The ABC's of Pessimism 03/28/2011
Half-empty
or half-full?
or half-full?
I’m pretty excited for today’s lesson. I know I shouldn’t be, as it is technically cheating.
But to be fair, it was Dr. Seligman’s idea. He told me to use, and I feel high already. Bring
on the whine!
For homework, I was asked to keep an ABC diary. The A stands for adversity—an
unpleasant situation. The B represents my beliefs—the way I interpret the adversity (but separate from my “feelings,” and something for which the accuracy can be evaluated). The C is for the consequences of the adversity—my feelings and actions as a result of my beliefs.
I kept this diary for a little more than a week, as, amazingly, I had a hard time coming up with five adverse situations. (Ok, fine, that’s a lie. I thought of plenty. I just wasn’t ready to admit exactly how negative my thoughts were on some of them!) Here are the five I settled on:
1.
A: I bite into a slice of pizza fresh from the oven and burn the roof of my mouth. Everything I eat and drink for a week aggravates the burn.
B: I like eating, and I am impatient.
C: I question if I have an unhealthy relationship with food. I’m reminded of a time in ninth grade when a guy in my regular lunch group asked if anyone wanted his cupcake. I said I did. He called me a heifer. I didn’t eat his cupcake. In fact, I think I stopped eating for a week. Hey, I wonder if I can do that again? It’d certainly stop the pain in my mouth.
2.
A: I go to see a concert and the bouncer slips an over-21 wristband on me before even giving me the chance to reach for my ID. I’ve noticed this is happening more frequently.
B: I’m getting older, and it shows. There was also that guy the other week who thought I was “his age,” which turned out to be three years older than I am. The polluted city air and over-treated water must be aging me. And I have noticed a wrinkle forming between my eyes, likely the result of squinting due to my denial over needing to wear glasses.
C: Depressed, I buy some heavy-duty wrinkle cream. I promise to make a conscious effort to squint less. I also consider resuming shopping at Forever21. If I dress young, I’ll look young, right? And from now on, I’ll shove my ID in bouncer’s faces before they even have the chance to ask for it. This way, I’ll never know whether or not they were going to, thus preventing myself from feeling lousy when they don’t.
But to be fair, it was Dr. Seligman’s idea. He told me to use, and I feel high already. Bring
on the whine!
For homework, I was asked to keep an ABC diary. The A stands for adversity—an
unpleasant situation. The B represents my beliefs—the way I interpret the adversity (but separate from my “feelings,” and something for which the accuracy can be evaluated). The C is for the consequences of the adversity—my feelings and actions as a result of my beliefs.
I kept this diary for a little more than a week, as, amazingly, I had a hard time coming up with five adverse situations. (Ok, fine, that’s a lie. I thought of plenty. I just wasn’t ready to admit exactly how negative my thoughts were on some of them!) Here are the five I settled on:
1.
A: I bite into a slice of pizza fresh from the oven and burn the roof of my mouth. Everything I eat and drink for a week aggravates the burn.
B: I like eating, and I am impatient.
C: I question if I have an unhealthy relationship with food. I’m reminded of a time in ninth grade when a guy in my regular lunch group asked if anyone wanted his cupcake. I said I did. He called me a heifer. I didn’t eat his cupcake. In fact, I think I stopped eating for a week. Hey, I wonder if I can do that again? It’d certainly stop the pain in my mouth.
2.
A: I go to see a concert and the bouncer slips an over-21 wristband on me before even giving me the chance to reach for my ID. I’ve noticed this is happening more frequently.
B: I’m getting older, and it shows. There was also that guy the other week who thought I was “his age,” which turned out to be three years older than I am. The polluted city air and over-treated water must be aging me. And I have noticed a wrinkle forming between my eyes, likely the result of squinting due to my denial over needing to wear glasses.
C: Depressed, I buy some heavy-duty wrinkle cream. I promise to make a conscious effort to squint less. I also consider resuming shopping at Forever21. If I dress young, I’ll look young, right? And from now on, I’ll shove my ID in bouncer’s faces before they even have the chance to ask for it. This way, I’ll never know whether or not they were going to, thus preventing myself from feeling lousy when they don’t.
