Not everyone in this world is optimistic; not everyone can turn negativity around them into something positive, and that is fine, but when you allow that negativity to grasp you and make you feel insecure and scared while attempting something you had failed to do previously, well you have a pessimistic approach in life.
It is a coping mechanism for people who are too scared to explore something after failing.
What are the disadvantages of being pessimistic? :
- 1 It contributes to your overall anxiety, stress, and depression and even leads to emotional and physical problems.
- 2 It negatively affects your health, which impacts the other areas of your life.
- 3 Pessimists usually have poorer coping skills as compared to optimists.
- 4 It lowers your self-confidence and is bad for your overall well-being.
- 5 It often results in inflammation and lower immunity levels, making you prone to harmful ailments.
how can i stop being pessimistic?
Overcome the challenges thrown at you.
You won’t be able to experience life until and unless you face challenges fully. Life’s hidden thrills are hidden within challenges. How do you like it as an upliftment to your morale?
As you may have often heard people say that challenges are not what drown you and make you feel helpless, challenges are those which allow you to discover who you are and how you can overcome obstacles in your life.
Never term challenges as issues you will succumb to; term them as opportunities to find the real you and show the world what you are made up of.
Related: Reason to Celebrate Small Wins
Accept things that you feel scared of accepting.
Remember that the times that go never come back, and so do the opportunities and challenges. You never know when a challenge or an obstacle will bring an opportunity.
You might feel tensed and stressed out while doing something you are not used to, or you may have already failed at that once before, but there is no harm in giving it a second shot, right? Accept and don’t forget what you did wrong last time.
Try your best not to repeat the same mistakes, and unless you try, you will not succeed, right?
Stop talking negatively about yourself.
You can probably understand this point if you deem yourself negative or constantly talk negatively with yourself. Constantly deeming yourself and your actions as something negative will keep pessimism fixed firmly in your mind, and you can never get rid of it, no matter how hard you try.
Next time onwards, when you find yourself talking negatively about yourself, in front of others or to you, try and rephrase the question.
Take time and ask yourself, are you this negative? Is it really necessary to consider yourself worthless and unimportant?
Quit overthinking
Sounds too much for someone who overthinks, right? Yes, but with time and the proper guidance, you can curb your habit of overthinking things and live a happier and stress-free life.
People who are overthinkers have a habit of taking everything too deeply and constantly thinking about what can hurt them in the back end. Even if it’s something positive, they are determined to portray it as something negative in their minds and dwell on that thought which eats them up from the inside and exhausts them mentally.
In this way, you can never curb pessimism. Take it slowly, take guidance, and work on your overthinking.
Leave procrastination aside
You might ask, “What does procrastination has to do with it?”. When you leave aside the most important things you need to complete for some later time, you often find yourself in a state of rush and hurry, and your productivity and organization often go down the drain.
Many people think that in the end, when the pressure on them is maximum, they can pull it off without being distracted, but all it gives them is anxiety and panic. Most of the time, you can never get your work done on time if you procrastinate.
This leads to failures and the inability to overcome challenges, which makes you scared and afraid to try it again. This is how you become pessimistic.
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Set goals at first
The first step towards getting yourself motivated and getting rid of the pessimistic approach towards life is to set a definite goal. Everyone has an aim in life, a goal, or a set of goals they would want to achieve.
When you do the same for yourself, you will notice how easily you are motivated to work daily.
Not only will you get motivated to work every day, but you will also observe yourself trying to attain that goal even after you fail in your very first, or second, or third attempt. When you observe yourself trying and never giving up, you will slowly but surely get over your pessimistic attitude and inculcate optimism.
Set goals that are not unexpected
Setting goals will motivate you to do what you want, to be someone you have always wanted in the past. Setting goals will give you a target; you can work hard to achieve that, which is self-motivating.
You set goals for yourself and strive daily to get closer to them, but remember not to set unattainable goals.
Setting unexpected goals will see you broken and all out of confidence. You will not have the zeal or the urge to attempt something for the second time just because you had a set goal that was too hard for you to achieve and being unable to achieve that has made you a pessimistic person.
Get rid of the perfectionist approach.
A perfectionist mentality is also a huge catalyst in obtaining a pessimistic approach in life. What a perfectionist mentality you have is that it makes you want to do everything properly, which is how you want it to be.
When you observe someone doing something in a way not according to you, you don’t like it.
This makes you more arrogant and adamant. Another huge thing about having a perfectionist mindset is that you fear failure.
You will notice that a pessimist stops after failing, which means they fear failing again, which is what a perfectionist thinks. So, it is very important to get rid of a perfectionist mentality.
Surround yourself with optimistic people
There will be times when you want to do things on your own. It is good to be independent, but you need people around you to support you at times.
Surround yourself with people who look at the brighter side of things rather than considering and making you understand that whatever you are doing is futile and useless.
Stick with the people who will consider the glass half-full, not half-empty. These kinds of supportive people are essential to get you out of this spiral of pessimism around you.
Surround yourself with compassionate people
Like people who endorse and spread positivity, have people around you who are compassionate and kind. It is that compassionate people are always the first to help out those who need it.
