Learned Optimism - Optimism and Pessimism in the Workplace
G’day all,
So last week we were talking about optimism and pessimism. You might ask, what has that go to do with me?
I work. I have to deal with real life. I can’t choose to see everything as rosy flowers.
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Seligman looks at how this applies at work. In particular in the insurance industry where apparently a significant amount of salespeople quit at great expense to companies.
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Perhaps it is all the people who say no to the salespeople. It’s proposed that this generates a sense of helplessness and pessimism in them. But there are a few that stay on. A few the push through and display resilience in the face of all the ‘no’s.
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So who sticks around? Seligman found that iIt is the optimists. He trialled this out by selecting a group of people based on their optimism that would not have ordinarily past the admission tests to get a job selling insurance. His group did far better than the group selected for their skills as salespeople.
So again, what does this mean for you?
Well, do you work in a job with large setbacks? Do you have a manager that only sees your mistakes and not your successes? Do you deal with difficult customers and clients on a daily basis?
Optimism may be the key to seeing the setback in a different way. In a way that gives you the resilience to persevere. To succeed.
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Interested in how to achieve this? We’ll look at this in the coming weeks.
Enjoy your week!
