118. How to Train Your Brain to Be More Optimistic

Ever wonder why some people can face the same challenge and bounce back faster?
In this episode, we break down the real science of optimism — not the “just think positive” kind, but the kind that changes the way you explain what’s happening in your life. You’ll learn how your explanatory style shapes your resilience, your mood, and even how your kids learn to handle hard things.

What you will learn on this episode

• What real, science-based optimism actually is (and what it isn’t), based on Martin Seligman’s research.

• How your “explanatory style” shapes your emotional reactions and resilience.

• The three automatic questions your brain asks when something goes wrong—and how your answers determine optimism or pessimism.

• How to interrupt a pessimistic spiral using simple steps that right-size problems and reduce drama.

• How to coach yourself (the way you would coach your child) into more balanced, hopeful thinking during hard moments.

 

Transcript

Do you ever feel like your brain jumps to the worst-case scenario before you can even catch your breath? That is not a personality flaw. It’s a thinking pattern. And today I want to teach you how optimism, the real science-based kind, can help you interrupt that pattern so you can feel steadier and more hopeful even when life throws you difficult things. This is Leadership Parenting episode 118, how to train your brain to be more optimistic.

Did you know that resilience is the key to confidence and joy? As moms, it’s what we want for our kids, but it’s also what we need for ourselves. My name is Leigh Germann. I’m a therapist and I’m a mom. Join me as we explore the skills you need to know to be confident and joyful. Then get ready to teach these skills to your kids. This is Leadership Parenting, where you learn how to lead your family by showing them the way.

Hi friends, and welcome back to Leadership Parenting. I’m Leigh Germann and I love resilience. I love moms and I love resilience and I love when they go together because being resilient is such a powerful tool that we have in the work that we do.

I was just talking with my daughter-in-law the other day about being a mom, about the what I call the profession of being a mother and how that in our society, in our culture, we just don’t talk about that very much, about how important it is to feel like what we are doing is so valuable, especially when in the world we um measure so many things by how much money we make from what we do and how much value we give to whatever the job is that we put our time and our effort into. And when you’re raising children, none of that is apparent, at least not in the moment. All of that is kind of like an investment that shows up later in life. And even then, it’s so low-key and um so far distant from the time and investment that we put in that I just think sometimes it can really feel like such a thankless and just undernoticed job.

And I think that’s part of the passion that I have for having this podcast and for putting together the programs. I’m working on a program right now to teach resilience to you all, to learn the resilience skills piece by piece so that you can infuse your life with the things that help you see the value in what you do. It shocks me that as parents, it’s I think we’re undervalued on many levels. So, of course, I’m on a mission to change that, to make sure that every single one of the mothers within the sound of my voice, within any influence that I might have, are well equipped with tools of resilience. And one of the most exciting tools that we have to use and helping us become more resilient is understanding the power of optimism.

I find it so fascinating that two people can go through the exact same hard moment and walk away with completely different interpretations of what it means. For instance, we might have a child melting down, and one of us might say, This always happens. Everything is falling apart. I can’t handle this. I’m such a terrible mom. And another person might say, This is a really hard minute. It’s it’s just a crazy day. He’s tired, the situation makes sense. I’m gonna, we can reset and we can try it again tomorrow.

Not only do two people sometimes have totally different ways of looking at it, represented by those two sets of phrases, but also, don’t you ever notice that sometimes you sometimes can pull off that optimistic kind of talk yourself through it and not panic about it, not get dramatic about it. And then other times you can’t. And I want to talk about why that happens and why it matters so deeply for your resilience as a mom.

It’s optimism, not just be positive kind of optimism, not that toxic positivity that makes you feel worse because you can never seem to kind of keep it going all the time. We’re talking about optimism the way Martin Seligman, the father of positive psychology, talks about it. Do you know who he is? He is very, very important in the world of psychology because most of psychology for years and years has been looked at through the medical model, which means that we look at mental illness like depression and anxiety. And then we look at what we can do to treat those illnesses. That’s what I went to school to learn how to do. Yes, we did learn about healthy, normal development patterns, but you know what we studied? We studied all the problems. We studied what depression looks like and what anxiety looks like, and what happens to the brain and the mind and the body when someone is traumatized. And then we learned the treatment for those things. I’m very grateful for that. I’ve been the beneficiary of being treated for some kind of mental illness when I was uh going through a period of depression or when I experienced postpartum depression and anxiety. I am so grateful that we have treatment for the times when we fall into those categories of not functioning well. I’ve done this for 30 years.

