How to Fight Pessimism and Win!
Pessimism is the deadly disease of always looking on the problem side, the bad side, the side thats difficult and hard; going over and over again in your mind why it can't be done. A pessimistic person leads a very unfulfilling life.
Many of you are here on Wealthy Affiliate because you didn't like the way your last 5 years looked. So you've decided to fix it. You've decided that you don't want the next five years to look like the last five.
You don't want the next ten years to look like the last ten.
So you're here at WA, working to build an affiliate marketing business so you can have the financial means to really live life on your terms.
When Things Don't Seem to Work Right
The problem is sometimes when life gets in the way, our plans don't seem to go quite as we anticipated. We start to have disquieting thoughts.
You can't get your website to look the way you want. Can't seem to find the right theme.
It's difficult for me to write all of this content. How am I going to find all these keywords?
Why is it taking so long to see results?
Pessimism starts to set in...
Pessimism is truly the language of the unsuccessful; ‘Oh my - what if this happens? What di I do if this occurs? What would happen if this was to take? I'd be in a mess if I made this decision and it failed - So I'd better not try at all’”
We all have disquieting thoughts. That's something you will never avoid unless you're dead. How do you combat pessimism and disquieting thoughts? You learn to control your thoughts through personal development.
What is Personal Development?
Personal development really comes down to this:
You must learn to work harder on yourself than you do on your job. If you work hard on your job you’ll make a living. If you work hard on yourself you can make a fortune.
"Working on yourself" has benefits far above financial rewards. Personal development truly allows you to get to know the inner person and make the nessary adjustments to improve. "Working on yourself" helps you to learn to love the only individual who can help you improve your life: and that's YOU!
Personal development means reading the books you need to read until your skills change. Listening to audio books until you get a handle on what you're lacking. You keep listening to it until it makes sense. You keep reading and listening to audiobooks until you understand it. Never, ever give up. You watch motivational videos over and over again until you become unstoppable. No matter how long it takes -you never give up. Step by step, piece by piece, book by book.
“There are a millions of books, so you can’t read all the books. But read all the books that you need to read. To make you as wealthy as you want to be, as healthy as you want to be, as prosperous, as productive, as unique a human being as you want to be” – Jim Rohn
Please remember this: Nothing in your life will ever change until you change. It all starts with shifting your mindset to become a far better version of yourself.
How to Read Your Personal Development Books
I highly recommend downloading publications onto an electronic device, like an iPad. The reason I say this is that when you are trying to improve the quality of your mind and your thoughts, you DON'T want to broadcast to people by carrying a book around.
Never tell family or friends what you are reading. Never discuss the idea of personal development with individuals who aren't engaged in it. Folks are very critical and discouraging, and that's why they're broke and miserable.
I'll talk about these things in more detail in an upcoming blog. For now, it's time to get to work on yourself and your WA business.
Talk Soon,
Howard
Recent Comments
24
While I understand your concerns about those who are not yet on the road to self development, how can I help them if I never tell them of what I am doing? If I do that, then I would be leaving behind, people who are very important to me. I would want to help them, seeing that at some time in my life, I most likely was where they are. When I tell them of my direction and they see the progress I am making, they will be motivated to begin their jopurney too. Not all will come along but some will.
Hello Russell01,
Thank you for your reply.
"...how can I help them if I never tell them of what I am doing?"
You can't help them. They have to come to the realization that they have to help themselves. Unless they themselves are endeavoring to improve, then no, they won't understand the direction you are going.
When you tell them what you are doing, you may as well be talking Russian, because they won't understand what you are trying to get across.
"If I do that, then I would be leaving behind, people who are very important to me."
Are the people very important to you holding you back? Are they toxic individuals? Personal development is about CHANGE. You will spend many hours alone reading and reflecting. Experience has shown that most friends and family have a difficult time with that. People are afraid of change and initially resent it. They don't embrace it and say "That's great man...Keep doing that!"
Here is a quote from a very good article that puts your comments in perspective.
If it changes us, we become different from our peers.
If we are constantly growing and evolving through effort, what is happening to those around us who aren’t making that same effort? Certainly you can try to help them grow along with you, or to make a positive impact on their lives, but at a certain point, someone might not be willing, able or interested in matching pace with you, and will find themselves at odds with your efforts.
Someone who isn’t as interested in deliberate self development might be entirely content to remain as they are, or let their growth happen more organically, naturally through chance, less hurried. If you are leaving them behind in any way or inadvertently making them look bad by bettering yourself, they can come to resent it.
Here is a link to the entire article:
https://www.quora.com/Did-you-start-losing-friends-when-focusing-on-personal-growth
Talk Soon,
Howard
While I find your comments interesting and well thought out, I will always be at odds with it. Unfortunately, its not the first time I have heard it and I know that its the trend these days.
I am aware that no one can force another person into change. We can lead them there though. They may not respond immediately because experience has made them fearful, but seeing and hearing the change can lead to a later response.
I'll leave it there.
Thank you for your reply, Russel01.
You are at odds with it because of your religious beliefs.
I get it.
Repeating a comment I made earlier: the Bible is the #1 personal development book ever written.
I will leave it there as well.
I've been there... a victim of pessimism
I completely agree with you Howard on Personal Development and I totally believe the GRATITUDE to chase away pessimism
Hey Yoko1,
Gratitude it’s an affirmation of goodness.
We affirm that there are good things that surround us because of the gifts and benefits we’ve received. A grateful person understands that life is far from perfect; grateful people don't ignore complaints, burdens, and hassles. But when we look at life as a whole, gratitude encourages us to identify some amount of goodness in our life.
Thank you for your reply!
Talk Soon,
Howard
Love this Howard.
Absolutely true for me.
