How to become an Optimist Part II: Disputing Pessimistic Beliefs
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.”The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.” ~ H Mencken.
To become an optimist the first step is to identify what you are thinking, how you are feeling and what actions you take in response to adversity (stressful events). This was discussed in detail in How to become an Optimist - Part I. Once you are able to clearly identify your thoughts and thus your beliefs, the next step is to evaluate and dispute them.
Question the accuracy of your beliefs
In order to become an optimist you must question your automatic beliefs. Question it for accuracy by comparing it with past evidence. Be skeptical of the truth of your beliefs. Examine it carefully and compare it with actual past evidence.
An example of questioning pessimistic thinking:
Adversity: Mark’s boss wants to see him.
Belief: She wants to reprimand me for doing a poor job.
Consequence: She probably wants to demote me, or fire me. If I lose my job I won’t be able to pay my rent. I will end up homeless. My wife will become angry. Mark ends up feeling anxious and fearful.
Questioning for accuracy: What evidence do I have that she thinks I am doing a poor job? Didn’t she just last week mention to a client that I handled the account well? Didn’t she give me a good performance evaluation just six months ago? Didn’t she just give me several new accounts to handle, which indicates a vote of confidence in my ability?
Questioning your beliefs in this way helps you to recognise that your beliefs may not be reflecting reality. It is essential that you question your beliefs for accuracy and look for actual objective evidence.
Another example of questioning pessimistic beliefs
Adversity: Jill’s friend Amy says she cannot go to the movies with her.
Belief: She is does not want to be my friend anymore.
Consequence: Amy probably got bored of hanging out with me. She probably thinks I am a boring person. No one wants to be friends with me. I will be all alone. Jill feels sad and decides to stop spending time with Amy.
Questioning for accuracy: But Amy threw me a birthday party just two weeks ago? Surely she would only do that if she likes me? She went shopping with me last weekend? Didn’t she invite me to that play the other day? Surely that means that she still wants to spend time with me and be my friend.
In order to become an optimist, you must learn to refute your initial negative (pessimistic) belief by using objective evidence from your past.
Disputing Your Beliefs
The process of disputing your beliefs is basically the process of arguing with yourself. If someone says something critical of you, I am sure you will dispute it, at least to your self. For example, if someone says that you are boring, you will start disputing it in your head, thinking of all the instances that show that you are not boring, and you will think up reasons why you might have appeared boring at certain times. Perhaps you were sleepy or tired and so on. This is what you must learn to do with your own automatically negative beliefs about yourself. In order to become an optimist you must dispute those negative self-criticisms. There are various possible methods of disputation. You need to use as many of them as possible to change your thinking from pessimistic to optimistic.
When disputing your negative self-belief you can imagine that someone else has said to you and you are defending yourself. Another visualization that helps is to imagine that a friend or your child says this negative criticism about themselves and you are trying to show them that their belief is incorrect. So you can imagine that it is your child saying that she is boring. How would you respond to her? Respond to yourself in the same way.
Challenge your beliefs with possible alternatives
To become an optimist you must become a master at identifying possible alternatives. You have identified your belief, and questioned its accuracy; now you need to consider possible alternative beliefs that might also explain the event.
What other reasons could your boss want to see you? Perhaps to give you a new account? To praise you for a job well done? To seek some information about a client?
What other reasons might your friend turn down your offer to go to the movies? Perhaps she is tired? After all, she did have the flu recently. Or perhaps she has a lot of work to do? After all, she did just start taking evening classes.
Becoming an optimist means looking for more plausible positive alternative explanations for the occurrence of the event.
De-catastrophize
To catastrophize is to believe that a specific bad incident will cause a horrible ripple effect throughout all areas of your life. It is to believe that the event is catastrophic. So Mark has catastrophized his boss requesting a meeting not just to him losing his job, but to the failure of his marriage and Jill had catastrophized Amy’s not wanting to go to the movies not just to the loss of that friendship but to the loss of all possible friendships.
Catastrophizing is imagining and believing the worst of all possible explanations and scenarios. In common parlance it is making a mountain out of a molehill.
In order to become an optimist it is essential that you learn to analyze your thinking and de-catastrophize it.
De-catastrophizing Mark’s beliefs: Even if he did lose his job, would it mean that his wife would leave him? It’s highly unlikely. To answer this question, look for hard evidence. When Mark was between jobs for six months while he finished his degree, his wife was very supportive and did an excellent job supporting the family. He knows that his wife is very understanding and reasonable so it is very unlikely that she would leave him because he lost his job.