3.
A: I meet a guy. He’s cute, sweet, has a sexy accent, and is actually into me. The down side? He lives on the other side of the world and was only in town for a few days.
B: In the words of one of my favorite Jerry Seinfeld lines: “That's God's plan. He doesn't really want anyone to get together.”
C: I resolve myself to spinsterhood. I’ll get that dog I’ve been wanting, or, hell, maybe even two. We’ll be fine. Plus, I still have my Prince:
4.
A: I come down with a cold and have to cancel plans I’d made to have brunch with my friends.
B: I am missing out on a carbohydrate overload and mimosas. Oh, there I go with food again…
C: I catch up on sleep, which is rare. Plus, later, my friend informs me that a guy who recently blew me off after a date walked in during the middle of their meal and sat at the table next to them. I thank the Universe for looking out for me and saving me from an awkward moment. She doesn’t do that too often. I start thinking that my optimism training must be working already.
5.
A: The day after my missed brunch outing, I head to work feeling mostly better but quite fatigued. A coworker tells me that I “don’t look good” and “look tired.” I tell him I slept 13 hours. He says I look like I slept one.
B: I wasn’t wearing much makeup and had foregone blush. I’m not a natural beauty and my pasty complexion apparently makes me look like a cancer patient.
C: I make a mental note to self: Don’t skip blush and return to your usual 4 hours of beauty sleep per night.
After recording my five ABC sequences from my life, I was instructed to look for the link between my beliefs and the consequences. According to Dr. Seligman, pessimistic explanations will set off passivity and dejection. Optimistic explanations result in constructive actions and increased energy.
After reviewing my beliefs and consequences, I’m unsure of where I fall. Sure, some of the situations made me feel dejected, but I didn’t react passively. Just look at all my new plans—I’m getting a dog, changing my wardrobe, upping my beauty regimen. But, I also internalized most of the bad events, a classic pessimist move. As evident from the test of my explanatory style, I'm not sure the glass is always limited to either half-empty or half-full. Maybe some days you have to pour in a little more, and others you take a few sips. The key is in not needing to pour in more on a regular basis. And that's why this whine-o could clearly benefit from taking her glass on to the next lesson in Learned Optimism.
A: I meet a guy. He’s cute, sweet, has a sexy accent, and is actually into me. The down side? He lives on the other side of the world and was only in town for a few days.
B: In the words of one of my favorite Jerry Seinfeld lines: “That's God's plan. He doesn't really want anyone to get together.”
C: I resolve myself to spinsterhood. I’ll get that dog I’ve been wanting, or, hell, maybe even two. We’ll be fine. Plus, I still have my Prince:
4.
A: I come down with a cold and have to cancel plans I’d made to have brunch with my friends.
B: I am missing out on a carbohydrate overload and mimosas. Oh, there I go with food again…
C: I catch up on sleep, which is rare. Plus, later, my friend informs me that a guy who recently blew me off after a date walked in during the middle of their meal and sat at the table next to them. I thank the Universe for looking out for me and saving me from an awkward moment. She doesn’t do that too often. I start thinking that my optimism training must be working already.
5.
A: The day after my missed brunch outing, I head to work feeling mostly better but quite fatigued. A coworker tells me that I “don’t look good” and “look tired.” I tell him I slept 13 hours. He says I look like I slept one.
B: I wasn’t wearing much makeup and had foregone blush. I’m not a natural beauty and my pasty complexion apparently makes me look like a cancer patient.
C: I make a mental note to self: Don’t skip blush and return to your usual 4 hours of beauty sleep per night.
After recording my five ABC sequences from my life, I was instructed to look for the link between my beliefs and the consequences. According to Dr. Seligman, pessimistic explanations will set off passivity and dejection. Optimistic explanations result in constructive actions and increased energy.
