What optimism can do for you?

For his standard work Learned Optimism, the American psychologist Martin Seligman conducted a study of the salespeople of the insurance company Met Life. 2,500 people participated in the study. It was mainly about the stress and obstacles of the difficult business of telephone sales. After 3 years, it turned out that 75% of the people who called themselves pessimistic had quit their job. After 1 year, the people who called themselves optimistic had a turnover that was 60% higher than those of those who called themselves pessimistic. Professor Albert Bandura from Stanford University has investigated the relationship between optimism and efficiency. His main findings are:

• Self-confidence and optimism lead to measurable increases in results and success.
• Self-confidence and optimism can be changed, learned and edited. 

For 40 years, the Mayo Clinic in Minisota, USA, has followed 839 patients for quality of life and life expectancy. The results show that people who call themselves optimists live on average 19% longer than those who do not. This is partly due to the fact that they pay more attention to their health, work more on their condition and are more concerned with their nutrition. Their immune system is stronger and the aging process is slower. 

The five most efficient optimism techniques:

1. Identify your goal. Your real goal. What you really want. Not what others want. Not what you think you should do or want. Find out for yourself what that goal is.
   
   
2. Make mistakes. Make them with conviction. Don't dwell on it too long. Accept them. Hold them up to the light. Analyse them. Learn from it. Continue.
   
   
3. Be cheerful. Take a measure of optimism and add a good dose of realism, supplemented with a good scoop of decisiveness.
   
   
4. Find a buddy. Find a partner who wants to share things with you. In love, in business, in pleasure, in therapy, in sports.
   
   
5. Do not set any obstacles yourself. Others are happy to do this for you. Stay positive. Your opportunities and possibilities will follow your attitude, not the other way around. Do not let the outside determine your insides. You decide that yourself.