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Quotable Quotes of Courtney E. Ackerman
Courtney Ackerman is the author of "My Pocket Positivity: Anytime Exercises That Boost Optimism, Confidence, and Possibility"
Write in Your Future Diary: Visualizing a positive future in which you are nearing your goals or enjoying the fruits of your labor can boost your motivation, your optimism and self-confidence, and your current happiness.
"Unsurprisingly, people who are more optimistic tend to have greater resilience. When you expect good things to happen, it’s not so hard to bounce back from the occasional obstacle or setback. It works in the other direction, too—when you’re always bouncing back to new opportunities and picking up lessons learned along the way, it’s easy to be optimistic about the future. Because of this relationship between resilience and optimism, one of the best ways to improve one is to boost the other."
"Positive realism is one type of optimism that is accessible even to those who are not natural optimists. The positive realist may acknowledge that the worst is possible, but they spend far more energy hoping and planning for the best. Give this mind-set a try with the following steps: 1. Think of an upcoming event or occasion that you are worrying about. 2. Consider all the different possible outcomes (e.g., if the event is a date, think about all the different ways it could turn out, from falling madly in love to leaving in disgust). 3. Determine which outcomes are the most likely. Of these most likely outcomes, at least one or two will be positive (e.g., planning a second date, making a new friend). 4. Commit yourself to looking forward to these positive, realistic outcomes."
"By now you’ve certainly heard about the many benefits of optimism. Compared with pessimists, optimists do better in school, have more success at work, excel in their hobbies, and may even live longer, healthier lives. With all of these positive outcomes, it’s certainly worth a try to inject a little more optimism into your life!"
"Allowing yourself to believe in a positive future is a fundamental piece of being optimistic, and visualizing a positive and realistic version of yourself can help you get there."
"Optimists tend to not dwell too much on the past or get lost in thoughts of the future, but live fully in the present."
"Replacing the negative language with more helpful, optimistic language will help you develop a new tendency to look on the bright side."
"Rewrite relevant portions of your narrative with the positive outcomes highlighted, and consider how this results in a more positive and optimistic version of your current self."
IMAGINE YOUR BEST POSSIBLE SELF: This exercise can help you set goals for your future, determine which strengths you will need to cultivate to get there, and motivate you to put in the time and effort to improve yourself. As an added bonus, it can also boost your sense of hope and optimism! Grab your journal or a notebook and set aside a few minutes to sit in a quiet place and think. Settle on a specific point in the future (such as six months from now, five years from now, or even ten years from now) and imagine yourself at this point in time; however, instead of thinking about how your life will most likely be at this point, imagine your best possible life and best possible self at this point. Imagine that you are meeting or have met all of your goals, you are successful and happy, and you have your dream job, a wonderful relationship with your loved ones, fulfilling hobbies, and/ or anything else that is important to you. Note as much detail as possible, and paint as vivid a picture as you can of your future self. Now, think about the strengths you will need to apply to get to this point. Will you need to maximize your persistence? Engage in lots of strategic planning? Use some truly excellent people skills? Write down the strengths, skills, and traits you will need to use to get where you want to be, and commit to enhancing or improving them.
"One of the best things you can do for your own sense of optimism is to let go of old disappointments and grudges. Extending forgiveness to those people who have wronged you is not really a generous act for them, it’s a generous act for yourself!"
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