Optimism and Regret: An Unlikely Fusion for Massive Goal Success

In his book on Learned Optimism, Martin Seligman highlights how our explanatory style has tremendous impact on our ability to cope with stress and setbacks. The more we learn to keep an accurate self-narrative and level headed view regarding bad circumstances, the more likely we are able to maintain an overall healthy optimism for life.

“Some people can put their troubles neatly into a box and go about their lives even when one important aspect of it—their job, for example, or their love life—is suffering. Others bleed all over everything. They catastrophize. When one thread of their lives snaps, the whole fabric unravels. It comes down to this: People who make universal explanations for their failures give up on everything when a failure strikes in one area. People who make specific explanations may become helpless in that one part of their lives yet march stalwartly on in the others.”

Building specific and accurate explanations for successes and failures is a core foundation for developing a growth mindset and getting you started in pursuit of your Rocket Goals. Surprisingly though, as you start actually progressing towards your goal - anticipating the specifics of failure and regret can be combined with optimism to fuel even higher levels of task engagement and performance outcomes. This is because visions of failure spark your mind into a massively powerful state of obstacle avoidance. “What’s going to happen if you don’t do a specific task, and fail to reach your goal?” It turns out the brain and body are much better at moving away from things you don’t want - so you can unlock motivational fuel on-demand by visualizing and reminding yourself of the consequences of non-action!

By learning to combine clear-eyed optimism with an equally clear-eyed fear of regret, you will have no shortage of energy and motivation to tackle and progress towards even the most challenging of Rocket Goals!