We can be our worst enemy or best friend.
I am learning the latter :)
Wa seems to be escalating my inner work. So grateful for this journey.
Thank you for sharing.
Di :)
Very great lesson Howard!
Thank you very much.
Life is sometimes funny. And the root cause of pessimism is just fear to fail. And when you fall in that trap, you're gone!
May God help us. No wonder the phrase ''Fear not appears 365 times in the Bible! That is every day, you're subject to be intimidated and to fear something.
No more fear to so easily yield in to pessimism!
Once again hank you Howard
Cheers
Boaz Ethan
Hey Boaz,
The Bible is the #1 personal development book ever written!
And you are correct: FEAR is a beast and is the root cause of most failures people experience. I have found that focusing on my weakness and reading a personal development book that specifically deals with my problem is a tremendous help!
All the best,
Howard
You must have known I needed to read this today. Not only are things a bit frustrating for me at WA, but there are things going on with our 'home-improvement' efforts that have things at a standstill. It's so great to be reminded that, as you say, we all have disquieting thoughts and difficult situation come up with everybody.
I've been 'working on myself' for a few years now, reading spiritual books and meditating and although I've come far from where I was, I still have days when I'm tempted to just focus on the grim things in life. It's nice to be reminded that we all feel that way at times.
LOVE your profile picture! It made me smile as I'm sure it does everyone who sees it! Thanks for the uplift and God Bless! :-]
Hey Sue,
The reason why you are doing well, and will continue to have success, is because of this statement you made:
"I've been 'working on myself' for a few years now, reading spiritual books and meditating and although I've come far from where I was, I still have days when I'm tempted to just focus on the grim things in life."
When you said "I've been working on myself", you are farther along than 90% of the population. Why? Because most people never come to the realization that they need to improve who they are! So you are a winner because you are DOING SOMETHING!
You realized a need for you to change the way you think!
That's where it all starts, my friend: THE WAY YOU THINK!
You also have to realize that you, me, all of us will have disquieting thoughts, bad moods, frustrations and the like. The winners in life acknowledge how they feel - they don't hide from it or make excuses for it - they are completely honest about "how they feel."
The best thing you can do is make daily personal development a habit - NOW! It's going to help you here at Wealthy Affiliate, help you with your family, but most importantly, help YOU become the person YOU REALLY WANT TO BE!
You can do this!
Talk Soon,
Howard
Thanks Howard.
I have just started reading 7 habits of highly effective people as it was recommended by another member so your blog seems very relevant. I am just starting to realise that I need to change my mindset as well as my working habits to be successful here at WA
Best Wishes
Hazel.
Hey Hazel,
That's an excellent publication! Reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People will affect how you treat yourself and how you treat others. You attitude and disposition toward others will change in outstanding ways, which will greatly improve your self-esteem and self-confidence.
Excellent read!
Keep up the good work...
Talk Soon,
Howard
Thanks for sharing your thoughts & for posting.....insightful....all the very best for every success... cheerio... :)
Hey keishalina9,
Thank you for your kind words...I hope something I said help encourage you.
All the best to you and your business!
Talk soon,
Howard
I really like this post. Without going into a huge post about my history, let me say this. I always understood the idea of it's better to take a chance and fail than to never take a chance at all.
Well, I haven't seen too many books on what to do when you did take that one or more chances and in fact failed. I have done many things and I would put 100% into it. The problem I find as I get older is my pessimism has been creeping up in my life.
I feel guilty about the failures I had in my life. So, I write down my daily goals in various subjects and this helps reduce the pessimism.
Your right about needing to change yourself. It's easy to kind of fall into the "Forget it, I can't do it" This is one of the reasons I think that seperates WA from all the other platforms out there.
Even on those days I don't feel like doing anything, I force myself to do another lesson. Do another task another post and eventually the negative feelings go away.
Another comment you said in your post kind of shocked me at first but really made a lot of sense after I thought about it. Most of the time you hear how you should reach out to people to help you maybe hold you accountable etc etc.
Your idea to put a book on your digital platform and keep it to yourself is great advice.
I really look forward to your next blog. Thank you for writing this.
Aaron
Hey Aaron,
"Failing Forward" by John Maxwell...Outstanding!
Man, let me tell you...I was the king of feeling guilty! I had businesses that failed, relationships that failed, and it was really tearing me down!
When a man fails to live up to his own personal expectations, guilt creeps it. If you feel you haven't lived up to other people’s expectations, guilt is right there.
Maybe you did something hurtful or embarrassing to someone else, or wrong someone somehow. Yup - here comes the guilt!
Or maybe it’s all about you.
The whole point of this post was to help WA members to see that success is an inside job - not just content and keywords and traffic.
Your success here at Wealthy Affiliate starts with who you are on the inside.
You have to look at guilt as THE ENEMY! You have to isolate it, attack it, and eliminate it!
Whatever the reason is for your guilt, you've got to keep in mind that you’re feeling guilty for a reason, and this guilt is telling you that you are heading in the wrong direction.
It’s time to reconsider your choices and decisions and take a different path moving forward. That's why personal development is so critical! Everything starts in the mind, my friend...everything!
I will send you a pm...
Talk Soon,
Howard
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Nice blog. You are right about pessimism. An interesting fact about us people is that we are hard-wired to be skeptical, which is fine but it's just our minds trying to protect us from possible failure. However, these are ideas linked to the Amygdala.
The amygdala is a section of the brain that is responsible for detecting fear and preparing for emergency events. (Quote)
So our job is to tell the Amygdala to relax, we aren't in a life-death struggle all the time, but sometimes the simplest chores seem like we're going against all of Nature! It's trying, it's difficult, but in the end, worth it! Thanks for the great blog.