We’ve all been there: Something goes wrong at work or in our personal lives, and then as the saying goes, “When it rains, it pours.” Suddenly, you’re feeling overwhelmed by more than one complicated, hard situation and it’s difficult to not give in to despair.Somewhat ironically, a “happiness expert” completely understands.Bestselling author and positive psychology researcher Michelle Gielan, whose new book, Resilient Optimism: The Science of Sustaining a Positive Mindset in Tough Times is out now, has been researching positive psychology for 15 years, and had been passionately pursuing solutions to stressful life events even before she began studying psychology.
“If you had told me when I started my career that I would eventually become a happiness researcher, I would not have believed you,” she tells Parade. “I was a national news anchor at CBS News, and during the Great Recession I spent morning after morning reporting on people losing their jobs, their homes and, in some cases, retirement savings they had spent decades building.”“During that time, I started wondering what might happen if we reported on both the problem and what people could do about it,” she continues. “So we tried an experiment at CBS. In the middle of the recession, we devoted a week of segments to solutions in the face of financial challenges. For instance, if your home is facing foreclosure, what do you do? If you’re fighting with your spouse over money, how do you have better conversations? I was flooded with positive notes from viewers.”She shares that one man from Oklahoma wrote in “after watching a segment on rethinking financial stress” with gratitude, as he was inspired to take much-needed steps—including reaching out to his brother and pooling their resources—to get on more solid footing.“I remember thinking: a television segment certainly did not solve the recession, but somehow it changed what this man believed he could do next,” Gielan explains.
Later, she left CBS and began studying Applied Positive Psychology.“In many ways, I’ve been investigating the same question ever since: What is it about our mindset that predicts whether we will be able to see that next step and take it to fuel positive outcomes?” she tells Parade. Here, Gielan reveals the number one thing she’s begging people to stop doing during hard times, the difference between “rational optimism” vs. toxic positivity (like “brightsiding“), how to “do” positivity (even when you’re feeling pessimistic) and more. Read on for her vital insights on happiness and recalibrating our mindsets.Related: 16 Common Phrases Unhappy People Often Use Without Realizing It, Psychologists Say
The ‘#1 Thing’ To Stop Doing: Waiting for the Right Mindset Before Behaving Like an Optimist
Gielan tells Parade, “I would encourage people to stop waiting until they feel optimistic before they behave like an optimist.”“It’s easy to start with optimism,” she continues. “We feel it at the beginning of a new job, a relationship, a project, even a new year, when possibility is high and we haven’t hit the first real challenge yet. The harder question is what happens to that optimism when the challenge lasts longer than we expected, the first plan fails or we’re simply exhausted. How do we sustain it then?”First things first: It’s not about pretending everything is OK when it’s clearly not.
“We give people instructions like ‘think positive,’ ‘stay hopeful’ and ‘be optimistic,’ as if we can summon an emotional state simply because it would be useful,” Gielan says. “On an ordinary day, maybe that’s possible, but during some of the hardest periods of our lives, it can be really hard.”This is something Gielan experienced firsthand.“I learned that very personally when our daughter, Zoë, was born about ten weeks early,” she tells Parade. “I ended up with an emergency C-section, and when she was born, she was just 3 lb. 7 oz. We spent the next 50 days in the NICU. I had been studying optimism for years at that point, but sitting beside her isolette at 3 a.m., none of that allowed me to predict everything was going to turn out well. But while I did not know the ending, I could hold her tiny hand, ask another question, support my husband, and accept help from people who loved us, which was not always easy for me.”
Gielan couldn’t simply wait for her mindset to change, she had to make some intentional decisions instead.“Before then, to me optimism meant expecting a good outcome,” she explains. “The NICU taught me something deeper: sometimes you cannot know the ending, but you can still believe your behavior matters and choose to do the next meaningful action. That is why I now say optimism is not a feeling. It is a behavior.”Related: The World’s Most Resilient People Swear by These 50 Habits
Rational Optimism vs. Toxic Positivity: What’s the Difference?
Hearing that you shouldn’t wait for your mindset to change, and instead start to behave like an optimist might evoke whispers of “toxic positivity.” But Gielan isn’t signing off on that practice of suppressing complicated emotions.“Toxic positivity often edits out the problem,” she tells Parade. “Meanwhile positive psychology doesn’t ask us to do that. The field looks at the conditions, thoughts and behaviors that help people thrive, and it does not require us to pretend stress and disappointment have disappeared.”“What I study specifically is rational optimism, which means taking a realistic assessment of the present moment while still believing that our behavior can matter,” she continues. “You need both halves. Optimism without realism can become delusion pretty quickly.”
