Training Your Brain To Embrace The Power Of Optimism

This quote comes from James Stockdale, a prisoner of war for over seven years in Vietnam. Stockdale’s perspective on acknowledging the reality of your adversity while still holding to the belief that things will work out became known as the Stockdale Paradox, a central takeaway from research done by Dr. Dennis Charney.

Dr. Charney studied a variety of people who had survived adversity in its most extreme forms and yet somehow came out of it without the depression, PTSD, and harmful emotional scar tissue one would expect. He compiled a list of characteristics that set these people apart, and the number 1 characteristic was a simple yet misunderstood quality, optimism.

To understand optimism, let’s begin with what it’s not. Optimism is not a naive assumption that everything is always going to be fine, by those who view the world constantly through rose-tinted glasses and never worry a day in their lives. 

Optimism is a mindset, characterised by maintaining positive expectations for important future outcomes. It is the stories you tell yourself about what you did on the field of play, and the way you interpret the circumstances around and events within games you have refereed. Optimism has some eye-opening benefits:

• Optimism is the most powerful predictor of resilience (our ability to recover quickly from adversity during matches)

• Optimism, and the anticipation that comes with it, makes us happy! Consider this, when asked about their favourite day of the week, officials choose Saturday. But second place goes to Friday (a working day), not Sunday. We love the anticipation of what’s to come.

• Positive emotions can undo the effects of negative experiences.

• Optimistic referees, while experiencing the same levels of anxiety and frustration when faced with adversity during fixtures, are able to more quickly let go of negativity, worry less, shift their attention to what is positive, and give more effort over a longer period of time.

If that list doesn’t win you over, you may have a dangerously pessimistic style of thinking, which ultimately shapes your mindset, but not to worry, let’s finish with some practical takeaways.

6 Ways You Can Grow Your Optimism

1. ‘Try On’ a Positive Lens

Yes, shifting your perspective is as easy as consciously thinking happy thoughts.

For my clients who have historically tended to be pessimistic, they habitually view things in their refereeing careers as negative. I will ask them to challenge themselves to always consider that there may be another way of looking at things. This is positive reframing.

For example, if a client expresses that an entire match was ruined because of one error, I would challenge them to focus on what may have been gained during the fixture. Often, they will reply that they did end up playing some good advantages, managing conflict in the game or getting into great positions. Instead of looking at matches in the most negative possible light, I encourage clients to make an active effort to ‘try on’ positive lenses as much as possible. After a while, this will become effortless, a more automatic and optimistic frame of mind.

Making this conscious effort not only shifts your viewpoint in the short term, but it may actually train your brain to think more positively. The more we consciously reframe scenarios in a positive light, the more we train our brains to fire up circuits in different regions, eventually altering our response to negative experiences.

2. Take Note of the Company You Keep

We all have those colleagues who are chronic complainers or gossipers. After spending a few hours with them we find ourselves jumping on the Debby Downer bandwagon. It’s clear: Negativity is contagious.

Luckily, positive emotions can be contagious, too.

Just as some diseases are contagious, it has been proven that many emotions can pulse through social networks. Research has shown that happiness may be a collective phenomenon. Having a happy spouse, or a colleague or neighbour, who lives within a mile of you appears to increase the probability that you will be happy as well.

Which means it’s time to add some optimists to your network.

Start noticing who you spend time with on a daily basis. If you start connecting to people who are optimistic and grounded in life, you will start to be affected by their positive energy. The same goes for the time you spend with pessimistic people. The more you spend time with negativity, the more negative you are bound to feel.

3. Turn Off the News

Five minutes of the morning news is enough to send anyone’s mood into a downward spiral.

The news and current state of media and politics can make it very hard for people to be optimistic. The reality is that the moment you turn on the news or read a newspaper, you are likely to be barraged with negativity and a bleak outlook on the world. This, however, is an imbalanced view on the world, so I suggest that officials try to limit their consumption of the news. I typically recommend allowing yourself just enough time to learn the news, after which time I suggest that you turn off the media and instead spend time doing activities that help maintain your health and a positive outlook. If you feel a need to process the current state of political or world affairs, you may want to consider having a healthy discussion about it with a colleague or family member; this still allows you to absorb the information but can also offer you a good level of discourse and balanced views on the news.

4. Write in a Journal for a Few Minutes Each Day

Researchers define gratitude as the appreciation of what is valuable and meaningful to oneself, or a general state of thankfulness, no doubt a mental state that fosters an optimistic outlook. But it can be easier said than done to remain grateful throughout day to-day stressors .

A smart way to ease into it is by journaling, a popular technique for cultivating gratitude that takes just minutes each day.

I will often ask my clients to keep gratitude journals. At the end of each fixture thay referee, they will write down one or two things that they experienced or witnessed during the game that filled them with gratitude. It is really important to note that this could be anything, a conversation with a club official that filled you with joy, a random act of kindness by a player or even breathing in some fresh air in your pre-match warmup. This will allow you to focus on the positives of your day and cultivate an optimistic mindset, a perfect note on which to end your day.

Writing down what you are grateful for is linked to greater feelings of optimism.

One study found that writing in a journal about what you are grateful for was linked to greater feelings of optimism, while another detailed that keeping a journal in which you write down your own acts of kindness can also give you optimism a boost.

Not to mention that writing down what you’re grateful for comes with some pretty impressive physical benefits as well, including better sleep, improved heart health, reduced aches and pains and fewer depressive symptoms.

While you have your journal open, jot down some of your accomplishments over the course of the season as well. It may sound corny but start acknowledging your personal and professional achievements. Doing so creates a sense of self-esteem and healthy self-esteem builds confidence. When you feel confident, you feel much more optimistic about life and officiating.

5. Acknowledge What You Can, and Cannot, Control

While some people may be unable to deal with uncertainty, positive referees are able to adapt and thrive. Accept what you can and cannot control in the situation. For example, if you lose your job you cannot control the fact that you were fired or laid off. You can control whether you take steps to find a new job as well as whether you take care of yourself with proper nutrition and sleep.

Practicing mindfulness is a great way to help combat the tendency to ruminate over daily stressors, which is a breeding ground for negativity.

We often ruminate endlessly without really focusing on the task at hand. If you can learn to be in the present space (while allowing other thoughts to enter your brain but then pushing them gently away) without judgement or thought about past or future, you will find that there’s less room for pessimism.

6. Don’t Forget to Acknowledge the Negative

It’s important to remember that making an effort to be more optimistic doesn’t mean walking around wearing rose-tinted glasses. While it’s good for our mental health to see the positive in situations, not acknowledging the negative can hinder you in the long run.

Optimism can be detrimental if it keeps you locked into fantasy and you are in denial about your current reality. You may be optimistic about gaining a promotion or being appointed to a cup final, but if you do not address the issues that are keeping you from those refereeing goals, you will not be able to create what you want. A combination of optimism and realistic thinking help officials navigate through their careers. Realistic thinking does not mean never seeing the bright side of life; not at all. It is simply a way of supporting your optimism with the action steps so that you can create a positive future as opposed to being stuck in fantasy.

How would you rate yourself when it comes to dealing with adversity?  We all have a lot of growing still to do. 

But, the best is yet to come.

At The Third Team I work individually and in collaboration with different professionals where I have developed workshops and 1-2-1 sessions associated with Resilience and Mental Toughness Development to help referees. The workshops and 1-2-1 sessions are interactive, where referees are encouraged to open up and share their experiences to help themselves and each other.

Feel free to contact me if you’d like to know more about my workshops or 1-2-1 sessions and how I could help you or your officials.

Best Wishes,