Optimistic
Feeling optimistic means your first guess about what's ahead leans good. It's a broad tilt in how you forecast, and it promises nothing. Optimists still get bad news. They just don't expect it by default.
- On the wheel: Happy, then hopeful, then optimistic
- Nearby: Eager, hopeful
- Opposite: Pessimistic
- Often points to: A sense that the odds are on your side
"Probably fine," before you've checked
Optimism feels like a lighter forecast. You look at the week, the test result, the third interview, and your first guess is "probably fine," or even "probably good."
Setbacks still sting. They just don't read as the whole story.
"The first two interviews didn't go anywhere. I was disappointed, but I honestly thought, the third one's a better fit. I prepped for it like it was going to work."
A questionnaire and the last day of class
Michael Scheier and Charles Carver defined optimism as generalized outcome expectancies, a broad expectation that good things will happen, and they built a short questionnaire to measure it.1
Their first test ran on students, who filled it in four weeks before the end of a semester.1 On the last day of class, the more optimistic students reported being less bothered by physical symptoms, even after accounting for the symptoms they'd had earlier.1
That's a link. It doesn't show optimism caused the difference.
The above-average problem
Optimism has a known blind spot. College students in Neil Weinstein's 1980 study rated their own chances of good life events as above average, and their chances of bad events as below average.2 Not everyone can be above average, so as a group, that's a bias.2
The useful kind of optimism expects good things and still plans for problems. If yours has you skipping the doctor's visit or the backup plan, it's working against you.
Where hope and denial come in
Hopeful is tied to a specific goal you're working toward ("I can find a way"), where optimism is a general expectation ("it'll probably work out"). Denial says "nothing's wrong," and that's optimism refusing to look at a real problem.
Can you get more of it?
Yes, by a small amount on average. A 2017 meta-analysis pooled 29 randomized studies with over 3,000 people, and the interventions in them raised optimism by a small but real amount compared with control groups.3
One exercise did best. In the Best Possible Self exercise, people spend about half an hour imagining and writing about a future where everything went as well as it reasonably could.3 Studies using it showed a medium-sized effect, bigger than the average.3
Writing your best possible self
- Pick a time frame. One year from now, or five. Choose one area: work, health, relationships, or all three.
- Write the good version. Imagine you worked hard and things went as well as they reasonably could. Describe a normal day there.
- Make it concrete. Where are you living? Who did you have dinner with? What did you finish?
- Then name one step. Picturing only the good can leave you less energized.4 Close with one thing you could do this week that points toward it.
Imagine it's a year from now and things went as well as they reasonably could. Describe one ordinary day there, then write the first step you could take this week.
Answer this with JoyQuestions people ask about feeling optimistic
Is optimism a feeling or a personality trait?
Researchers mostly measure it as a trait: a general expectation about the future that holds across situations.1 Feeling optimistic about one thing on one morning is the everyday version of the same lean.
Is being optimistic always good?
No. Optimism that ignores real risks, like skipping a health check because "it'll be fine," can backfire. The 1980 students show how it can tip into a bias.2
What is the difference between optimistic and pessimistic?
An optimist's first guess about the future leans good, and a pessimist's leans bad. Most people sit somewhere in between, and the lean can shift with mood, sleep and what's going on in their lives.