Glass Half Empty? Drink Up and Keep Going
What if every setback was actually a setup for something better? Optimists don’t just bounce back; they bounce forward. 🏀 Here’s how to shift your mindset and turn obstacles into opportunities
Life rarely goes as planned. Opportunities slip away, things fall through, and we grieve the people and moments we’ve lost. Setbacks, whether tiny inconveniences or massive heartbreaks, shape us. And while frustration is a natural response, it’s what we do next that matters most.
How do you break out of a negative spiral filled with disappointments? By using optimism. Not the blind and ignoring-all-reality type of optimism. No, it’s the kind of optimism that makes us choose to see problems, setbacks, and failures as stepping stones. The best part? It’s not a personality trait, but a skill you can learn through practice.
When Optimism Feels Impossible
After pouring hours into an application for Utrecht Pride, I got the news this month: my company wasn’t selected for a boat in the canal parade. The rejection stung. Hard.
Looking through the list of accepted companies, I understood that my barely-started tea company wasn’t the right fit (yet). But that didn’t make it sting any less. And to top it off, I made the dumb mistake of forgetting to turn on the parking meter the next day in Amsterdam on a Saturday. A completely avoidable disappointment.
Then I came across a quote from Psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl:
“The last of the human freedoms [is] to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”
Choosing my attitude didn’t make the disappointment disappear, but it reminded me that I could shift my perspective to see the (soon-to-come) parking ticket as a reminder of a day well-spent in Amsterdam with friends, and missing the Pride boat as a warm-up for next year’s application.
But optimism isn’t always the answer. At least, not in the way we think. This month also marked nine years since my dad passed away. When it comes to grief, the idea of “thinking positive” feels…wrong. Grief isn’t something you move on from; you move forward with it.
I recently heard grief described as a ball you carry with you, always. The ball never shrinks, but your life around it grows bigger. Over time, that growth makes it easier to look beyond the ball, but in the beginning, it’s all you can see. So in the case of grief, I like to think of optimism as the point when you can look beyond the ball again.
The 4 Habits of Optimists
So, if not by ‘thinking positively’ all the time, what do optimists do that makes them successful in both their personal and professional lives?
Psychologist Martin Seligman, who pioneered the concept of Learned Optimism, found that optimists do four things differently:
They look for the good. No matter what happens, they actively search for a silver lining, and usually find one. You can practice this by expressing your gratitude daily (no matter how small the thing you’re grateful for), or by surrounding yourself with positive influences. Spend time with people who uplift and encourage you instead of those who constantly dwell on negativity.
They find the lesson. Instead of seeing setbacks as stop signs, they treat them as instructions. Each challenge holds a lesson they can use to grow. This can be practiced by asking reflective questions like “What did I learn“ or “How can I do better next time?“ This also helps to detach emotion from the setback to prevent taking failure personally.
They focus on solutions. Rather than complaining, they ask: “What can I do now? What’s the next step?” They take action instead of staying stuck. A way to practice this is by using the 10-minute rule, where you spend no more than 10 minutes venting before you catch yourself and follow it with, “So what can I do about it?”
They keep their eyes on the future. Optimists focus on where they’re going, not where they’ve been. They stay forward-thinking, even when things go wrong. Practicing forward thinking can be done by visualizing or manifesting yourself achieving your goals, or by setting small and achievable milestones to celebrate progress along the way.
When you train your mind to think this way, it gives you a greater sense of control and personal power. It boosts confidence, creativity, and resilience. It makes you more willing to take risks because you stop seeing failure as permanent. Overall, it creates a more joyful outlook on life.
To summarize, optimism isn’t about ignoring reality. It’s about refusing to let setbacks define your reality. It’s about seeing problems as puzzles to solve, not reasons to stop. And when you shift your mindset in this way, the setbacks in life don’t break you, they build you.
Every successful person has failed (sometimes spectacularly). Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper for “lacking imagination” and Oprah Winfrey was told she was “unfit for television”.
What if they had given up after that rejection?
When the parking ticket eventually comes, I will ask myself “What’s the lesson here?“ and “What can I do to prevent this next time?” to keep moving forward. Now, I'd love to hear from you. What mistake or disappointment are you trying to move forward from? Or…
What success story can you share after getting an initial rejection?
i'm not a successful person, in the social way of defining, although i could define myself an optimist, pursuing the four point that describing it. that's why i'm peaceful with my being, bugs included