9 Positive Effects Of Optimism On Your Life And Health

If asked, would you classify yourself as an optimist or a pessimist? I hope you answered this question with a yes, because this is a very strong tool necessarily for the challenges of life and a key that fits in the happiness lock. Optimism is something that could be a game changer in life. Optimism is having a positive perspective of life and being hopeful and confident about the future. Moreover, could also include feeling hopeful of the successful outcome of something. Optimism in effect generally yields happiness.

Now all of us know how happiness is important and is a blessing to have. Happiness can change your day, year, or even life around. It is one of the most amazing emotions an individual can feel. It can really turn things around and make you feel like you are on top of the world. In addition, happiness is contagious and easily transferred from one person to another.

It is not like other things or diseases that are transferred through blood, etc. it is moved on through a lot of ways including sight and speech. Think about it; seeing someone that is smiling or get a smile thrown towards you, even from a stranger, can prompt you to feel happier and more relaxed. Also, speaking to someone that is positive and happy could prove to fill you with some of that happiness after conversing with that person. Im sure all of us have seen it happen, or have been in a situation of similar description.

Optimism is associated with a lot of positive feelings and thoughts and comes from all different directions. Optimism could make you healthier because when happy or excited your body is relaxed and feels good. Unfortunately, life surprises us with bad instances once in a while or maybe even more frequently but we need to remain strong and maintain our optimistic point of view.

This is a good analogy to use over and over again. Optimism representing part of happiness is a long, old, beautiful tree that has roots firmly grounded and countless branches coming out representing the various benefits and blessings associated with being optimistic. Each fruit (benefit) or branch in this analogy is of different nature. Some branches could be short and thick, while others could be long and thin. The length may be an indication of how far it reaches or in other words, how much this benefit helps in life. Moreover, the thickness of the branch may represent how important this benefit is.

Optimism is also a strong sign of a high self-esteem and can bring comfort to the body, mind, and soul. There are no limits to how optimistic you can be. On the other hand, some people think they are optimistic but they are not. They are only optimistic when good things are happening in their life, but when they are shot to the ground, they lose that temporary trait. So you need to commit and vow to yourself that you will be optimistic, regardless of the situation. Envision what your life is to be for you to be happy, since it differs from one individual to another. Furthermore, always remember that happiness is priceless and nothing can buy happiness or optimism. Just know that everything will be alright as long as you look at the full half of the cup and what you have, not what you do not have.

There is another part of this puzzle that might be surprising. Did you know that optimism could occasionally be harmful and hold you back? This is mind blowing is it not? However, let me give you an insight. Excessive optimism can sometimes cause you to be overconfident and that, in itself, could cause a whole array of negativity. One way it could be harmful is by causing you to think you can do anything and everything, which is not wrong, but such people often lose hope when they fail at something they thought they will attain.

Enough of this talk; let us look at 9 positive effects of optimism on health and life:

1. This Will Be Easy Mindset

Do you carry yourself around with the mentality that you are able to do anything and can seize your day every single day? This is not a bad thing, but if misused could cause a problem. An overly optimistic viewpoint could cross over and make you an arrogant individual if you are not cautious.

What I mean by crossing over into arrogance is when you say things like, I do not need to study or prepare for that test and Im going to ace it and I am the best driver in the country. Thinking in such a way can prove disastrous. Underestimating lifes challenges and various activities could leave you unprepared and unequipped. Nothing in life comes easy; you have to work for what you want and keep on going until you complete it. I mean if you think about it, if challenges were that simple and life was this easy, do you not think we would have succeeded from the first time? So do not deny the fact that success requires hard work because that can displace you in life.

2. Popularity

Think of how popular between your family and friends you could be when everyone knows that you are the optimist of life. You could be a very good support system for your friends and family to provide them with the special ingredient to have such a positive outlook on life. Who would not like such a chance to be popular and feel important?

3. Successful Life

Optimists generally have a positive eye towards all that is going on in life and thus have a great chance of achieving success. Of course it is not as simple as just being optimistic; you also have to work extremely hard sometimes to reach your goals. However, optimism is one of the steps towards leading a happy, successful life.

4. Assumption That Everything Will Go As Planned

Are you a person that plans his day, week, or perhaps month? This is a very good way to organize your life. Moreover, add optimism to planning and you have a powerful future. Optimism allows you to believe and be confident in your plans and look forward to making them happen.

