There are so many aspects of your life that can be positively impacted with optimism. Success in relationships, working environments, finances, and health are all incredibly sensitive to your level of optimism. Take, for instance, sales: A study of the sales personnel at Metropolitan Life Insurance were tested for optimism and success ratios. Those who scored the highest level of optimism sold a whopping 37 percent more life insurance than those who scored as pessimists (Seligman, 1990). There was another study done on debt collectors in a large, competitive agency. The most successful collectors in the agency were shown to have much higher scores in the areas of optimism, independence, and self-actualization (Bachman et al., 2000).
One very significant study shed light on the power of optimism to nourish healthy relationships, physical vitality, and longevity. In the famous book by Dr. George E. Vaillant called The Wisdom of the Ego, the Harvard medical professor talks about individuals who have “both the capacity to be bent without breaking and the capacity, once bent, to spring back.” Vaillant talks about our greatest source of resilience coming from our internal capacity for optimism.
In Dr. Vaillant’s next book, Aging Well: Surprising Guideposts to a Happier Life, he takes it even a step further. The Doctor conducts three studies with 800 people of all different backgrounds and genders who were researched for 50 years of their lives. The study followed them from adolescence through old age, and it was discovered that the most important factor involved in healthy aging was each one’s ability to “make lemonade out of life’s lemons.” That is the very simplest definition of optimism!
Research is still coming in proving that optimism is a huge factor in increasing longevity. The last study done at Wageningn University in the Netherlands took 999 old Dutch men and women. The predicting factor of their longevity was their agreement with the statement—“I still have goals to strive for.” When subjects were tested 9 years after their survey, the death rates of the optimistic men were 63 percent lower than those who had not agreed with the optimistic statement 9 years earlier. Women were 35 percent lower. What makes the difference between optimistic and pessimistic people in terms of longevity? It’s generally believed that the optimists avoided unhealthy life choices that pessimists might have gone for.
~Ali Magazine