Recently, over our typical Friday night download at the pub, one of my friends made a fleeting comment; “our Rach, the eternal optimist”. This initially stuck a chord with me but got swiftly passed over in place of our rather flippant dissection of the week and particularly my friends constant state of unhappiness in her job. The comment got me thinking about optimism and happiness and this curiosity led me to an interesting podcast between Steven Bartlett (an entrepreneur and self-made millionaire at the age of 23) and Dr Tali Sharot (a cognitive neuroscientist who is a leading expert in human decision making, optimism and emotion). The podcast is entitled Diary of a CEO: No 1 Neuroscientist: Age 30 to 50 will be your most unhappiest, here’s how to fix it! January 2023 (youtube).
There are lots of definitions in the research of what happiness is or perhaps more importantly, what it is not. Initially, I saw happiness as something we are in pursuit of, a destination and I was keen to learn the hacks that would propel me to this place. However, after listening to this podcast my perspective changed and I see happiness as more a state of being, something which doesn’t exist in isolation and therefore lacks simple prescription or formula!
Positive psychology suggests that everything we do is for happiness, Dr Sharots research adds to this, referring to 3 factors that matter to us as humans:
- Happiness
- Meaning
- (living a) Psychological rich life (variety and diversity)
These three factors sometimes operate hand in hand, however they are just as likely to be independent, this helps explain why we make choices in our life that might not give us happiness in that moment but perhaps feeds into one of the other factors. It’s this third factor that gave me insight into my friends predicament, constant unhappiness in a job but she fails to take any action for change. As much as the brain likes novelty, it also has a contrasting battle with uncertainty. Any change to her working life would require a leap into the unknown and this involves risk, ultimately adopting a ‘better the devil you know’ mentality in search of certainty. Seemingly, this results in a risk adverse, and somewhat whining friend! It’s this fear, that can cause us to stagnate, avoiding that leap into the unknown… playing it safe with our happiness suffering as a consequence. Something that helps us challenge these feelings of fear is optimism, when we adopt an optimistic outlook we present different (more positive) expectations of the future, this in turn changes the actions we take and ultimately results in different outcomes. The underlying message….optimism can be a motivation to make us try harder!
So, what is exactly is optimism? Approximately 30% of how optimistic you are is genetic, but this leaves 2/3 in our control. Dr Sharot cites some interesting work by Martin Seligman, who conducted research into interpretation styles. Seligman believes that optimists will interpret a positive outcome occurring as being related to something about them, whereas negative outcomes tend to be circumstantial. This is the exact opposite for pessimists, the bad things that happen are interpreted as being because of something about them – perhaps a trait – therefore, this is likely to be repeated in the future and across different scenarios. Any good that happens is seen a circumstantial. It’s also worth noting here that Dr Sharot refers to pessimism as being a symptom of depression – where we have a tendency to think of the as future being worse than it actually is, despite any contrary evidence presented. Our expectations come from the world around us and we can create our own limiting beliefs, research has shown that when Obama was elected the grades of African Americans increased. So, lets take a moment to pause here – where are you? What are your thoughts and do you have any limiting beliefs? Are these impacting the actions you may or may not be taking?
Let’s look at how do we can increase our own and our teams optimism? These are Dr Sharot’s main highlights:
- Choice: or at least a perceived feeling of choice. This will enhance our sense of control, something that has been found to enhance well-being and reduce anxiety. When we make a decision for change, the choice causes our brain to rationalize our decision, therefore reinforcing the new behaviour.
- Monitor stress: The typical brain will pay more attention to information about our future that is positively focussed rather than negative. Once these pathways have been formed, we then use confirmation bias to strengthen our beliefs – leading to increased confidence. However, this is the opposite if we are feeling stressed.
- Progress: We need to see progress, data and statistics can have an impact but it’s just as important to concentrate on stories and real-life information.
- Contagion: all emotions are contagious, it happens fast and in an unconscious way. How are our own behaviours impacting others?
- Expectations: how we feel now is less influenced about what you’re doing now and more about how you think you will feel about what you’re doing later. Harvard University conducted a piece of research asking people daily for a week leading up their holiday how happy they were, this was repeated whilst on holiday and finally once they returned. It was found that people were at their happiest the day before they were due to go on holiday, suggesting that our expectations of the future impacts our feelings of happiness today.
In summary, what have I learned? Happiness isn’t a destination, it’s a journey. A journey that will have twists and turns and may sometimes feel that it is momentarily being sacrificed in the pursuit of something else, be this meaning or psychological richness. It’s our own mindset and interpretation of the stimulus around us that feeds into our comfort about risk taking and ultimately confidence in our own ability. Moving forward, I’d like to share the message of how we can create a current state of welling by thinking of a brighter and more optimistic future. Next Friday at the pub the focus for my friend will be accepting that her current role is a choice and what positive elements are being brought to her life. I’ll continue to be “the eternal optimist” and hopefully I’ll ‘infect’ her with my optimism…wish me luck!
Rachael Dunnett, 24th January 2023