But you know what Martin Seligman did? He said, This is great, but we’ve got people out there that seem to be immune to this, or at least buffered by this, or that have this sense of being able to bounce back so much faster. And he said, I want to take my time and my dollars and I want to study that. And he created a whole discipline of psychology that he calls positive psychology, where he studied what are the things that help people thrive? What are the things that protect them from depression and anxiety? And what should we be focusing on in a preventative measure? And how can we kind of insulate or buffer people from the hardest things going on to protect them from falling into patterns of illness?

When I discovered him and I discovered the whole field, it’s not just him. There’s now hundreds of positive psychologists that are looking for these kinds of things that protect us. I found my passion. This is where I understood what resilience was. This is where I’ve put my time and my dollars in training. Hundreds and hundreds of hours and probably hundreds and hundreds of dollars. I’m into the thousands now in both categories because I’m fascinated and motivated to really understand this process. And I want you to be too. If I could ignite a fire in each of you to desire this knowledge, to crave it, to train for it, I know I would be doing you the biggest favor ever, which is why I come to you every week trying to share what I know and invite you to elevate your life. I want to do that as we talk about optimism today.

Optimism is not cheerfulness, it’s not ignoring reality, it’s not pretending everything is fine. Marty Seligman defines it this way: He says, the basis of optimism doesn’t lie in positive phrases or images of victory, but in the way you think about causes. Hmm. Super interesting, right? Not just positive things we say to ourselves and not images of victory. I think that’s such a cool phrase. Images that we’re always gonna win, that everything’s gonna be just perfect. That’s not where we find optimism, he says. It’s because of how we look at the causes of things. It’s about how you explain the why behind things, the story you instantly or automatically generate about what’s happening and what it means.

And that story is gonna happen in your mind, right? That why story is happening under the surface, usually under our awareness, like background music. We don’t even realize it’s playing. We don’t recognize that we’re having these thoughts or these patterns, but you do. You have a style, even. You have a habit of how you interpret life, whether you realize it or not. And it shows up most clearly during the stressful, frustrating, or discouraging moments. And this habit or this thinking style is called your explanatory style. Explanatory means how you explain things. Why is this happening? What does it mean about me? What does it mean about my future? How long is it gonna last?

Your brain really is driven to know the answers to these questions. You don’t even have to desire the answer to these questions. Your brain needs to know the answers to these questions because this is how your brain protects you 24-7. It’s always looking, it’s always scanning for danger, it’s always being focused on your survival. And the the way or the style that your mind uses to explain the cause of things or the reason for things or the meaning of things, that’s going to directly affect how optimistic or how pessimistic you are or you feel.

Most of us think optimism means that we’re kind of born this way, that it’s our personality type. But real optimism is quite different. It is simply about the story that you tell yourself when something goes wrong. When your kid melts down at the grocery store, your brain instantly wants to and needs to explain why it happened. And it jumps to conclusions. Your brain says to you things like, I’m a terrible mom, or this always happens, or everyone is judging me. Or maybe, just maybe, your brain gives you some other phrases like she’s tired and hungry. This is hard right now. This will pass. You’re not actively always choosing these thoughts. Your brain is doing it automatically. But here’s the thing: you do have a pattern, a style of explaining life. And that pattern determines how everything feels, if it’s heavy or whether it’s hopeful.

Researchers discovered that when something goes wrong, your brain wants to ask and answer three questions. So that’s what brains do. It asks a question and then turns around and answers it. I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed that. It’s this very kind of thinking in a box. And that’s why it’s so important that we open the box up and we look at it. So here are the three questions your brain asks. Is this about everything or just one local itemized thing? Second question, will this last forever or is it just temporary? Third, is this all my fault? Are there other factors at play?

Do you notice in each of these questions there’s an element of threat? That’s your brain looking for danger. That is what is at the core of pessimism. Did you know that? At the base of pessimism is fear. It’s guardedness, it’s wariness, it’s expecting the worst. And that’s because your brain is asking these three questions. And guess how it’s answering it when we have a pessimistic, protective stance? It’s answering it in the most worrisome or threat-based way, the all or nothing way. And you know what happens when we get into all or nothing? We end up with nothing because we can never have all. And that’s what happens in pessimistic thinking.

