Explaining
your life
-
the optimistic or pessimistic way
by
Marcus Loane
14th
April 2010
Often
when we are told to think positively we do not really know what this means or
we imagine it means repeating self affirming mantras which we have trouble believing.
A useful
concept to understand is that of explanatory style. By this I mean the way we
explain to ourselves, the good and bad events in our lives. An example could be
something trivial like your boss frowns at you when you go in to work. Different
people will have automatic thoughts about this which are part of their
explanatory style. If they have a negative explanatory style they might think,
"Oh no what have I done wrong? Did I forget to file that report? Am I
going to be fired? I am useless at this job." or, "He doesn't like
me. I knew it would never work out." Someone with a positive explanatory
style might think, "My boss might be having a bad day, perhaps he has
troubles at home. I hope he cheers up soon. I wonder can I help."
We can
use a positive or negative explanatory style and it is usually so quick and
automatic that we think it is inevitable and unchangeable. We think our
automatic beliefs about events are absolute truth just because they are our
beliefs.
A
consistent negative style of explaining events to yourself
can eventually lead to passivity, apathy and depression. A positive explanatory
style leads to a happier life, more energy and better health. There have been
scientific studies which demonstrate this.
There are
certain features of a positive and negative style of explaining reality to yourself. These are:
When a
bad thing happens,
a negative
thinker tends to see it as permanent, pervasive and personal. He/she thinks it
will last forever (permanent) "I will never
be good at this", affect everything in their life (pervasive) "This
will ruin everything", and it is
their fault (personal).
When a
bad thing happens,
a positive
thinker tends to see it as temporary, specific and external. He/she thinks it
will not be important forever, it affects only one part of their life and they
are not fully to blame.
The
opposite happens when a good thing occurs.
When a good thing happens,
a negative
thinker tends to think it will not last, it won't make much difference and they
do not take credit for it. They interpret it as temporary, specific and
external. For example if they do well in an exam they think they were lucky or
the exam was easy or they wish they did even better. They will discount their
own achievement in some way.
When a
good thing happens,
a positive thinker will tend to
think that it represents a permanent trend benefiting their lives in many ways
and they take some credit for it.
With a will
to do it, you can change your explanatory style to a more positive one and
there are great benefits, emotionally, in relationships, in work and for your
health. All of this has scientific evidence to back it up (read the work of
Martin Seligman for references).
We have
automatic thoughts when things happen and the process is so quick that we tend
to regard these thoughts as absolute truth. If you can start to question your
own automatic negative thoughts and come up with believable positive alternatives
then you will have a happier experience of living.
There is
another alternative to disputing your automatic negative thoughts and that is
distraction. With distraction you just change the topic in your head and this
is effective as well but perhaps not as long lasting as correcting your
thinking.
Obviously
not everyone has a consistent negative (pessimistic) or positive (optimistic)
explanatory style but will lie somewhere along a scale. If you manage to edge
your way along the scale in the more positive direction you will benefit
greatly. Try to see bad things as temporary, only affecting one part of your
life and the causes as multi-factorial (not your fault). Try to see good things
as a thread throughout your life that affects all of it and for which you can
take some credit. These ways of thinking are often self-fulfilling.
Once
these new habits have been learned and practised there is no turning back. You
can be confident that you will never be depressed again and even if life throws
you some hard knocks you have a much better chance of working through them
using your new thinking skills.
--
I have written a short follow
up to this article.