Can you MAKE yourself optimistic?

I was recently thinking about my friend and his sister, who went through the exact same stressful situation—same problem, same uncertainty, and the same frustrating couple of months of waiting to see how everything would shake out. My friend is naturally pessimistic. If there are ten possible outcomes, his brain immediately identifies the three worst ones and starts preparing emotionally for disaster.

His sister is the opposite. She has always been naturally optimistic. She sees the problem and understands its seriousness, but her default response is, “We’ll figure this out. It’ll probably be okay.” And here’s the interesting part: in the end, it was okay. The situation resolved itself, life moved forward, and all of that worrying didn’t change the outcome one bit.

But something was dramatically different: their experience getting there. My friend spent those months stressed, frustrated, anxious, and imagining everything that could go wrong. His sister had stressful moments too — she wasn’t walking around singing freaking show tunes while pretending nothing was happening — but she weathered the storm better. She could laugh, sleep better, keep enjoying her life, and deal with problems when they actually showed up instead of emotionally experiencing every hypothetical problem ahead of time. They ultimately arrived at the same destination, but one of them had a much rougher ride.

And that got me thinking: are some people simply born optimistic? Or can you actually train yourself to become one?

The answer, apparently, is a little bit of both. Research involving twins suggests optimism has a genetic component. Different studies have estimated that genetics may account for roughly a quarter to a third — and in some studies a little more — of the variation in optimism between people. But that leaves a lot of room for environment, experience, habits, relationships, and how we learn to interpret what happens to us. In other words, you may have been dealt a certain psychological hand, but you still get to decide how you play it.

When I look at my own life, I believe some people come out of the box and see the glass as half full. I’m one of those people. My natural tendency is to believe things will work out. Does that mean they always do? Hell no. I’ve experienced business failures, financial stress, relationship problems, uncertainty, fear, disappointment, and plenty of situations where life punched me directly in the face. Optimism doesn’t make you immune to pain; it doesn’t mean you’re constantly happy, and it sure as hell doesn’t mean bad things won’t happen to you.

This is where I think people misunderstand optimism. Being optimistic isn’t the same thing as being a Pollyanna (overly, blindly, or unreasonably optimistic). I’m not talking about ignoring reality, refusing to acknowledge risk, or telling yourself everything is amazing when your freaking house is on fire. That’s denial, not optimism. Healthy optimism looks at the fire and says, Okay, this sucks. Now where’s the extinguisher? There is a massive difference between believing nothing bad will happen and believing that, when something bad does happen, you have the ability to deal with it.

Researchers sometimes describe this as an explanatory style—basically, the habitual story we tell ourselves about why things happen. When something goes wrong, a pessimistic mind tends to make the problem bigger and more permanent: This always happens to me. Nothing ever works out. Everything is screwed. An optimistic person is more likely to see the same situation as specific and temporary: This situation sucks right now, but it doesn’t mean everything sucks, and it doesn’t mean it’s going to suck forever. That distinction is incredibly powerful.

And here’s the good news: you can practice it. You can catch yourself catastrophizing and challenge the story you’re telling yourself. When your brain says, This is going to be a disaster, ask yourself, “Do I actually know that?” When you think, “Nothing ever works out for me,” stop and identify three things that have actually worked out. When something stressful happens, separate what you know from what you’re imagining. A lot of our suffering doesn’t come from what is happening right now. It comes from mentally rehearsing terrible futures that haven’t happened — and may never happen.

Another way to cultivate optimism is to focus aggressively on what you can control. Research has found that optimistic people tend to use more active, engaged coping strategies and less avoidance when dealing with stress. They also tend to adjust their approach depending on whether the problem can actually be changed. This doesn’t surprise me. If I have a problem I can fix, I want to take action. If I can’t fix it, sitting around obsessing over it won’t magically give me control. Ask yourself: What can I do today? Make the call, have the conversation, save the money, go to the gym, apologize, and/or create the plan. Then stop wasting emotional energy trying to control what isn’t yours to control.

You also need to pay attention to what you’re feeding your brain. If you’re constantly consuming outrage, negativity, fear, conflict, and people telling you the world is ending, don’t be shocked when you start viewing everything through a darker lens. The same thing applies to the people around you. Negativity is contagious, but so is perspective. I’m not telling you to cut out everyone who has a bad day or disagrees with you. I’m saying you should recognize that your environment trains your brain. Gratitude does too. Regularly acknowledging what is going right — your health, friendships, opportunities, family, a freaking good cup of coffee — teaches your mind to notice the positive instead of automatically scanning for threats.

But another piece of this feels critical: optimism needs evidence. One of the best ways to become more optimistic is to prove to yourself that you can handle difficult things. Think about all the situations in your life that you once thought were going to destroy you. Remember how overwhelming they felt then? And yet you’re still here. Maybe things didn’t work out exactly how you wanted, but you adapted, learned, and survived. Sometimes you even ended up somewhere better. Every challenge you’ve successfully navigated becomes evidence you can use the next time life gets uncertain.

This doesn’t mean pessimism is completely useless either. A little skepticism can protect you, and thinking through potential problems helps you prepare. I don’t want my accountant saying, “I’m sure the numbers will magically work themselves out.” I don’t want my doctor ignoring something concerning because he’s trying to manifest good vibes. And I sure as hell don’t want an entrepreneur betting everything he owns on an idea without considering what could go wrong. The goal isn’t blind optimism; the goal is realistic optimism by understanding the risks, preparing intelligently, and then refusing to emotionally live inside the worst-case scenario.

Ultimately, I think optimism is partly nature and partly nurture — but increasingly, it’s also choice. You may never become the person who naturally wakes up believing sunshine is shooting out of everybody’s ass. That’s okay. The goal isn’t to change your entire personality. The goal is to develop a healthier relationship with uncertainty. You can learn to interrupt catastrophic thinking; you can deliberately look for possibilities instead of only problems; you can surround yourself with better influences; and you can build confidence through action. Over time, those choices start becoming habits, and those habits start shaping the way you experience your life.

Because here’s what I keep coming back to with my friend and his sister: the outcome was the same, but the journey wasn’t. The sister’s optimism didn’t magically solve the problem or guarantee a happy ending. What it did was allow her to live more peacefully while the ending was still unknown. So much of life is lived in that uncomfortable space where we don’t know what’s coming next.

You can spend that time assuming the worst, or you can acknowledge the uncertainty, prepare for reality, and still believe something good might be waiting on the other side. Optimism isn’t pretending the storm doesn’t exist. It’s believing that eventually the clouds are going to break — and knowing that, until they do, you’re strong enough to keep walking through the rain.