Move Over, Pollyanna

Carolyn DicksonPosted by Carolyn Dickson on May 10th, 2010 | 0 Comments

In 1913, a little book was published that soon became a classic in children’s literature. Pollyanna, by Eleanor H. Porter, tells the story of a girl who is able to find something good in every situation, no matter what bad things befall her. The book was so successful that a multi-volume series followed, known forever as the Glad Books.

As a child, I loved the Pollyanna books because I liked happy endings (and still do). So when I grew up, I was dismayed to learn that the term pollyannaish had become a pejorative one, used to describe someone who is happy to the point of naiveté, someone who is unwilling to face the realities of an adverse situation. Somehow, in our cynical culture, looking at things in a positive light has become very uncool.

Our society reeks of negativism. If it bleeds, it leads, is the mantra of the news media. Politicians use fear tactics to get elected; smear campaigns have become the norm—and they work. Ideas get trashed before they’re even understood. Everywhere we look, we see fear and doubt. And because pessimism is contagious, it’s quite easy to succumb to the negative pressures and complain about everything—or just give up.

Apparently, the tendency to pessimism is a inbred trait. According to Martin E.P. Seligman, Ph.D., author of Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life, “The benefits of pessimism may have arisen during our recent evolutionary history. We are animals of the Pleistocene, the epoch of the ice ages. Our emotional makeup has most recently been shaped by one hundred thousand years of climactic catastrophe: waves of cold and heat; drought and flood; plenty and sudden famine. Those of our ancestors who survived the Pleistocene may have done so because they had the capacity to worry incessantly about the future, to see sunny days as mere prelude to a harsh winter, to brood. We have inherited these ancestors’ brains and therefore their capacity to see the cloud rather than the silver lining.”

Dr. Seligman goes on to say that some people are born optimists, some are pessimists through and through, and the rest of us lie on a continuum between the two. But research shows, he states unequivocally, optimism can be learned.

I believe it’s time for a healthy dose of more positive thinking. Not the Pollyanna cliché, where everything is wonderful, no matter how awful it really is, but the kind that can see the possibilities present in almost every situation.

Granted, there’s a time for playing the devil’s advocate and a place to examine potential risk, but that’s not what this article is all about. So, if you’re tired of looking at life—and your job—from under a dark cloud, here’s how to start turning things around:

  1. Begin by identifying a minor adversity, some small event in your life that triggered an adverse reaction. For example: My boss completely ignored me in the meeting, even when I made a good suggestion.
  2. Now, analyze your reaction, including how you felt. I got really irritated. In fact, I stopped listening halfway through the meeting. I know my boss doesn’t like me. Nothing I do satisfies him. I’m just incompetent, so why bother.
  3. The next step is to play the role of opposing counsel and argue against your response. Examine the facts; don’t let any part of your response go by without checking for its accuracy. Was it unreasonable for you to stop listening? Did that help or hurt your cause? What actual evidence do you have that your boss doesn’t like you? Has he said so? Does he criticize your work all the time? If he does, is it in the nature of a personal attack, or is in honest, constructive feedback that helps you do your job better? Are you really incompetent? You might want to list your successes, just to prove to yourself that you’re doing a good job.

Learn to catch yourself in the act of responding negatively to events. You may be surprised to find how often it occurs. Examine your initial reactions, and then refute them. You may discover that much of your negative thinking is nothing more than a bad habit.

We don’t need to live with habitual negativity that weighs us down. We can change the way we think and change the way we communicate our thoughts to others, which would make Pollyanna very, very happy.

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