How To Get More Positive Results In Life

Never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality- James Stockdale.

James Stockdale is an American Navy Vice-Admiral, who was a prisoner of war for seven years during the Vietnam war. I imagine he and other captors were tormented, starved, and felt defeated many times. Pain can lead to three reactions - defeat, blind optimism, or hope. When you feel defeated, you give up, while blind optimism is what most self-help teachers preach - the belief we will be out of pain before we know it; the speak positively into your future gyrations - while hope is optimism that we will prevail in the end.  

James survived and was awarded a Medal of Honor in the Vietnam War. He described those who did not survive, 'Those who never made it always had blind optimism. They would say, we would be out by Christmas, and Christmas would come, and they would feel defeated. Then, they would make a new deadline; we will be out by New Year, and New Year would come nothing will happen.’ The most brutal lesson is never to confuse faith that you will prevail in the end with the discipline to confront your most brutal facts. 

Another study culled from Made to Stick

A group of UCLA students was asked to think about a current problem in their lives, one that was 'stressing them out' but was potentially solvable in the future, such as a problem with schoolwork or with a relationship. The goal of the experiment was to help them deal with the problem effectively, and they got some brief instructions on problem-solving: 

Group 1: These students were to think about the problem, learn more about it, think about what you can do, and take steps to deal with it. After receiving these instructions, this group was sent home and asked to report back to the lab a week later. 

 

Group 2: The group was called the event-simulation group and kept in the lab. They were to visualize how this problem arose. Visualize the beginning of the problem, going over in detail as they occurred step by step, their reactions and responses. They had to visualize the environment, who was around, where you were. 

 

Group 3: The outcome-simulation group, were to mentally simulate a positive outcome emerging from the problem. Picture the problem beginning to resolve. The outcome-simulators kept their focus on the desired future outcome: What will it be like once this problem is behind me? 

 

After this initial exercise, both of the simulation groups were sent home and asked to spend five minutes every day repeating their simulations and report back to the lab a week later.

 

Make a quick prediction about which group of students fared best in coping with their problems? Here is the answer: The event-simulation group—the people who simulated how the events unfolded —did better on almost every dimension. Simulating past events is much more helpful than simulating the future outcome. 

By the first night, the event-simulation people were experiencing a positive mood boost. 

It is not enough to be positive. We should strive to understand failure or problems.  Understanding redirects us and brings clarity to our gifts and potential.  

Linking this to the revelation from Stockdale draws me to one conclusion. Hope is beneficial after we dare to understand our present situation, our past mistakes, and create a map for the future.