You know those folks who seem to have an inborn ability to see the positive in whatever happens? I mean, they don’t even have to try to be optimistic?
Hmm. Well, I don’t. Not too many, anyway. For most of us, trying to find and maintain a positive attitude can be difficult, especially in the face of adversity. Learning how to do that – learning how to ‘do’ optimism – is an intention, a daily decision.
Despair is easy, isn’t it? Many of us experience it as a natural, normal response to insult, injury, disappointment and loss of all kinds.
But despair drains energy and impairs the ability to act in ways that help us reach our goals and dreams. Research continues to confirm that an optimistic attitude is generally linked with improved physical and mental health. Martin Seligman, Ph.D. introduced the idea of pessimistic and optimistic ‘explanatory style’ – the way we talk to ourselves about the things that happen in our lives.
In a writing life, a pessimistic explanatory style can drain time, emotional and intellectual energy, and creativity.
Pessimistic explanatory style looks at an event as generalized, endless, and uncontrollable, and often results in despair and depression, and the inactivity associated with those states. Optimistic explanatory style, on the other hand, frames an event as specific, transient, and controllable.
Optimistic explanatory style inhibits or prevents depression and creates greater resilience.
Here’s an example of how different those two styles can be. Let’s say your dream is to write a novel that will touch and captivate middle grade children. Your goal is to finish a draft by December. You plan to meet this goal by writing two pages a day. The decision is not easy, and the doing is less easy – but you do it. You are at your notebook or computer on a daily or almost-daily basis.
Then adversity hits. Pick your adversity – a child gets sick, you decide the pages are trash, you get a particularly upsetting rejection on a different manuscript, the electricity goes off, the furnace needs replacing and you don’t have a spare $3,000, or life outside of your writing is simply too hectic and stressed. The list goes on.
But the result is that you can’t write, and then you get stressed and upset about that. Suddenly you’re in a funk. You’re no longer okay with the crumminess of first draft pages. You’ll never get published, anyway (endless). You have no talent and even less skill (generalized). There is no conceivable way to change anything (uncontrollable). Not only that, but you probably don’t even have any friends! Pessimistic explanatory style: generalized, endless, and uncontrollable. Or, as one of my favorite “clinical” texts says: “Blah,” said Toad (thank you, Arnold Lobel, FROG AND TOAD).
While you struggle with your feelings, and wish they would go away, you could be appropriating skills from those folks who seem to be natural optimists. Dang! How do they do it?
The best news is that anyone can learn.
The Irrepressible Writer is here to help you learn. You can change your style to optimistic, and your writing life will benefit because research shows that positive emotions “build and broaden” your mind. That means better problem-solving abilities, greater creativity, even wider vocabulary. And without question, positivity is energizing, and that makes you a more productive writer, instead of losing time to prolonged negativity.
And that’s not the style you want, is it?
I think it is so true that writers need to be optimists. It is a terribly hard journey, that must be terrible for pessimists. I don’t know if my mom helped make me an optimist–I imagine so–I am thankful to her then, EVERY DAY!
Great topic!
Margo
Hi, Margo!
Thanks for your comment…The great thing about the amazing research that’s been going on in the field of Positive Psychology is that the journey no longer has to feel terrible for those of us who are, or have been, pessimistic-leaning writers. I’ll be posting more about what it takes to move into really feeling like an optimist – and having our writing and our writing life benefit!
Carol
Thanks for an interesting post. I’m pretty much an optimist. And teaching in a school for at risk kids for fifteen years actually helped me become more of an optimist. I knew the kids needed a “you can do it” attitude and I tried to rise to the ocasion. Now I’m writing full-time and my first book is out on submission. Remaining optimistic through the query process was difficult at times but I did it. When I’m writing I am much more energetic and in touch with what I’m doing when I’m in a positive mood. When something from outside my writing world presses in on me I consciously work to try not to let it drag me down and have had varying amounts of success with that. I’ve written a few posts on my blog about self-doubt and how to keep your energy level high. Thanks again.
Hi Carol,
I am your poster child for the reflexive negative explanatory style. My husband is the poster child for the better way. I lean on him hard when I despair, which is too often.
Today the mid-grade story I’m working on turned to ash under my fingers and blew away. Metaphorically-speaking. I became completely and utterly bored with it (this is wayyyyy far into the writing of it). I have no idea why I’m writing it. It seems totally meaningless.
Deep breath. I now know this feeling will pass. I have all kinds of ways I try to talk to myself differently, to not make globalizing statements, etc. But I am still fundamentally a person with less faith than I wish I had. I don’t know how you scrabble together more faith from scratch.
Here’s to your blog helping us all figure out how!
Hi, Paul:
Thanks for sharing your story. I think it’s important for those of us who have to work hard at creating and maintaining a heartfelt positive attitude to know that even “pretty much…optimist” types such as you have to struggle with it, too – at least during particular difficult times.
When you talk about being more energetic and in touch with what you’re doing when you’re positive, it validates the research on positivity – that positive emotions “broaden and build” your mind.
I’d love to know what you mean – specifically – when you say “I consciously work to try not to let it drag me down”. What does that “work” consist of?
I’m looking forward to checking out your blog! Thanks again…
Hi, Cate:
I think it’s so great that you’ve learned that the “everything is ash” feeling is: 1) transient, and that it will pass, and 2) not “global” and about everything you touch (or write). Deep breathing really can give you the space you need to question that negative feeling so you don’t automatically sink into it and have it last way too long (and affect your writing life).
Thanks for reminding everyone that we don’t always feel like everything is blowing away, ashes in the wind, and that that particular belief is pretty common to most of us at some point in our writing and revision. Stepping back, breathing, just getting some distance from the negative thought is so important as a first step!
Thanks so much for sharing this!
Carol
Carol, thanks for the response and the question. What I mean when I say I consciously work to try not to let “it” drag me down is that I do several things.
One is conscious breathing, i.e. a simple form of meditation where you focus on the breath and basically tell yourself that not matter what happens everything will be okay.
Also, I remind myself quite of to be aware of what I do and don’t have control over. There’s no use worrying over things that I do not have control over. I think a background in meditation has helped me to be present in my life and when I am present it is easier to see things for what they are.
I hope this explanation helps. And I just want to say that these are things that I strive for. I think of it more as a continuum that I am on. The more I live in the present with awareness the less I worry.
The other part of the work is acknowledging and accepting my feelings whatever they are. Making friends with my anger and fear–that helps to lessen the overwhelming nature of those emotions.
I’m sure there are more things that I do to remain positive. I’m a bit of an exercise junkie–all those endorphins don’t hurt. And, I try to maintain open communication with people in my life, not to let things build up with family and friends.
Hi, Paul:
Thanks for the fabulous detail – this is a great list of tools for positivity. Read the above, everyone, if you haven’t yet! Paul talks about the specifics of creating a more positive emotional state by:
1. Breathing
2. Recalling what he does and doesn’t have control over (an optimistic explanatory style)
3. Not judging his feelings, but simply allowing them to exist
4. Exercise: daily research pours in about the multifaceted benefits.