Optimism And Acceptance Mindset Series: Blog 2

Welcome to Blog 2 in the 2-part Optimism and Acceptance Mindset Blog Series. My name is Quincy McNamara, I work with Adaptas and I’m currently undertaking a Master’s Degree in Organisational Psychology. Blog 1 in this series focused on introducing the ‘Optimism and Acceptance Mindset’ (If you missed it, you can find it here). The current blog includes actionable tips in adopting this Mindset successfully.

Meditate

If you do a ten-minute meditation, spend five minutes practicing gratitude for who and what you are thankful for in your life, and five minutes acknowledging how you are feeling, without labelling it as good or bad.

As for the benefits of gratitude meditation specifically, one study (O’Leary & Dockray, 2015) found that practicing gratitude meditation four times a week for three weeks (along with keeping a gratitude diary) led to reduced levels of stress and depression, as well as increased levels of happiness and optimism.

Noting how you feel during meditation will help to build acceptance. Learning to accept your thoughts or feelings in the moment without labelling them as good or bad increases resilience, which is imperative to have when life may take a turn for the worst.

Practice Acceptance

Practice acceptance next time a difficult situation that is beyond your control presents itself. Instead of labelling the situation as good or bad, simply acknowledge what happened and move on. Your energy and time are your most valuable reserves, don’t waste either trying to change that of which you can’t control. As previously mentioned, acceptance will build your resilience to life’s difficult circumstances and challenges.

Keep a humour journal

A review of the literature around laughter has indicated that laughing increases optimism and life satisfaction whilst decreasing stress.

To this end, write down three things everyday that made you laugh. This will change the way you perceive the world around you, allowing you to be more upbeat and not take life so seriously.

Take risks

Optimists are known to be big risk takers; we can’t expect quality results unless we take risks. Becoming less risk-averse will open your mind to the world of opportunity that is right in front of you.

Understandably, risk-taking is a frightening concept to some. To clarify, we aren’t advising you to go skydiving or cliff jumping, but we are advising you to take baby steps when it comes to taking risks. It can be something as simple as taking a different route to work, or cooking a new dish.

You may ask yourself where to start when taking risks – here are three things you can do to help you along the way:

1) Assess the risk. We can do this by writing out a list of pros and cons. This will determine whether or not the risk is worth taking.

2) Move past the fear of failure. This fear will stunt us from ever making the move to take a risk in the first place, and will ultimately hinder our potential growth.

3) Think about the upside: If we are successful, we reap the rewards, if we are not, we learn.

If you are struggling with your mindset, you may think bridging the gap between where you are currently and adopting an optimism and acceptance mindset is no easy feat. However, if you do these three things consistently you will most definitely be on your way to experiencing a tangible shift in the way you perceive the world around you.

Optimism and Acceptance Mindset Series: Blog 1

Welcome to Blog 1 in the 2-part Optimism and Acceptance Mindset Blog Series. My name is Quincy McNamara, I work with Adaptas and I’m currently undertaking a Master’s Degree in Organisational Psychology. Blog 1 in this series focuses on introducing the ‘Optimism and Acceptance Mindset’. Please continue to read Blog 2 for actionable tips in adopting this Mindset successfully.

Positive pop psychology peddles blind optimism – no matter what the situation, always remain positive. This toxic positivity that has circulated mainstream pop psychology is not good for our health. Denying our emotions is detrimental for both our body and mind. A 2013 study by the Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Rochester showed people who bottle up their emotions increase their chance of premature death from all causes by more than 30%, with their risk of being diagnosed with cancer increasing by 70%.

Whilst optimism has been shown to promote longevity, and has myriad health and social benefits, staying optimistic in light of real struggle, despair or tragedy is not realistic. Acceptance is where positive psychology falls short. Acceptance means perceiving your experience and acknowledging it rather than judging it as good or bad. The way in which we can live meaningful lives with as little unnecessary suffering as possible is the adoption of an Optimism and Acceptance Mindset.

Hope for the best, accept the worst

This is a simple analogy to convey what I mean when I speak of adopting the Optimism and Acceptance Mindset. Be an optimist but accept the fact that there are certain things in life beyond your control, and that of which you can’t control – you must learn to accept.

It’s important to adopt a glass-half-full mentality. There are numerous reasons for this. Having a positive attitude can help you keep from getting sick, especially when dealing with stress. In one study, researchers found that optimists generated more antibodies and were better able to reduce inflammation. This is merely one of the many benefits that lend itself to being an optimist, others include having strong social relationships, being viewed as more likeable, better romantic relationships, experiencing more positive emotions and higher levels of life satisfaction.

As for acceptance, you must accept the situation that you are in. Resistance is the root of all unnecessary suffering, so accepting that of which we cannot change will eliminate a lot of the suffering we experience. You must be able to reassure yourself that everything in life happens for a reason. Whatever burden you are facing isn’t accidental. You must simply look at it as an opportunity for a new beginning.