They are the ones who have sole control over their emotions, anger, and aggression.
You will observe that positive and compassionate people are the ones who have inculcated optimism.
They don’t allow negativity to grasp them, and if life surprises them with failures, they show life what they are made of, and this is so important to be learned by all to overcome pessimism.
Try visualizing the positive.
People will often picture the worst; they will think about security rather than opportunity. These people will imagine and create scenarios in their minds that are nothing but negative and have zero connection with reality.
There is a patent habit of pessimistic people.
Instead of being one of these people, try to find the positive in every situation. Visualize the good things that might happen, the things you would love to do, instead of hoping for the worst and destroying your mood before the actual event are.
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Be grateful to everyone and everything around you.
There are many reasons to be grateful to whatever you see and perceive around you. Just like people, you should also be grateful for your problems and the obstacles in your life, and your past.
If you had never come across those hurdles in your life, you would not have been where you are today.
Hurdles and obstacles will build you up. They are there to test you. If you fail, that is normal, but if you never try to rise again from the failure, you are a pessimist, which you need to combat.
Take lessons from your past.
Your past can be your biggest teacher to guide you toward a beautiful future. The first thing you should do is never completely forget the harmful incidents that happened to you.
There will be people asking you to forget your past and move on, but that’s no use.
You must remember the mistakes you made in the past and the repercussions of those mistakes. You had to face the outcomes when you were lazy and didn’t do things the way you planned.
Take lessons from those and start over again. Start afresh, and never give up. Let your past guide you towards success to no longer remain a pessimist.
Respect people and things
Respect is something that reciprocates. You give respect, and in return, you gain respect. What respect brings with it are support and affection. When you lack support from others, you are more likely to make wrong moves and decisions.
It is not that you are not well equipped to face difficult situations on your own, but having the support of someone, and their hand, can mean a lot.
When you gain support and affection, you are more likely to try again, even if you fail many times. The people supporting and loving you will also motivate you to take one more shot, and this is how you overcome your pessimistic attitude.
Choose to be happy
In the end, your life is what you make it. It won’t happen that one day you wake up and your entire world is as bright as sunshine; it takes time to make it happen. It may take years to make your life a life you have dreamt of, but one thing is for sure, you must never give up.
Choose happiness over other emotions. Choose to do the things that make you happy and bring joy. Do the things you love with your entire heart.
Suppose you are doing a job, don’t do it just because of money; give equal, if not more, importance to job satisfaction. Little things like these can help you get rid of your pessimistic attitude.
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Do things that will help others.
Instead of cowering behind pessimistic walls, go out there and do something for those who need it. It has been seen that compassionately helping someone in need gives you the same amount of happiness, if not more when you buy something for yourself. It makes your soul soar so high up.
You can do many noble things, like volunteering in a hospital for a social cause, Volunteering in an NGO, donating to charities and Rotaract clubs, and Giving blood. All of these are noble causes that boost your levels of compassion and make you more optimistic.
Establish newer habits and hobbies
When you inculcate newer habits and involve yourself in different hobbies you love, you give more time to those and yourself rather than to the thoughts and incidents that will make you pessimistic.
Involving yourself in a sports team, getting into a guitar class, learning how to swim, cooking for everyone in your family, washing your house, and making your bed every day.
There are loads of habits and hobbies you can be a part of, and all of these will enable you to keep your mind focused and not wander around the negativities and pessimistic thoughts.
Conclusion:
From the above points, it can be concluded that there might be several negative influences around you, all of which might grasp you and take control of you. This is pessimism, and any other negative approach towards life does, but it is not impossible to get rid of these.
When you follow the ways mentioned already and obey them, you will observe how easy and simple it is to transition into an optimist from a pessimist.
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FAQs on Ways to CurAbing a Pessimistic Attitude
What does pessimism mean?
Pessimism is the phenomenon wherein one tends to look into the negative side of things and believe that they will only face the worst. It is a belief that evil will always prevail over good.
How can pessimism affect your overall life?
Pessimism can curb life satisfaction, reducing the will to live in many cases. It causes inflammation, lowers the immune system’s strength, results in stress and anxiety-related disorders, reduces coping skills, and can significantly hinder every sector of one’s life.
What is the main difference between a pessimist and an optimist?
An optimist sees the positive side of things and expects things to turn out in their favor, whereas pessimists feel that everything will go against them and that they will eventually experience failure.
Ways to reduce pessimism?
Try looking at solutions rather than problems, surround yourself with optimists, prioritize your growth, change your negative self-talk, and never give up even if it has been a bad day.
How to understand pessimism behavior?
A pessimist usually feels annoyed by someone who is optimistic in nature and positive. A pessimistic attitude brings the ability to focus more on your flaws and weaknesses than your strengths. Pessimists engage in negative self-talk and fear that failures will always dominate their success.
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“Vision, strategy, and inspiration – these three words describe me the best. I am the founder of “TheLeaderboy” dedicated to leadership and personal development. As a self-taught practitioner, I have been studying the principles of effective leadership for the past decade and my passion lies in sharing my insights with others. My mission is to empower individuals to become better leader