She gives an example of what this looks like.“After my husband, Shawn Achor, gave a talk about optimism, the CEO of the company offered him a ride to the airport,” she says. “Shawn got in and buckled his seatbelt. The CEO did not. The warning bell kept ringing until Shawn finally asked him, half joking, ‘You don’t wear seatbelts?’ The CEO said, ‘Nah, man. I saw your talk. I’m an optimist.'”“Shawn came home and said, ‘Optimism doesn’t stop cars from hitting us,’” she continues. “A resilient optimist puts on the seatbelt. We tell the truth about the risk, and then we ask what we can do next. That is very different from pretending the risk isn’t there.”Related: Avoid Using This Phrase That ‘Reinforces a Cycle of Pessimism,’ Psychologists Warn
Harvard Business Review Press
5 Ways To ‘Do’ Optimism When You Feel Completely Pessimistic
OK, so how can someone put resilient optimism into practice—especially during tough times? Gielan gives five practical steps.
1. Focus on the facts
“The first thing I would do is make sure you’re working from an accurate picture of what is happening and a full set of facts,” Gielan tells Parade. “When we’re overwhelmed, our brains are very good at taking one bad experience and turning it into a much bigger story.”“A project goes badly and suddenly ‘nothing is working,'” she explains. “We make a mistake and ‘I always mess this up.’ Something painful happens and our brain starts jumping several chapters ahead to an ending that has not actually occurred.”Related: 9 Phrases That Signal Someone Has a ‘Victim Mindset,’ According to Psychologists
2. Recalibrate your mindset with questions
“One of the habits I have researched is recalibrating our mindset by asking what information may have disappeared from view,” Gielan says.
She recommends asking questions like:
What is still working? Who is helping? What have I handled before that might be useful now? Has anything moved forward, however slightly?3. Complete an action step
“Then take one useful step, even if it feels very small or unremarkable,” Gielan recommends. “Make the appointment, ask the question, send the email, go outside for ten minutes or ask someone to help.” This does more for us than simply checking something off a to-do list.“When we feel helpless, one manageable action reminds us that we can still influence what happens next,” she explains.
4. Consider where the pessimism is coming from
When we’re feeling especially pessimistic, we’re likely stressed about something. It’s good to examine that mental reaction.“Stress can also contain useful information,” Gielan tells Parade. “We have been taught to treat stress almost entirely as something bad, but often the reason something is stressful is because we care about it. When I’m nervous before a keynote, I know it is because doing good work matters to me. If a parent is furious because a teenager is late getting home, there is often fear and love sitting right underneath the anger. Once you understand what the stress is really about, you have a much better shot at choosing a useful response.”Related: 10 Ways To Become Someone Who Avoids Negativity, According to Psychologists
5. Take a beat
“Sometimes, though, the resilient move is to stop,” Gielan admits. “I have worked with so many capable professionals who get stressed and double down on work. Eventually there is simply no capacity left. Sometimes the next resilient move is to drop a commitment, say no, sleep, ask for help or admit that something needs to change.”
Related: If You Feel Chronically Drained, Psychologists Say These 9 Patterns May Be Why
How Do Genuinely Happy People Avoid Burnout?
Doubling down on work is a much more common choice than many of us would like to acknowledge. Whether it’s for a much-needed distraction or to receive admiration from others, working harder is the path plenty of people take.
“I’ve become fascinated by recovery because we tend to celebrate the exact opposite,” Gielan says. “We applaud the person who can keep working, keep producing, keep answering email late at night, and we call that commitment. But eventually, a brain that never gets to disengage becomes less effective.”
This can apply during hard times, but also when things are going well. So, how do genuinely happy people avoid burnout?
According to Gielan, it involves giving yourself true breaks, and spending time focusing on what’s important to you outside of work.
“Shawn and I surveyed more than 5,000 working professionals in research with Project: Time Off, and one of the findings we published in Harvard Business Review was that people who took 11 or more vacation days were 30% more likely to receive a raise or promotion than people who took fewer days,” Gielan explains. “Booking a trip won’t automatically get you promoted, but this is one more piece of data pointing to the value of disconnecting and recharging.”
She’s quick to clarify that “you do not need a week in Italy every time your brain needs a break.”
“Sometimes it’s enough to take a walk without your phone, drink your coffee without answering email at the same time or leave work mentally as well as physically for a little while,” she adds. “These things sound almost too simple to matter, but simple and easy are not always the same thing.”
Gielan also recommends intentionally noting positive moments.
“At the end of the day, I text my husband three or four ‘Best Moments,'” she tells Parade. “They are small, good things from the day. Maybe something hilarious our son said, a hug from our daughter, a really good dinner or a moment at work that went better than expected. I now have more than 1,500 of those messages and counting! Occasionally, I scroll back through them, and what gets me is how many of the things I treasure would otherwise have disappeared. They’ve become this incredible bank of memory triggers for parts of my life I otherwise might have forgotten.”
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Related: 50 Positive Affirmations To Boost Your Confidence (And Change Your Life)
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Courtesy Cave Henricks Communications
Michelle Gielan, former CBS anchor, positive psychology researcher and author of Resilient Optimism: The Science of Sustaining a Positive Mindset in Tough TimesHence then, the article about i m a positive psychology researcher this is the 1 thing i m begging people to stop doing during hard times was published today ( ) and is available on Parade ( Saudi Arabia ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
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