Let’s Talk About Optimism: A New Series

This image reminded me of my father, for some reason, this morning. He would describe himself as an “eternal optimist” — which of the pictures of above glasses would best describe this?

I used to think that optimism was a personality trait, and I probably inherited it from him through genetics. I believed this is the way I was wired. As such, I thought that I saw the world as glass half full, like the picture in the middle. It’s not to say I didn’t inherit certain personality from him, but I have come to learn that optimism is something different, with a lot of potential to create a better life.

Michaele and I have decided to start a new series of posts, building upon the momentum of our posts on gratitude. We hopefully have demonstrated that there is value in building a gratitude practice, especially now. The topic for this next series is optimism.

Let’s start with a definition we can build on together.

“Optimism is a trainable skill and it’s the fundamental belief that it’s going to work out.”

Dr. Michael Gervais, Co-Creator of Compete to Create

Using this definition, I have come to believe that optimism can be trained. So, let’s use this series to explore optimism together. We will explore what optimism is, how it is similar or different to positivity or positive thinking, and some tips and tricks to building optimism. And more stories of optimism in our lives that hopefully inspire optimism in your life.

Agile Best Self Principle #5: Create a best self environment of motivation, trust, and support for yourself and others.

Bringing it back to the Agile Best Self Principles, this is a big part of what Principle 5 is all about. Optimism is a big part of building our own environment of motivation, trust and support so that we can help others.

Let’s build the skill of optimism together.

Copyright © 2018 – 2023 Michaele Gardner and Brian Hackerson