negative news in the media, there seems to be more fear, panic, stress, anxiety, and worry in the world than ever before.
According to recent surveys, almost 90% of Americans are pessimistic about their economic futures. And the majority of Americans are also pessimistic about the future of the United States as a country.
Most people are feeling pessimistic about the state of the world, the state of this country, and the state of their lives.
It’s something you can easily confirm by reading the news, scrolling through your social media timelines, and glancing at peoples’ facial expressions as you walk by on your way to work. People are more concerned, frightened, anxious, and scared about the future than they are positive, upbeat, or excited.
There is more pessimism than optimism in our society right now.
Why is this a problem?
Pessimism is terrible for your health. Doctors often cite pessimistic states of mind like worrying, stress, and anxiety as causes for physical illnesses, diseases, and even death. It’s a totally avoidable health problem that does FAR too much damage to our lives, well-being, and health.
Pessimism kills happiness. It’s impossible to feel horribly pessimistic and 100% happy at the same time. Hope and optimism are necessary ingredients to happiness, fulfillment, and joy. Feeling downbeat and overly pessimistic can put a serious strain on your enjoyment of your life. And after all, happiness — finding happiness in your own life and spreading happiness to others — is what life is all about.
Pessimism limits your vision, ambitions, and success. When you are pessimistic, you aren’t going to shoot for the stars, aim high, or take a leap of faith to pursue your biggest dreams in life. When you are pessimistic, you are always going to play it safe. And unfortunately playing it safe never leads to becoming the best possible version of yourself and achieving your greatest potential. Pessimism isn’t going to inspire you to be your best or quit your job to go do that thing you love.
So since pessimism is a happiness-killer, success-killer, and health-killer, these are 3 ways to constantly look on the bright side, stay upbeat, stay positive, and see the glass half-full as opposed to half-empty — 3 Ways to Fight Your Pessimism.
1) Surround Yourself with a Positive Circle
If everybody in your entire social network on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and Twitter is pessimistic, browsing through your social medias will always fill you up with anxiety, sadness, and dread.
If you are surrounded by a group of people that are always complaining about their jobs, their lives, the current state of politics, and the current state of the world, it’s going to be incredibly hard for you to feel a shred of optimism throughout your day-to-day.
But if you fill your life with the happy-go-lucky, upbeat, optimistic, and motivated winners that are always grateful and excited, suddenly the world is not going to feel so negative. Your entire perception of the state of this country will change.
If you are around positive people for long enough, sooner or later their positivity, gratitude, and joy is going to rub off on you.
And here’s the great thing about Medium. There are a ton of positive, upbeat, optimistic, motivated, and like-minded people on here to connect with! The Medium community is filled with positivity!
If you’re wondering where you might be able to find and connect with more positive people, look no further than Medium.
The next time you’re reading an article penned by a writer who inspires you, go ahead and shoot them a direct message or an email. Invite that optimistic go-getter into your circle.
2) Unfollow Negative News Outlets, Influencers, and Blogs
Do you follow any blogs or media outlets online like TMZ that seem to ALWAYS has a horrible story, a shocking tragedy, or sensational gossip to share?
In the age of the Internet, it seems like the majority of online outlets and even more traditional news media are relying on sensationalism, negativity, and misleading click-bait titles to get more views, likes, follows, and attention. There are quite a few social media influencers with massive followings that rely on the same tactics as well.
Because unfortunately, journalists have discovered time and time again that negativity sells. Bad news attracts more attention than good news. And dark moments get more clicks and views than light moments. As they say, “if it bleeds, it leads.”
So since the news media are most likely not going to change their focus on negativity anytime soon, the BEST way to Fight Your Pessimism is to simply tune it out. Stop watching the nightly news. Don’t listen to the news on the way to work. And unfollow all of the outlets on social media that refuse to publish anything positive.
You can still keep up with what’s going on in the world. But do it in moderation.
Because this is your life, your happiness, and your peace-of-mind. If a news outlet, a blog, or an influencer is a constant source of negativity, then you MUST find a healthier way to get your news.
3) Write a Daily Gratitude List
Gratitude is a science-backed way to boost your resilience, self-esteem, empathy, physical health, social life, your sleep, and your happiness. And of course, gratitude increases your optimism.
If we had to define the most positive of all human emotions, it would have to be gratitude. Gratitude is about showing your thanks for what you already have and showing appreciation for the incredible things that may happen in the future.
Gratitude is the utter opposite of pessimism. There is no better way to counteract a downbeat mentality or outlook on life.
And the best way to feel more gratitude is by gratitude-listing.
Set some time aside, about 15 minutes or so, every single day to write at least 10 things you are grateful for. Grateful for your family, your friends, your community, your MacBook, the Internet, for the lunch that you ate today?
It doesn’t matter how small or insignificant it might seem. Write it down.
As you begin to make this a daily habit, you might be surprised to see yourself writing down 20, 25, or 30 items on your gratitude list as opposed to just 10. You are going to find out that:
At any point in time, there is a cornucopia of stuff to be grateful about.
There is a silver lining to every single tragedy. And you can always feel optimistic about any situation, no matter how bleak it may seem to you.
Optimism Wins
It might feel impossible to stay positive, optimistic, or hopeful in todays’ world, especially given the current state of politics. That’s why it is more important than ever to do everything in your power to Fight Your Pessimism.
Hang on to hope as tightly as possible.
Optimism Always Wins. It is the first step to manifesting all of your dreams, ideas, pursuits, and desires.
I know it gets hard. But if you Surround Yourself with a Positive Circle, Unfollow Negative News Influencers, and Write a Daily Gratitude List, nobody will ever be able to rain on your positive mentality.
What do you think? Are there any other great tactics for staying optimistic that I didn’t cover here?
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