Now, hoping for things to occur is one thing but denying that anything could go wrong and just feeling that nothing could impact your planning is another thing. Yet how often do you hear people around you say that everything will be alright without figuring out or envisioning a backup plan? Do not take your chances and not have a backup plan, which can prevent you failing and not achieving your goals.

A good example would be having a store manager mention that they are going to increase their clients and that this is sure going to increase their revenues, without considering any possible problems of such a decision. Not settling on a good backup plan that is suitable for such a situation can cause multiple problems and affect the company substantially.

Unrealistic optimism is never a good thing and could cause you to ignore red lights and just swing past them, disregarding any potential trouble and negative consequences.

5. Better Social Life

Humans are known as social animals that need people around them to survive. We need to interact with others to grow, learn, and communicate. Now, optimism could get you there. It can provide you with a good or better social life because everyone likes to be around positive and happy people.

Being optimistic yields happiness which can even affect people you do not know. A simple smile in a strangers face may attract them to you and make them interested in getting to know you.

6. Satisfaction

This is probably one of the favourite benefits of being optimistic. Do you know that feeling you have when you order a pizza and open it to eat your first slice? This is when your satisfaction is up the roof and it keeps on decreasing to a certain extent as you eat the next few slices. It is the same thing with optimism. Optimism can give rise to satisfaction and allow you to appreciate what you have and not think overly of what you may not have.

Life proves to us every day that it is full of challenges and difficulties. Our aim should always be to achieve satisfaction. Optimism brings us one step closer to satisfaction and cause the release of hormones associated with happiness, known as endorphins.

7. Optimism Increases Productivity

Would you rather be productive and get things done in less time to have more time for other activities and tasks? Or would be more interested in being lazy and not getting your important things taken care of, thus doing a one day task in a week? It is your choice essentially, but be sure that optimism can help you with being more productive.

Since optimism brings about happiness, a person that is calmer and happier outperforms his colleagues who are just miserable and gloomy. Besides, productivity results in saving time, something that is valuable beyond measure.

8. Optimism Relieves Stress

Are you satisfied with your life and lifestyle with all the stress injected into all your days or would like to find a way to minimize or remove some of this stress? Im sure we all need to do so and so optimism is just one of the ways to accomplish that. Of course, we can never get rid of all the stress in life, but we can channel it into positive energy instead. Do you agree that happier people are less stressed out? Always aim for optimism in every situation that pops in front of you.

9. Improved Mental Health

Im sure this is important to all of us in this life. Would you not also like to be in good mental shape and save energy rather than wasting it in non-beneficial acts or activities? Well, the answer is sometimes in front of our eyes but is too high for us to grab and embrace. Optimism has such a position in life. It is certainly not easy at all to remain optimistic through all the bumps and uneven roads in life, but finding and mustering the sufficient power and courage from within could prove very important to our mental health and well-being.

As we have seen above, there are more and more consequences and benefits of optimism you can think about. If you already implement optimism and are seeing marvelous results, good for you and keep it up and do not let go. Never lose sight of what you want while thinking optimistically because this provides continues happiness yielding essential positivity.

Advertise your optimism and let more and more people know how much of a blessing and a way of life it is. This is a good virus to be infected with. Imagine how life would have been if everyone possessed satisfaction and happiness. It might be boring and seem the same every day, but we do not realize the blessings we have until they are lost and life rolls down the hill.

However, it is going to be hard to maintain optimism and happiness all the time through the walks of life, because life simply does not work this way. Did you ever contemplate why we were not born the same physically and mentally? It is because it will be like we are talking to ourselves or like we are all robots. There would be no taste to life if everything kept on repeating and recurring over and over without changing a slight bit. Life is a test and we need to learn to embrace each others differences and work together to build a better and loving world for our next generations.

Just remember that we all have our lows and highs and that you are not alone in this. Life is full of ups and downs. However, we need to try our best to stay motivated, optimistic, and happy as long as we can, because as mentioned earlier, optimism equals happiness equals positivity, which is contagious and promotes a healthy aroma.

Update: Paulette in the comments below suggested that, to her, the article was in a bit pessimistic tone, that's why I decided to embed here a very uplifting video. Enjoy :)

Update #2: Selly in the comments shared a beautiful quote by Winston Churchill so we decided to put it here for you to tweet it out:

[bctt tweet="A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. - Winston Churchill"]

If you have any tips for staying optimistic in tough situations, please share them with our community by posting them in the comments section below.

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This post originally appeared on Gonzalos blog Inspower.co

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