Originally published by Katya Andresen on LinkedIn: What Olympians Teach about Optimism
One of the reasons I love watching the Olympics is the pleasure of witnessing what a lifetime of persistence can yield. Athletes work so hard and long to compete at this level, yet along the way they never lose the confidence they can succeed. For this reason, I would call them optimists.
Optimism is a curious thing. In its purist form, it does us little good. The Leibnizian version asserts we live in the best possible of all worlds. This Panglossian or Pollyanna strain of optimism saps the will. If everything will be fine, good will overcome evil, and we will surely succeed, we might as well relax and enjoy the ride.
Obviously, this is not the way you win a gold metal.
The magnetic Maame Biney, the 17-year-old short track skater, may have been told she is too happy all the time, but her mood doesn't appear to derive from blind optimism. It comes from loving the grind of practice as much as the thrill of competition. "I've dreamt of this moment," she joyfully proclaimed upon advancing in the Olympics. This is a different sort of optimism - a hopefulness about the future and a confidence in the potential of a successful outcome. When paired with a clear-eyed view of how far that destination may be and how hard it will be to cover that ground, optimism is the fuel of grit and resilience. It's reminiscent of Carol Dweck's notion of a growth mindset.
Several studies of the mindsets of Olympic athletes reinforce the merits of this kind of grounded optimism: "While more successful performers went into the Olympics with a positive attitude and frame of mind, at the same time, they also anticipated some unexpected events, and when they did, would employ some already learned coping strategies... Less successful athletes often had gone into the Games expecting everything to be perfect and when these issues arose they got distracted and lost some or all of their performance focus," according to a study by Daniel Gould.
There's something of the Stockholm Paradox in this analysis. The late Vice Admiral James Stockdale survived eight years of torture and captivity at the so-called Hanoi Hilton, doing all he could for the spirits of the fellow prisoners under his command. He devised a clever communications system to reduce the sense of isolation imposed on the prisoners, allowing them to tap out words to each other. In a story Jim Collins relates in his book Good to Great, Stockdale told him that the way he survived was to never lose faith in the end of the story. Whatever horrific experience he encountered, he told himself he could prevail. Collins asks Stockdale who didn't make it out. The admiral says it was the optimists -- the ones who kept saying they'd be out by Christmas or another milestone. They died of a broken heart. Confused, Collins asks for clarification. Hadn't Stockdale just asserted the key was to never lose faith?