After reviewing my beliefs and consequences, I’m unsure of where I fall. Sure, some of the situations made me feel dejected, but I didn’t react passively. Just look at all my new plans—I’m getting a dog, changing my wardrobe, upping my beauty regimen. But, I also internalized most of the bad events, a classic pessimist move. As evident from the test of my explanatory style, I'm not sure the glass is always limited to either half-empty or half-full. Maybe some days you have to pour in a little more, and others you take a few sips. The key is in not needing to pour in more on a regular basis. And that's why this whine-o could clearly benefit from taking her glass on to the next lesson in Learned Optimism.
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Determining your explanatory style 03/10/2011
half-full
Today I was discussing my new goals to have a more positive outlook in life with a close friend. Shortly into the conversation it became apparent to me how much self-awareness my friend lacked. As a pessimist addict, I can spot another pessimist a mile away. This friend? Definitely a user, and one with a serious case of denial. I wanted to get her help—lend her Learned Optimism, point her to resources, show her my blog. But it would have been pointless. You can’t change unless you realize you have a problem. That’s exactly why my treatment with Dr. Martin E.P. Seligman began with an assessment, a test of when I apply optimism or pessimism in my own life. The results give you a view of yourself that "you might not otherwise see.” And, in fact, I was surprised by some of the results.
The test measures three main areas: permanence, pervasiveness, and personalization.
Permanence is whether you think bad events, as well as good events, will be permanent or temporary. It came as no surprise to me that I view bad events as permanent. Some examples of things I may have said as a pessimist: “I’ll be single forever,” “I’ll never be a size 0,” and, “I’ll always have insomnia.” What did surprise me, though, was learning I have the same approach to good events. When good things happen, I assume they have temporary causes and won’t last. Example: “That date went well, but I’m sure on the next one I’ll learn he’s really an unemployed, pathological liar that lives in his parent’s basement.”
Pervasiveness is about space. A pessimist will let one problem interfere with all other areas of their lives. With good events, though, pessimists believe they are caused by specific, temporary factors, whereas an optimist will let the good events enhance other areas of their lives. Again, my “very pessimistic” score here did not surprise me. A few more examples of my typical thought process:
-- “My hair looks great today. Must be the low humidity. I’m sure it’ll be a frizzy disaster tomorrow.”
-- “These new people I met actually want to hang out with me again? Evidently they were too tipsy to
realize how dull I am. I better bring the wine next time just to be safe.”
-- “My friend is mad at me. Why do I even get out of bed in the morning? I’m terrible at everything, I have
horrible luck, people don’t like me, I failed my diet, I have no skills, I haven’t accomplished any of my
goals, and my life’s a mess. I quit!”
The final area, personalization, measures how you feel about yourself. Do you internalize and blame yourself for bad events (pessimist) or externalize and blame circumstances and others (optimist)? This is when I began to question Dr. Seligman’s credibility. I shockingly scored “moderately high self-esteem” in this area. I rechecked my answers and triple checked my score. It appeared I was already a master of the Blame Game! However, I did go on to get a moderately high pessimistic score for how I view my accomplishments. As evident in my earlier examples, I attribute them to luck, coincidence, or others, and not my own doing. Indeed, I was a pessimist, one whose overall score indicated I could “definitely benefit from a change in my explanatory style.”
The good news is that while my scores showed I have little hope, Dr. Seligman says I’m not hopeless. Pessimism is merely a bad habit of thoughts and beliefs that aren’t necessarily true. Once I realize these thoughts can be challenged, I’ll be on the road to challenging them—while filling my glass, one drop at a time.
The test measures three main areas: permanence, pervasiveness, and personalization.
Permanence is whether you think bad events, as well as good events, will be permanent or temporary. It came as no surprise to me that I view bad events as permanent. Some examples of things I may have said as a pessimist: “I’ll be single forever,” “I’ll never be a size 0,” and, “I’ll always have insomnia.” What did surprise me, though, was learning I have the same approach to good events. When good things happen, I assume they have temporary causes and won’t last. Example: “That date went well, but I’m sure on the next one I’ll learn he’s really an unemployed, pathological liar that lives in his parent’s basement.”
