Hello and welcome. My name is Kyle and this is How You Level Up, a podcast that decodes language
to help you become your best self. Today we're asking what is optimism? Let's start with the
idea that you're thinking about optimism incorrectly. I know this because I was thinking
about it wrong too. For years, I understood optimism as a disposition, something you either
had or didn't, like brown eyes or an aptitude for math. Optimistic people were the ones who smiled
more, were able to find silver linings who believed things would work out. They had a sunnier internal
weather system than the rest of us. This understanding is not only incomplete, it's dangerous.
because if optimism is a personality trait, then it's either something you were born with
or something you're not. And if you're not naturally optimistic, well, you're simply at
a disadvantage in life. Not only will you face struggles in the external world, you'll also
always combat internal negative self-talk. The game is rigged before you even start playing.
I don't believe this to be true. I cannot believe this to be true. Why? Because I'm an
optimist, and I wasn't always. So if it has nothing to do with personality, if it's not a feeling,
what is optimism? Most of what we call optimism is actually something else. Wishful thinking,
denial, or simple naivety. It's the college graduate who believes their degree guarantees
success. The entrepreneur who thinks their idea can't fail because they want it badly enough.
The person who insists everything happens for a reason, while their life falls apart around them.
And by the way, I dislike this statement, that everything happens for a reason, or it's in God's hands,
because there's an implied denial of action ownership.
When you hear optimism as wishful thinking, you could say it's passive optimism.
It's a belief that things will be okay without your intervention.
It's optimism as spectator sport.
You're in the stands watching your life unfold, confident that the narrative arc will bend toward your favor because, well, because it should.
Because you're a good person. Because you've suffered enough already. Because the universe is supposed to be fair.
Passive optimism is a beautiful anesthetic. It feels good right up until it really hits.
Passive optimism is insidious. It masquerades as positivity while actually breeding paralysis.
When you believe things will work out on their own, you don't need to do anything. You can sit
with your problems, turn them over in your head, talk about it endlessly with friends. You can
ruminate. And rumination, as psychologist Abigail Schreier points out, is the number one symptom
of depression. Not sadness, not hopelessness, rumination. The continuous thinking and focus
on problems talking about problems reliving problems it the mental equivalent of pressing on a bruise over and over convinced that if you think about it hard enough understand it deeply enough the bruise will heal itself
What a surprise it won't.
Passive optimism and rumination share a bed.
They share the same fundamental error.
They both mistake mental activity for actual movement.
They both confuse thinking about the problem with solving it.
In one podcast on the Tim Ferriss Show, Kevin Kelly drew a distinction that should rewire how
we think about optimism entirely. He separated passive optimism, the belief that things will be
okay, from active optimism, the commitment that I will work to make things okay. Hear that again,
feel the difference. Passive optimism is believing that things will work out okay.
Active optimism is the commitment to work and make things okay. Active optimism is not a prediction.
It's not faith in favorable outcomes. It's a work ethic. It's the decision to remain in motion
even when the path forward is unclear, even when success is far from guaranteed,
even when you're feeling incompetent or things feel impossible. This reframe changes everything
because active optimism is not something you have or don't have. It's something you do. It's a
practice, a discipline, a craft. You can develop regardless of your temperament or your circumstances
or how you feel on any given Tuesday morning. Think about the last time you chose a harder path
when an easier one was available. Maybe you took the stairs instead of an elevator. Maybe you started
learning a new skill from scratch because you needed to complete some project. Maybe you had
a difficult conversation instead of avoiding it. In that moment, you were practicing active optimism
because you believed that your effort would matter, would make a difference.
I've noticed something on hiking trails. I get happier the harder the trail becomes.
Not despite the difficulty, but because of it. The steep incline, the uncertain footing,
the burning in my legs, these things mean fewer people will follow this path.
And if fewer people are here, then I'm somewhere that requires something of me.
I'm somewhere where my effort matters, where my effort makes a difference.
This is what active optimism feels like.
It's not the absence of difficulty.
It's the presence of agency in the face of difficulty.
Let's acknowledge a simple truth.
Maybe you've heard this truth before.
Everything sucks until you get good at it.
The Buddhists would say this is the first noble truth of their practice, which is life is filled with suffering.
Writing sucks when you're learning grammar.
Exercise sucks when you're out of shape.
Difficult conversation sucks when you're not ready or prepared.
Your passion project will suck for longer than you think is reasonable.
