The mind is it’s own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell or a hell of heaven.

-John Milton

In The Happiness Advantage, author Shawn Achor states that optimistic sales people outsell their pessimistic counterparts by 56%. It’s a great argument for becoming more optimistic—something that I believe is within everyone’s control.

Before we get to the how, though, it’s worth asking why? Why are optimists performing better and earning more? According to the extensive research covered in Achor’s book, positive emotions (which optimists have more of) flood our brains with dopamine and serotonin, chemicals that not only make us feel good but dial up the learning centres of our brains to higher levels, allowing us to perform better.

That’s the biochemical explanation. But for those of us hoping to improve our results without becoming a research subject, there’s another way to look at these results.

Why Optimism Works

At the heart of optimistic success is a simple, but powerful equation that drives success or failure. To understand it, we need to understand a few truths:

• Our outcomes are determined by our actions. Nothings happens without us taking action.
• Those actions are determined by our feelings. I once read that 98% of people act because of their feelings, not despite them.
• Those feelings are determined by our thoughts.
• Those thoughts are determined by our focus.

Visually, it looks something like this:
 

What this means is that optimistic sales people aren’t just smiling their way to success—they have a different focus.That focus affects the rest of the cycle, causing them to take more consistent, directed, daily action. That’s the essential difference between the optimistic and the pessimistic: what they choose to focus on.

It’s the same for happiness everywhere. The big difference between the most happy and the most unhappy people is not their circumstances, not what they do for a living, not how much money they make, whether they are married, single or divorced, not what country they live in but what they choose to focus on. That focus starts a cascade of positive events that changes everything, (including sales!).

Focus, then is the essential element. And here’s the important part:

Focus is a learned skill.

Regardless of what you’ve been told, you can become more optimistic by shifting your focus, and enjoy the benefits that come with it.

Becoming More Optimistic

The one human freedom that cannot be taken from you is the
capacity to choose your attitude is any given set of circumstances.

– Victor Frankl

With steady persistence, you can shift your focus to one of optimism and change your results.

How do you get started? In order to begin to shift your focus, you need to be aware of it. Here are a few quick questions to help you assess your current focus on the optimist / pessimist scale:

1. Do you focus more on the mistakes in your past or the opportunities in your future?
2. Do you focus on your weakness and what you don’t do well or your strengths and what you do do well?
3. Do you focus on what others (your staff, you spouse, your children, your parents) do wrong and drive you crazy or do you focus on what they do well and what you love about them? You know what I am talking about… the things you focused on when you first met your spouse.
4. Do you focus on what you can’t do or what you can do?
5. Do you focus on how far you have to go or how far you have come?
6. Do you focus on what you don’t have or what you do have?
7. Do you focus on the changes in your industry that are causing your challenges or the opportunities because of these changes?
8. Do you look at what you have lost or what you have left?

Once you become aware of where your focus is now, you can begin to consciously shift it. As Jim Collins said in his book Good to Great:  “We are not imprisoned by our circumstances, our setbacks, our history, our mistakes, or even staggering defeats along the way. We are freed by our choices.”

How do you control your focus?  Let us know in the comments!