If you require mental health crisis support, please contact your local mental health services, your GP, or telephone 111 or the emergency services.

Adaptive optimism and pessimism

Spectrum of Optimism and Pessimism

When considering optimism and pessimism it can be helpful to think of it as a spectrum with unrealistic optimism at one end and defensive pessimism at the other.

Getting the Most out of Optimism

To gain the benefits of an optimistic explanatory style we may wish to:

  • Be able to recognise when we are in one style or the other.
  • Evaluate if that is helpful.
  • Make changes if we think it is necessary.

The exercise in the pdf below is about noticing pessimism thoughts and considering what you could have thought to try and make them more balanced or optimistic. You can also read the same information in the alternative version box underneath.

Noticing Optimism (229.31kB)

Important:

You might want to make notes at this point. These may help you remember things, work out what you want or see how much you’ve changed if you read them again in a few years’ time.