Anyway, what would be the realistic expectations if he did lose his job? Chances are that he would find another job, because he is qualified and has experience. And even if it is a bit of a struggle financially for a while, chances are that he will get another job and he will meet his obligations.
Decatastrophising Jill’s beliefs: Even if Amy does not want to be her friend anymore, does it mean that she will never find another friend? This is very unlikely. Looking at the evidence, Jill has several other friends and has had many friends in the past. She might be a bit sad to lose Amy’s friendship, but she will still have other friends and still be able to enjoy the pleasures of friendship.
The point of de-catastrophising is to realize that even if your fears are true, you will find positive ways to cope with it and the consequences are not as bad you are imagining. To become an optimist you must realize that your thoughts are sometimes ridiculous and unrealistically negative. And you must replace these thoughts with more realistic ones.
Evaluating the optimistic result
Once you take these steps you will have different thinking and therefore different reaction, which causes a different result. This is why optimists have more positive lives – because their optimistic thinking causes them to react differently and this influences how the world reacts to them.
Mark, instead of feeling fearful and being defensive in his meeting with his boss, feels more in control and confident. As a result, his boss feels more confidence in Mark and values him more as an employee. Thus Mark, by engaging in an optimistic thinking style, has brought about a more optimistic outcome.
Jill, instead of feeling sad and ending her friendship with Amy, feels calm and relaxed and Amy appreciates Jill’s understanding behavior and values Jill’s friendship even more. Thus, Jill, by engaging in an optimistic thinking style, has directly created a more optimistic outcome.
How you react to adversity determines how the world reacts to you. Thinking more optimistically engenders a more positive outcome.
Becoming an optimist
The steps to becoming an optimist are:
- Identify your beliefs in reaction to adversity.
- Question your beliefs for accuracy.
- Dispute your belief by: - Looking for alternatives
- De-castastrophizing
Practice this process with any adverse events you experience over the next few days. In order to gauge the effect of this process I suggest you take careful note of exactly how challenging your beliefs changes your reaction to adversity in terms of how you feel and what you do. The best proof is the one you experience for yourself.
My experience of becoming an optimist
I was a genuine pessimist. I constantly worried, and suffered from anxiety and severe depression as a result. Initially I found it very challenging to dispute my beliefs. I was so comfortable with my thinking habits that even if they made me miserable I still wanted to hang on to them. I found myself in tears once because I knew I had to challenge my thinking but was so uncomfortable with straying from my accustomed pattern of negative thinking, which undoubtedly would end up with me being miserably depressed. I often had to fight through those moments and force myself to take the steps outlined above.
A further challenge for me on my journey to overcome pessimism is that I was a master at catastrophising. If my boyfriend was too busy at work to return a text message I managed to convince myself that he did not love me. If my boss looked severe rather than smiling I convinced myself that he was upset with me for some imagined error, and that I was about to lose my job. Heck, I could imagine the bakery running out of donuts to mean that the world was against me :) I was a true master at catastrophising.
However, I was determined to overcome my pessimism and reap all the benefits of being an optimist (as outlined in Optimism vs. Pessimism). And surprisingly, I discovered that although it was initially difficult to challenge my thoughts, it soon became a habit. And then fantastically, I found that I no longer held negative beliefs in reaction to adversity – I automatically started providing optimistic explanations and beliefs for adverse events. I had successfully changed my thinking and my explanatory style from pessimistic to optimistic.
As a result, although the same proportion of good and bad things happen to me as before, I am now less stressed and enjoy life much more. And you can too. You have taken the first step to becoming an optimist by reading this article.
Pessimistic thinking traps
There are some common thinking mistakes that pessimistic thinkers frequently engage in. I will discuss these in the following article.
I would love to hear about your progress in your journey to overcome pessimism and become an optimist, so please feel free to contact me here.
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Related Articles:
- How to become an Optimist - Part I
- How to become an Optimist Part III: Avoid Thinking Errors
- How to be Happy - Training yourself to enjoy life
- The Power of Realistic Positive Thinking
- Your Capacity for Change
- Optimism vs. Pessimism
- The Different Explanatory Styles of Optimism and Pessimism
- Coping with Stress - Part I
- How to Fight Depression Naturally
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