I’m a generally optimistic person. I tend to hope things will work out for the best and I’m usually quite smiley and cheerful. Don’t get me wrong – I can also be super critical, irritating, self destructive and miserable. But, on balance, my default is optimism.

I am aware that this is deep-rooted and borne from a complex mix of physiology, childhood experience and learned behaviour. I am also acutely aware that this doesn’t match many others who have a different world view – when I express positive feelings about current events (such as, I quite like working from home, I’ve had a good day, I’ve been keeping healthy) I find I almost feel a sense of guilt and try to temper my enthusiasm to meet their need. So how does positivity fit into our current world?

I had an interesting experience the other day whilst watching a webinar with someone who is a global leader in the study of positive psychology. My daughter was with me, she squinted at the figure on the screen and said in her usual caustic way “for someone who is so keen on positivity he looks pretty miserable”. And she was right: no smiles, no engagement, no enthusiastic inflection.

As if he heard her, the webinar guest, Martin Seligman, then went on to describe himself as someone who finds positive emotions such as cheerfulness difficult to connect with and display. That doesn’t mean of course that he doesn’t recognise the impact they can have on his own psychological state and those around him and talked about how he chooses to lean into positive states (getting a new puppy and plenty of sex seemed to be his personal solution!).

He described two different aspects of positive psychology – the subjective, affective states such as joy, and the cognitive states such as hopefulness and optimism. Reflecting on positivity in the depths of a crisis like this one we find ourselves in, he was asked how it might have a place when the world around us is so full of distress and sadness. I precis now, but essentially Seligman felt that different aspects of positive psychology come into play at different times:

During the crisis, the positivity we need is the affective state. We need warmth, love, compassion, fun, playfulness and a joy in what we do have. This doesn’t only psychologically make us feel safe and strong, research suggest it can also protect us from infection.

As we begin to emerge from the crisis what we benefit from more are the cognitive aspects, that is hope and optimism, a solution-focused approach that helps us act and to move toward the future we choose to create.

What we need too is for those around us to support and mirror that – leaders, friends, family members and colleagues who work compassionately and optimistically that at some point the future will be brighter.

If optimism or positivity is not your natural MO, that’s fine, you are who you are. But recognising how leaning into a positive frame – perhaps by reimagining your pessimism as realistic optimism – can have an impact on your own frame of mind as well as those around you. Role modelling optimism and taking affirmative action as we emerge blinking into the sunlight is exactly the kind of positive that is helpful right now.

Juliet Flynn, Organisational and People Development