Some of us have been sold this lie. The lie is that we should never turn your passion into work
because then it becomes work This assumes that what you passionate about now will remain joyful and effortless forever while the thing that pays your bills will remain drudgery Both assumptions are wrong The alternative view the one that actually tracks
with reality, is that everything will suck. So you might as well choose what you're willing to suck
at. Keep doing the things that you suck at until you become competent, and then mysteriously,
you'll start to enjoy the things you used to hate. This is the competence paradox,
and it's central to understanding active optimism. Again, passive optimism says,
I should only do things I'm naturally good at, things that feel good, things that come easily.
Active optimism says, I will become the kind of person who is good at this thing that currently
feels impossible. The difference? One is a state of being. The other is a commitment to becoming.
The optimistic act is not believing you'll succeed.
It's believing that your incompetence is temporary, that your capacity can expand,
that the gap between where you are and where you want to be can be closed through sheer accumulated effort.
This is uncomfortable because it means optimism requires you to suffer through being bad at things.
It means choosing the hard trail.
It means turning pro at something, as Steven Pressfield would say.
Are you willing to sacrifice other immediate pleasures for a thing you're not yet good at, possibly until the end of time?
This is not optimism as we usually understand it.
It's closer to a vow.
So what is optimism stripped of all motivational poster nonsense freed from the tyranny of positive thinking?
Optimism is not a feeling.
It's not confidence.
it's not the belief that things will work out. It's not even hope really. Optimism is the
commitment to remain in motion when outcomes are uncertain. That's it. That's the whole thing.
It's the decision to take one more step on the trail when you can't see the summit. It's showing
up to practice when you're still terrible. It's turning the water to cold in the shower and hanging
in there for another 30 seconds. It's sending the email, having the conversation, making the thing,
learning the skill, not because you know it will work, because you've decided your effort matters,
even if it doesn't. What does this reframe do for you? First, it means optimism is available
to everyone. You don't need a sunny disposition. You don't need to believe in yourself. You don't
need to feel good about your chances. You just need to decide that you'll keep working to make
things okay, regardless of how you feel about it. The depressed person can be optimistic. The anxious
person can be optimistic. The person who has failed repeatedly and has every rational reason to believe
they'll fail again, they can be optimistic too. Because optimism is not your emotional state or
your track record. It's about whether you're still moving.
Another thing that this reframe does is it means that the opposite of optimism is not pessimism.
The opposite of optimism is paralysis. It's rumination. It's the endless mental churning
that mistakes thinking for doing analyzing for acting understanding for attempting to solve You can be the most negative cynical pessimistic person in the world and still be optimistic
in the ways that matter.
You can believe everything will fail, probably fail, and still be actively working to make
it succeed.
It's possible that this combination might be the most powerful form of optimism there
is.
eyes wide open to the difficulty and committed to the work anyway.
Lastly, this reframe, it means that you can assess your own optimism by looking at your
behavior, not your thoughts. Are you in motion? Are you building capacity? Are you doing the
thing that sucks because you believe your competence will eventually catch up to your
commitment? If yes, then you're optimistic. It doesn't matter how you feel about it.
The hard trail makes you happier not because difficulty is inherently good,
rather because it proves something to you about yourself. You're still walking. You didn't take
the easy path. You didn't turn back. You chose the thing that required something of you,
and you're meeting that requirement. This is the evidence of optimism. Not mood, not self-talk.
It is your motion. Practically speaking, if you adopt this reframe of optimism, you can now
stop trying to feel optimistic. Stop trying to convince yourself that things will work out.
Stop waiting for the belief to arrive before you start moving. Just move. Just move.
Active optimism is the antidote to rumination because it redirects your energy from thoughts to your hands.
It's the cure for passive optimism because it removes the illusion that the universe will intervene on your behalf.
It's the answer to the competence paradox because it accepts that everything sucks until it doesn't.
And the only way through is through.
You don't need to believe in yourself.
You just need to believe that your effort matters, that your motion creates possibility, that the gap between incompetence and mastery is measured and accumulated after attempts rather than innate talent.
Everything else is commentary.
Like any craft, you get better at it the more you do it, not because it's easier, but because you become more capable of completing harder things.
The question isn't whether you're an optimistic person.
The question is, are you still moving?
anyone, anywhere, facing any challenge.
If there's a question or topic you'd like me to dive into next,
send a note to any of my connected social media accounts.
This is all about how you level up.