2 Reasons Why You Should Start Embracing 'Cautious Optimism'
Viewing the glass as half-empty is no way to live life, but it can be hard to always see it as half-full. Here's how to navigate the balance and strive for 'cautious optimism.'
By Mark Travers, Ph.D. | February 14, 2024
Many people come to therapy burdened with a sense of constant disappointment in their life's trajectory. They often question why, despite their best efforts, their expectations are seldom met, leading to a cycle of hope and disillusionment. They may say things like:
- "I've done everything right, followed all the rules, and yet, I'm not where I thought I'd be in my career."
- "I've put so much effort into my relationships, but they always seem to fall apart."
- "Despite working out and eating healthy, I'm not achieving my fitness goals."
If you experience similar feelings, understand that you are already halfway toward achieving your goals. The dedication, effort and the work you're putting in are testament to your optimism and belief in the possibility of a better outcome. This optimism is a powerful force that propels you forward.
That said, it is also important to manage expectations. To enhance your happiness and satisfaction, an element of "cautious optimism" in how you make decisions and plan ahead can be game-changing.
In essence, cautious optimism is the practice of hoping for the best, but not solely relying on the best outcome. It's about striking a balance between optimism and realism. Here's two science-backed ideas to maximize your well-being and happiness by seeing things as glass half full, but not losing track of your goals when life doesn't go your way.
1. Happiness From Achieving A Goal Tends Be Elusive And Fleeting
Think back to when you bought yourself something you've wanted for the longest time. How long did the joy last? A day, a week, maybe a month?
More often than not, the excitement of achieving something fades away fast, leaving us in the endless cycle of wanting more. This is known as the "hedonic treadmill," where our happiness levels quickly return to their baseline after a positive event. It's a stark reminder that things often look better inside a store than they do in the rearview mirror of experience.
This phenomenon is well-documented by science. A renowned study featured in Brain Research Reviews found that dopamine, the neurotransmitter associated with pleasure, plays a larger role in motivating us in the pursuit of rewards rather than achieving the rewards themselves. Simply put, we experience more pleasure from the journey, not from reaching the destination.
This understanding of dopamine's role in our pursuit of rewards directly ties into the concept of cautious optimism, which encourages us to enjoy the journey towards our goals without overemphasizing the end result. This brings us to:
2. Negative Outcomes Don't Hurt As Much As We Think They Will
We often assume that failing to achieve our goals will devastate us. We imagine the disappointment and the regret, and it feels overwhelming. However, we are not very good at predicting our future emotional states, a phenomenon known as "affective forecasting bias."
A 2022 study published in Frontiers In Psychology sheds light on how affective forecasting bias impacts decision making. The study suggests that we tend to overestimate the intensity and duration of our emotional reactions to future events. This overestimation can lead us to make decisions based on inaccurate predictions of our future feelings.
To understand this better, consider the example of preparing for a job interview:
- Before the interview, you might spend days worrying about the potential negative outcome. You might imagine the disappointment and embarrassment of not getting the job, and this fear might even keep you up at night. This is affective forecasting bias in action—you're overestimating the intensity and duration of your emotional reaction to a potential negative event.
- Now, let's say you go to the interview and, unfortunately, you don't get the job. While you might initially feel disappointed, you find that the negative emotions are not as intense or long-lasting as you had anticipated. You start to rationalize the situation, thinking about how this experience has given you valuable practice for future interviews. You also consider other job opportunities you can explore.
This is a common pattern in our lives. When we are faced with failures or challenges, we tend to show resilience we didn't think was possible. By not overestimating the positive or negative emotions following an outcome, we can live more "in the moment."
In the context of the interview example, a cautiously optimistic view might have allowed you to prepare for the interview better by helping you deal with self-sabotage and performance anxiety—both of which creep in when we overemphasize the importance of things going exactly as we planned it.
Conclusion
Optimism is a powerful driver, but it would help to balance it with a touch of realism. This allows us to fall in love with the process of working toward our goals. By realizing that we overestimate how happy we will be with positive outcomes and how unhappy we will be with negative outcomes, we can cultivate resilience and navigate life's uncertainties with grace.
Are you propelled by blind optimism or do you take a more measured approach? Take the Realistic Optimism Scale to find out: Realistic Optimism Scale
A similar version of this article can also be found on Forbes.com, here.