Optimism and Acceptance – opportunities, not challenges

When we incorporate an Optimism and Acceptance Mindset, challenges present themselves as opportunities – obstacles that can be overcome. This, in turn, will help us to become more resilient in every aspect of life. Resilience is the ability to overcome hardship and is vital for our personal development. It is the spring that allows us to bounce back when times are tough. Without it, we would fold whenever life throws us a curveball.

Next week, blog 2 will delve into how to successfully adopt the Optimism and Acceptance Mindset, make sure to join us then to learn some really valuable actionable tips!

Strategic Planning: Lead Yourself Through Growth

Last week I posted a blog on Strategic Thinking and Habit Change. In this blog, I looked at how an imaginary person, Aoife, could apply Strategic Thinking to support her to grow and change.

This concept is particularly relevant to us here at Adaptas because in Oct 2021, Adaptas launched the Skills for Growth programme. Designed to develop self-leadership through habit change, this programme was built from Celine’s books Our Learning Brain and Developing Learning Habits. Check it out HERE, to find out more or register for the next programme kicking off January 2022.

Read on to discover the second part of how becoming more strategic is the key to leading yourself to successful change.

Strategic Planning and Habit Change:

Last week after thinking strategically about her situation, Aoife decided she wanted to work on the following three steps:

Implementing better planning and distraction management through trying a time-boxed scheduling approach.

Building clearer and stronger boundaries between work and personal life.

Carving out and protecting sixty minutes of personal time each week to re-charge and ground herself.

Now that Aoife has a clearer picture of what she wants to change, she needs to pull from strategic planning to figure out how to implement this change.

Strategic Planning is about translating vision into defined goals, objectives, and a sequence of steps describing how to achieve them. It requires organising, prioritising, focusing, detailing, implementing, charts, timetables, task lists and lots more. Without Strategic Thinking, we risk wasting all the energy of strategic planning because we aren’t channeling it into a specific enough goal. Strategic Planning helps us take action through the inevitable discomfort of habit change by defining a clear set of steps, behaviours, and tasks that will move us closer to vision created by strategic thinking.

As Aoife applies Strategic Planning to her habit change goals she will need to consider the following:

What specifically does she need to do?

Learn about time boxed scheduling (interested? Check it out here) and begin practicing this time management approach.
Discuss boundaries with relevant people in her work and personal life and determine some small changes that will strengthen these boundaries.
Identify her 60 minutes per week of personal time and schedule that for herself.
Consider what might block her from following through on all of these steps (i.e. fear of speaking to her manager about work/life boundaries) and devise a strategy to support herself to handle these obstacles (i.e. taking time to center herself before her conversation and remind herself why this change matters to her.)

How will she stay committed to the process, even when it’s not going well?

By reminding herself of the deeper values and purpose that are driving her decision to change.

How will she challenge the old limiting stories that are likely to pop back up?

First by recognising the old limiting story for what it is, a false narrative that is holding her back from change. “There is never enough time, I can’t manage this, I am failing in all areas of my life, it’s impossible.”
Then choosing to focus on a new narrative instead. “There is enough time. I have the ability to make changes that will change my life. I am in control of managing myself. Improvement is possible.”

How will she track and refine her progress as she goes?

Aoife could choose to implement a weekly progress check by doing a 10 minute review and refine on her progress. This means she takes 10 minutes weekly to look back over the previous seven days and note what went well, and what didn’t. Then, she can tweak her strategic approach for the following week based on this information.

How will she know she has been successful?

It will be important for Aoife to clearly define what success will look like for herself, so that she can recognise when she reaches it. It could be when she is able to end the majority of her days with a sense of calm and optimism, or when she manages to achieve her 60 minutes of personal time in 3 out of 4 weeks. We get to choose what success looks like to us, but unless we define it, we risk not noticing our own progress.

We need BOTH.

Ultimately, strategic thinking and strategic planning need to happen to be successful in habit change. Using one without the other will leave us spinning our wheels. To create real and lasting change we need to gain clarity through open minded, expansive thinking and then translate that vision into tangible actions.

If Aoife implements strategic planning she will identify when and how she will start to build a time-boxed schedule, when she is going to start conversations with colleagues about building better communication boundaries, and she will start experimenting with carving out 60 minutes a week for herself. She will speak to her partner and children about what she is doing and why it’s important to her. She will schedule in some time at the end of every week to look back and check in on her progress so that she can learn from what worked and what didn’t.

At times, she might pause and step back into more strategic thinking as a way of refining her goals further and building on her success.

By Annika McGivern, Learning Programme Designer and Facilitator

Find out more about Annika here.

Are you using strategic thinking and planning to support you in making the change you want to make to reach your goals?

In Skills for Growth, a ten-week programme on self-leadership and habit change, Celine and Annika work directly with you to implement both in your growth process. supports you to learn how to apply both to your personal habit change process. Find out more here!

Optimism And Acceptance Mindset Series: Blog 2