Pervasiveness is about space. A pessimist will let one problem interfere with all other areas of their lives. With good events, though, pessimists believe they are caused by specific, temporary factors, whereas an optimist will let the good events enhance other areas of their lives. Again, my “very pessimistic” score here did not surprise me. A few more examples of my typical thought process:
-- “My hair looks great today. Must be the low humidity. I’m sure it’ll be a frizzy disaster tomorrow.”
-- “These new people I met actually want to hang out with me again? Evidently they were too tipsy to
realize how dull I am. I better bring the wine next time just to be safe.”
-- “My friend is mad at me. Why do I even get out of bed in the morning? I’m terrible at everything, I have
horrible luck, people don’t like me, I failed my diet, I have no skills, I haven’t accomplished any of my
goals, and my life’s a mess. I quit!”
The final area, personalization, measures how you feel about yourself. Do you internalize and blame yourself for bad events (pessimist) or externalize and blame circumstances and others (optimist)? This is when I began to question Dr. Seligman’s credibility. I shockingly scored “moderately high self-esteem” in this area. I rechecked my answers and triple checked my score. It appeared I was already a master of the Blame Game! However, I did go on to get a moderately high pessimistic score for how I view my accomplishments. As evident in my earlier examples, I attribute them to luck, coincidence, or others, and not my own doing. Indeed, I was a pessimist, one whose overall score indicated I could “definitely benefit from a change in my explanatory style.”
The good news is that while my scores showed I have little hope, Dr. Seligman says I’m not hopeless. Pessimism is merely a bad habit of thoughts and beliefs that aren’t necessarily true. Once I realize these thoughts can be challenged, I’ll be on the road to challenging them—while filling my glass, one drop at a time.
It's not me, it's you 03/09/2011
half-full
“You’re a bit of a Debbie Downer, aren’t you?” This question was posed to me recently by
someone I had chatted only briefly with on a few occasions. But in just those few short
conversations, he had already spotted my habit.
“Yes I am,” I replied. The first step, after all, is admitting you have a problem. “But I’m trying to
quit,” I added enthusiastically. The second step: making the decision to change.
“Oh yeah?” he said. “How’s that going for you?”
Apparently not well, I thought.
As it turns out, changing who you are as a person and how your mind thinks is not quite that simple. It is easy to wake up and say, “Today I will be positive!” But in the face of adversity, to know how to implement that decision is far more difficult. It was time for step three: seeking help.
Lesson One: The Blame Game
To truly kick my addiction to pessimism, I knew I needed assistance from a professional. However, therapy on a journalist’s salary seemed like a stretch, so I went the self-help route. I commenced my journey to filling the glass with the help of psychologist Martin E.P. Seligman’s audiobook Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life.
As I hit play on my iPod, I admit I was a bit skeptical, but I was also rather excited. Fix me, I thought. Teach me Optimism!
In the first five minutes, Dr. Seligman explained the primary difference between a pessimist and an optimist. Most of his defining characteristics were things I’ve heard many times before, but I was struck by one in particular. Dr. Seligman explained that pessimists think bad events will last a long time, allow them to affect all other areas of their lives, and blame themselves. Optimists think bad events are temporary setbacks, which have causes specific to only that area of their lives, and they blame circumstances or other people.
Hold on a minute. So my first step to becoming an optimist is to fault other people for my problems and setbacks? I pondered this for a moment and all its possible applications in life.
A project you worked on received negative feedback? Don’t sweat it. Your teammates are completely to blame for that one. They’re not nearly as talented as you. Had an argument with a friend? They have issues. You were just being a great friend as always. Got rejected after a date? Like you were really interested anyway. You were so out of his league. He was clearly intimidated.
Oh, wait, I have actually applied that last one from time to time. Maybe I am part optimist. My excitement grew. I could get behind this, I thought. I began to wonder if this way of thinking was “The Secret” I keep hearing so much about. Why had no one let me in on it sooner? No wonder optimists are so happy! In their minds, they can do no wrong.