So let me show you what I mean. Let’s let’s say you’re on vacation and you’re planning a day at the beach and you wake up in the morning and it’s raining. Your brain is going to ask those three questions. Is this about everything or just one thing? A pessimistic response would be this ruins our whole vacation. Everything is ruined. Second question, will this last forever or is it temporary? Pessimism would say the weather is always terrible when we plan trips like this. That’s intimating that we shouldn’t plan trips like this in the future, right? Because it always rains, no matter what situation comes up forever and ever in the future. And third question, is this my fault or are there other factors? I should have been better at checking the forecast. This is my fault. The result of answering the questions this way is that we feel defeated. We get exhausted going through these loops and then often very hopeless.

But let’s talk about what it looks like if you answer the questions in another way. What if you ask the first question, is this about everything or just one thing? And the answer was our beach day got rained out, but we still have the rest of the week. So it’s just this one thing. Second question, will this last forever or is it temporary? It’s raining today, but tomorrow’s forecast looks better, or maybe the rest of the week will surprise us. That would mean that the problem is just temporary. And finally, is this all my fault or are there other factors? An optimistic answer would offer the weather shifted unexpectedly. That’s not in my control. The result of these answers to those questions is that we might still feel disappointed, but we still are grounded. We can pivot. Same reign, different story, different feelings.

This matters because when we answer those questions to the negative, to the all-or-nothing, to the permanence of a situation and to it being our fault, it wears us down. We get more anxious, we feel more stressed, we lose our hope, we’re just more stuck. This is just a pattern. And many times we think this is our personality. But patterns mean we can learn different patterns. Optimism isn’t about ignoring the problems, it’s about right-sizing them.

Do you know what I mean by that? It’s like getting neutral about it, it’s like de-dramatizing it. It’s telling ourselves that it’s not as dangerous or threatening or serious as it sometimes feels. Instead of everything is ruined, we’re trying to learn to think this specific thing didn’t go well. Instead of I always mess up, we learn to think I made a mistake this time. Instead of it’s all my fault, we’re trying multiple things contributed here. I can’t control everything. When we do this, we can actually breathe, we can think, we can problem solve. This is what I teach women in the programs that we work together on how to shift these patterns of thinking so that we can break free of the pessimism spiral and build real resilience.

So when you catch yourself spiraling, here’s what to do. First, notice how it feels in your body. Your body’s gonna tell you first that you’re in that negativity spin, that pessimism is starting to weigh you down. You might actually feel tightness in your body, tight chest, tight muscles, a clenched jaw, just a heavy feeling. Put your hand on your chest, take a breath. Notice my body is telling me something. When you have these clues, you are in a fight or flight response.

Step two, let’s name the thoughts we’re having. And the phrase I want you to use is, I’m having the thought that. Instead of I’m a terrible mom, I want you to say, I’m having the thought that I’m a terrible mom. Do you see how that creates some space between you and the thought? And we’re right sizing the problem. So you might be really disappointed that you’re not going to the beach. And you could say, I’m having the thought that my whole week is ruined. That kind of gives you permission to acknowledge how upset you are, but also recognize that it is just a thought. And that thought is leading you into a much deeper, more serious threat than you need to be in.

Step number three, let’s ask those three questions. Is this about everything or just this thing? Is this forever or just today? Is this all my fault? Or are there other factors at play? This gives us a chance to recognize that these are questions that we get to choose to answer. And you might have a pattern that’s automated that’s answering pretty quickly on its own. But when you notice that this is starting to happen, we want you to gently shift into looking at other answers. Okay, this might affect my morning, but not my whole life. This is about a rainy day today, not every day of our vacation for the rest of our lives. You notice how you’re taking accountability, but you’re not making it a character flaw. You’re not putting a label on yourself of being a bad mom.

Step number four, take one small action. Let’s not try to fix everything. We just want to do one thing. Maybe it’s making a new plan. It’s raining outside. We need to find something else to do that will be fun. Maybe one of your small actions is to regulate yourself, to take a couple of deep breaths and get a drink of water, step outside. Maybe it’s saying you’re sorry. If you feel like there was something that happened that you didn’t behave in a way that you were really proud of, maybe you yelled or you snapped at someone. When you’re out of that pessimistic spiral of everything being permanent and always and always your fault, you can take accountability for something that you made a mistake about and make a repair, send a text, say I’m sorry.

