Optimism is hopefulness and confidence about the future or the success of something.
Optimism will seem to elude you in midlife. There will come a time wherein you might feel lost, get mood swings and not feel happy about the body. With multiple challenges like this, feeling optimistic about life will seem like a herculean task.
That doesn’t mean that you need to make an effort or force yourself to feel optimistic. What you would need is to make positive thinking a way of life. Negative thoughts come sooner than positive ones. But we need to keep them at bay to live a happier and fuller life.
Midlife triggers many health concerns. You could face problems of lack of sleep, loss of energy due to poor eating, lifestyle habits and little exercise. All these factors affect your mood. While you are low on mood there are high chances of not thinking positively.
However, to embrace the transition and the change of midlife you will have to look at life with optimism and hope.
That is what I plan to do as well and thus have been reading a lot for the past few weeks on Midlife.
My learnings:
- Optimism helps to deal with unexpected change (and there will be many in midlife), overwhelming stress and inevitable disappointments.
- Optimism breeds confidence and vice-versa.
- Focus on solutions and not on the problems.
- Try to minimize the obstacles to success.
- Nurture your body. During Midlife your body starts giving you signals if you are not healthy. Understand these signals and work to nurture your body. Eating right and a little bit of daily exercise should help to look at life with optimism. Read about N Is For Nutrition #DecodingMidlife
- Do not discount your own achievements. Everyone has achieved something in big or a small way. Appreciate your achievements. Feel worthy. This will make you more optimistic about the future.
- Midlife is the ideal time to build healthy habits which will improve your life now and enable you to be the best as you age. Look at midlife with hope.
- Do not blame yourself. You will tend to do this a lot in midlife. Avoid it. Keep repeating positive affirmations.
- Acknowledge the challenges. Optimism doesn’t mean to believe that nothing can go wrong in your life. Rather it means that you believe that you have the ability to meet those challenges and fight them successfully.
- There would be times during midlife years when there is an overwhelming feeling of loneliness. This leads to negativity. Surround yourself with optimistic people and spend more time with friends.
“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence”.
-Helen Keller
What would do you do to keep yourself positively motivated? Are you always optimistic about your life?
Do share your views and suggestions.