One of the worthwhile breakout sessions I attended at NAPFA Connections this week was presented by Michael Bryant of Career Transition Services titled Staying Optimistic in Challenging Times.
In this session, Bryant began with the premise that we are all born optimistic. If we weren’t, he said, we would have just stopped evolving long ago and would have stayed happy as cavemen.
According to Bryant, all people have an optimistic part that can be tapped. Consider the following examples he gave to illustrate this point. When asked how many people think they’ll live to be 100, about 10% of an audience will respond affirmatively. In reality, only about 0.2% of the population actually does.
Or what about married couples asked if they might ever become divorced? Almost no one answers in the affirmative.
Bryant’s point is that optimism is something that is a part of all of us, and over time, we can develop skills to learn how to use our optimism to change our behavior and the way we react to external events.
Optimists, according to Bryant, just think differently. They see problems as temporary and externalize negative events (e.g. “It’s not my fault I got stuck in traffic, it just happens.”). For them, difficulties are limited and they think with an abundance mentality.
On the other hand, pessimists internalize many negative events (“I should have known I was going to get stuck in traffic.”) and assume responsibility for events beyond their control (“I’m sorry the markets had a bad week.”). Many times, Bryant says that pessimists play “pain olympics” with others, attempting to appear as the most unlucky, unfortunate individuals in the room.
Bryant provided 15 techniques to session attendees to help identify pessimistic traits, and what to do to refocus negative reactions and turn them into positive ones. If you have the chance to see or hear Bryant at an upcoming conference, circle his session as one to attend so that you, too, can be introduced to his techniques to stay optimistic in challenging times.