Alright, maybe I was getting a little ahead of myself. I continued on with my lesson, listening to Dr. Seligman give examples of ways optimists and pessimists react to unpleasant situations. Through them, I developed a clearer understanding of how externalizing blame truly is beneficial. The idea, he notes, is not to avoid personal responsibility, but to strike a balance and keep troubles from ruining your life. As a pessimist, I have been quick to fault myself for bad events in the past. And as Dr. Seligman explains, this thought process can be crippling. Rather than taking constructive actions, as an optimist would, a pessimist will feel dejected and shut down. My addiction, it turns out, is harmful in ways I'd never even considered. Good thing I was getting help!
At the conclusion of my first day's session, Dr. Seligman gave me an assignment. I was to log five adverse situations and my reactions to them. The first step in my recovery, he says, is becoming aware of when I use my pessimistic explanatory style. Then we can work on changing it. But let's keep it between us that my immediate reaction to the assignment was, "Great, five bad things have to happen to me this week," all of which I plan to blame on Dr. Seligman.
someone I had chatted only briefly with on a few occasions. But in just those few short
conversations, he had already spotted my habit.
“Yes I am,” I replied. The first step, after all, is admitting you have a problem. “But I’m trying to
quit,” I added enthusiastically. The second step: making the decision to change.
“Oh yeah?” he said. “How’s that going for you?”
Apparently not well, I thought.
As it turns out, changing who you are as a person and how your mind thinks is not quite that simple. It is easy to wake up and say, “Today I will be positive!” But in the face of adversity, to know how to implement that decision is far more difficult. It was time for step three: seeking help.
Lesson One: The Blame Game
To truly kick my addiction to pessimism, I knew I needed assistance from a professional. However, therapy on a journalist’s salary seemed like a stretch, so I went the self-help route. I commenced my journey to filling the glass with the help of psychologist Martin E.P. Seligman’s audiobook Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life.
As I hit play on my iPod, I admit I was a bit skeptical, but I was also rather excited. Fix me, I thought. Teach me Optimism!
In the first five minutes, Dr. Seligman explained the primary difference between a pessimist and an optimist. Most of his defining characteristics were things I’ve heard many times before, but I was struck by one in particular. Dr. Seligman explained that pessimists think bad events will last a long time, allow them to affect all other areas of their lives, and blame themselves. Optimists think bad events are temporary setbacks, which have causes specific to only that area of their lives, and they blame circumstances or other people.
Hold on a minute. So my first step to becoming an optimist is to fault other people for my problems and setbacks? I pondered this for a moment and all its possible applications in life.
A project you worked on received negative feedback? Don’t sweat it. Your teammates are completely to blame for that one. They’re not nearly as talented as you. Had an argument with a friend? They have issues. You were just being a great friend as always. Got rejected after a date? Like you were really interested anyway. You were so out of his league. He was clearly intimidated.
Oh, wait, I have actually applied that last one from time to time. Maybe I am part optimist. My excitement grew. I could get behind this, I thought. I began to wonder if this way of thinking was “The Secret” I keep hearing so much about. Why had no one let me in on it sooner? No wonder optimists are so happy! In their minds, they can do no wrong.
Alright, maybe I was getting a little ahead of myself. I continued on with my lesson, listening to Dr. Seligman give examples of ways optimists and pessimists react to unpleasant situations. Through them, I developed a clearer understanding of how externalizing blame truly is beneficial. The idea, he notes, is not to avoid personal responsibility, but to strike a balance and keep troubles from ruining your life. As a pessimist, I have been quick to fault myself for bad events in the past. And as Dr. Seligman explains, this thought process can be crippling. Rather than taking constructive actions, as an optimist would, a pessimist will feel dejected and shut down. My addiction, it turns out, is harmful in ways I'd never even considered. Good thing I was getting help!
At the conclusion of my first day's session, Dr. Seligman gave me an assignment. I was to log five adverse situations and my reactions to them. The first step in my recovery, he says, is becoming aware of when I use my pessimistic explanatory style. Then we can work on changing it. But let's keep it between us that my immediate reaction to the assignment was, "Great, five bad things have to happen to me this week," all of which I plan to blame on Dr. Seligman.