That’s it. It’s recognizing that you are stuck in a pessimistic swirl, that your brain is answering the questions in a very negative and unhelpful way, and then allowing yourself to consider different answers. That is learning resilience. Not being positive all the time, just lowering the drama and the permanence in our thinking, being more balanced, just one step back toward our center.

So here’s what I want you to pay attention to this week: not your circumstances, but the explanations you have for your circumstances. When something goes wrong, I want you to notice am I making this about everything or just this one thing? Am I making this about forever globalizing it or allowing it to be just about what’s happening in this moment? Am I making this all about me and taking it on as a character flaw? Or am I able to see how everything fits in the bigger picture? We’re just trying to gently adjust. Because optimism isn’t about ignoring pain, it’s about right sizing so you can breathe again.

I want you to think about reaching for optimism. Now that we know it’s not toxic positivity, it’s not even looking on the bright side all the time. It’s about giving yourself a fighting chance to get through your day feeling okay. Right sizing problems to match where they might fit in the grand scheme of your whole life. I think back on all of the little things that I worried about when my kids were very small or as they were teenagers. And you know, in the grand scheme of things, I cannot believe how absolutely my minuscule so many of those things were. And yet, in them in the moment, they could feel so big, so permanent, so tied to my value and my worth. And I’m telling you guys, this is the key to get out of the chains that lock us down and make our lives feel so dang heavy. I don’t want you to live that way. I don’t want to live that way anymore. Optimism gives us some lift. It gives us a way to get through our hard times with hope. And that is so worth investing in.

So give yourself just a little bit of space. Notice how those things feel in your body. Notice the thoughts in your head. Get a little distance from those thoughts so you can say, I’m having the thought, right? That gives you the flexibility to answer those questions just a little bit differently. If you have trouble with this, let me give you a hint on that might help you. Think about coaching one of your older children. You might have little kids, so you’ll have to imagine yourself having older children, but think about coaching someone you love through this process. If you have a child come home and maybe they didn’t make the best basketball team, or maybe the girl they like didn’t say yes to go to prom. Devastating, right? Your child is looking at that situation saying, This is all about me. I’m not good enough. This is going to be my life forever. I’m never gonna feel happy again. And as their mother, you know that’s not true. You know you have this 16-year-old or this 17-year-old, or at any stage of disappointment and pain that our children are in, we have enough life experience ahead of them to know that this isn’t permanent for them. But they don’t know that. Their brain is answering the question in the most kind of threat-based way with the worst case scenario. How would you coach them through that? You would help them look at it in a different way. You would tell them stories about the times that you didn’t make the team or you didn’t get chosen, or someone said no to you. And you would put it in context so that they could start to practice the same skill we’re talking about today in this episode, that I want you to practice also in your thinking. You know how to coach people through that so much better than we know how to coach ourselves through it. The time has come, my friends, that we coach ourselves through these things. That’s what I want to help you do.

So I hope you can take some of the thoughts we’ve talked about today, internalize them, let them bring you hope and buoyancy. The more you consider them, the better you’ll get at them, and your confidence will grow. I love optimism. I’m learning it and practicing it every day. So you’re not alone. We’re doing this together. I wish you all right-sized, neutral, and hopeful answers to all those crazy questions that your brain is going to bring you this week. You know they’re coming with all of the stress and the challenges and the trials that we face on a daily basis raising our families. You know those questions are coming. I want you to start practicing talking back, answering back with more powerful and protective answers. I’m cheering for you all and send you my love. I’ll talk to you next week. Take care.

If you feel like these ideas really speak to you, but you’re not sure how to actually apply them in your own life. I want you to know you don’t have to do it alone. I’m currently opening a few one-to-one coaching spots for moms who are ready to go deeper and get personalized support as they build their own resilience. This is where we take everything we talk about here and we tailor it to your life, your story, your goals. If that sounds like something you’re craving, just head to legerman.com and click on one-to-one coaching. We’ll set up a free call to talk about where you are, where you want to be, and whether coaching is the right next step for you. You can always find me on Instagram at LeighGermann or on my website at LeighGermann.com.

The Leadership Parenting Podcast is for general information purposes only. It is not therapy and should not take the place of meeting with a qualified mental health professional. The information on this podcast is not intended to diagnose or treat any condition, illness, or disease. It’s also not intended to be legal, medical, or therapeutic advice. Please consult your doctor or mental health professional for your individual circumstances. Thanks again and take care.