Optimism. "Seeing the glass as half-full instead of half-empty." When we're feeling down about something, it seems that the first advice that we get is always "look on the bright side," or "don't be so pessimistic." While these sentiments may sound like other people's way of dodging the fact that they don't really know what to make us feel better, they may also make us wonder, what is the importance of optimism?
Optimists Are Happier People
One good place to start an article about the importance of optimism is with something that you have probably heard, but may have doubted. Optimists are generally happier people. While those annoying optimists have been telling the rest of us that very thing for years, optimists can usually seem for "blissfully ignorant" and "perennially happy."
Science is discovering, however, that an optimistic outlook can improve your mood, which in turn makes you more productive and gives you, even more, to be happy about.
Optimists Are More Likely To Take Risks
Optimism does have practical benefits. For example, optimism encourages you to try new things, or try things at all.
If things are tough and you are a pessimist, you may just assume that there's no way out and stop looking for ways to improve your situation. Someone who is neither an optimist nor a pessimist may try to do things the way that things have always been done even though the way that things have always been done likely lead to the issue in the first place. An optimist, when faced with a challenge, is more likely to have the hope and enthusiasm to find a new way out of the issue.
Optimists Learn From Their Mistakes
Optimism is not only a way to overcome obstacles, but it is also a way to learn from failures and trauma.
Being an optimist does not mean that everything that you do turns out right in the end, or that you live under the delusion that everything is going well even when it is not. While optimism can help you solve problems, it can also help you to keep going after you encounter a problem that you can't solve. After all, some things are beyond our control. The optimist is much better equipped to face these challenges and to grow and learn from them than the pessimist.
Optimists Can Cope With Problems Better
Being more able to cope with trauma is only one of several reasons that researchers have found to make optimists more healthy people.
In addition to facing trauma in a more productive way, optimists are more likely to have social networks that can help them recover, they are less likely to turn to self-destructive coping mechanisms, and they are more likely to have a good understanding of their health needs, according to Dr. Utpal Dholakia, writing for Psychology Today.
If you have undergone a significant trauma in your life, you know that these setbacks do more than just bum you out, they can have a severe impact on your physical health as well. For this reason, optimists, who are better able to deal with these setbacks, are often physically healthier people.
Optimists Find And Create Healthy Environments
An optimistic feeling can also be used as an indicator of a healthy environment. Optimistic people tend to gather and to thrive in places where hard work and healthy relationships are actively fostered, and where success is common enough to maintain an optimistic attitude. As a result, if you feel optimism yourself or see it in those around you, it is likely a good sign that the environment is a good one to operate in, or that things are genuinely going well. It can also help you to determine what variables are going well and identify ways in which to change things that aren't going well.