Beyond Positive Thinking |
Suppressing difficult emotions in the name of positivity can intensify anxiety rather than reduce it.
Resilience is shaped more by how people interpret setbacks than by how many setbacks they experience.
Optimism is built through explanatory patterns that frame adversity as temporary and changeable.
Interpreting stress as manageable rather than dangerous is linked to healthier physiological responses.
Anxiety, burnout, and emotional exhaustion are at historic highs. As Americans feel increasingly pessimistic about the future, the pressure to “stay positive” has never been more intense—or misplaced.
So why are so many people struggling, even as positivity is relentlessly promoted?
Psychology has long shown that suppressing difficult emotions does not make them disappear. It makes the nervous system more reactive. When sadness, fear, and anger are treated as problems to eliminate rather than signals to understand, the brain remains on high alert. This is one reason forced positivity so often backfires, amplifying anxiety rather than easing it.
What, then, does an evidence-based approach to optimism actually look like?
Optimism Is Not a Mood: It Is a Meaning-Making Skill
I use a framework I call real optimism: a form of optimism grounded in emotional honesty, psychological flexibility, and trust in our capacity to respond over time. Real optimism does not ask people to deny what is difficult. It asks them to stay engaged with difficulty without assuming it is permanent.
That distinction matters because optimism is not an emotion. It is a way of interpreting experience.
Decades of research on explanatory style show that resilience is predicted not by how often negative events occur, but by how people make sense of them. Individuals who view setbacks as temporary, specific, and changeable recover more quickly from stress and are less vulnerable to depression than those who see adversity as permanent, personal, and pervasive.
In this sense, optimism is not about feeling good. It is about what we believe difficulty means.
An optimistic person is not someone who experiences less pain. They are someone who sees pain clearly and still believes it is not the whole story.
The Brain Does Not Learn Optimism From Reassurance
Neuroscience helps explain why optimism cannot be installed through affirmations alone. The brain is wired to prioritize threat, error, and what remains unfinished—a bias that supports survival but also narrows perception, often crowding out evidence of growth, progress, and recovery.
Optimism develops when the brain is shown, again and again, that effort makes a difference, that adaptation is possible, and that recovery actually happens.
When people experience themselves as capable of influencing what happens next, research shows they become more resilient, persistent, and emotionally regulated. And this kind of confidence doesn’t come from pep talks or reassurance. It’s built through lived experience, by seeing, over time, that your actions matter.
This is why small, repeatable practices that track effort, learning, or progress are often more effective than sweeping mindset shifts. They provide the brain with reliable evidence—something it can learn from and trust.
Stress Is Not the Enemy
Stress is the body’s response to change, demand, and perceived importance. It appears when something matters.
Research shows that individuals who interpret stress as manageable rather than dangerous demonstrate healthier physiological responses, clearer thinking, and greater emotional regulation. This does not mean chronic stress is benign. It means that treating all stress as something to eliminate can heighten reactivity rather than build resilience.
An evidence-based approach to optimism shifts our relationship with stress, viewing it not solely as a threat but as information.
Instead of asking, “How do I get rid of this stress?” A more useful question is, “What is this stress asking of me?”
It may be signaling a need for rest, a boundary, support, or a change in strategy. When stress is understood as data rather than danger, it becomes something we can respond to thoughtfully rather than something we must constantly fight.
A More Honest Definition of Optimism
Optimism without meaning is fragile. A clear sense of purpose is one of the strongest protective factors against burnout and disengagement because it allows people to tolerate uncertainty without becoming numb or cynical.
When you adopt a mindset of evidence-based optimism, you’re trusting that even when outcomes are uncertain, you can respond, adapt, and stay aligned with what matters.
At its core, optimism is a stance toward reality. It rests on resilience and curiosity: the capacity to hold uncertainty while remaining open to the possibility that circumstances can shift.
In The Power of Real Optimism, I show how this capacity can be built through small, science-backed practices that train the brain to recognize resilience, strengthen flexibility, and trust its own ability to respond.
Optimism is not about hoping that nothing will go wrong. It is about trusting ourselves to handle whatever comes our way.
Shapero, B. G., Abramson, L. Y., & Alloy, L. B. (2016). Emotional reactivity and internalizing symptoms: Moderating role of emotion regulation. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 40(3), 328–340. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-015-9722-4