Can optimism be learned?

Have you heard of the term “learned optimism”? Whether you have or not, wouldn’t it be great if it were true - that it’s possible to learn how to be more optimistic? To explore this idea, let’s start at the beginning with the person who first developed the concept.

Martin Seligman and learned helplessness

Back in the 1960s, the American psychologist Martin Seligman identified a state of mind that he called “learned helplessness”. He found that animals and humans that were put in stressful or painful situations over which they had no control soon grew to accept their situation, even when they were given the means to do something about it.

It can be similar in life. If you have had experiences where you felt powerless, particularly earlier in life, you may grow up feeling that you will always be helpless to improve your situation. Through his research, Seligman came to see that understanding and believing that you can do things to change your life is an important foundation of well-being. He called this “learned optimism”.

The benefits of optimism

Another leading psychologist, Sonja Lyubomirsky, has studied the advantages of optimism - the belief that things can turn out well and that you can positively affect the outcome through your own actions. Research suggests that optimistic people often experience benefits in areas such as relationships, work, creativity and resilience when things get tough.

Learning to be more optimistic can be a real life changer.

Learning to be optimistic

The key to learning optimism is strongly connected to changing the beliefs that you have about yourself and the world around you. Seligman calls this process ABCDE:

• A is for adversity - identifying a particular difficulty in your life.
• B is for belief - your ideas about the underlying cause for that difficulty.
• C is for consequence - understanding the emotions that belief will trigger.
• D is for disputation - identifying what a better belief might look like.
• E is for energisation - embedding and celebrating your new belief.

To put it another way, your reaction to any given situation can be influenced by how your brain has been shaped by your life experiences, especially those learned in childhood. But you don’t have to be bound by this. You are not a computer. With a little time and effort, you can change it.

How coaching can help

Coaching is an ideal way of exploring the difficulties you are facing, whether in business, at work or at home, and coming up with tailor-made solutions for your own particular situation. Challenging and then changing any limiting beliefs you may have about yourself is one of the fundamental objectives of coaching.

Can you learn to be more optimistic? Yes, you can.