Some people may always look confident on different situations, like in a party, during presentation, during a meeting with clients or even while hang out with friends. Meanwhile, some other people may look totally the opposite. They don’t look enthusiast, low spirited, try to hide themselves, speak low about themselves. I describe those two based on the book I read before, extrovert (confident) person and introvert (pessimist) person.
Even if you feel that you are a confident person, sometimes you may have some doubts about what are you going to do or maybe not confident enough to do some tasks. In this case what is the difference between the optimist and the pessimist?
One main difference is what are they going to do or react when they have doubts.
To illustrate this let’s use a case. I’m trusted to handle big client projects which I never had before. I have a little knowledge about the project but I know the people I’m working with. This project is very important to my company and I have to do it well.
First persona, if I were a pessimist. I will likely to doubt myself whether I’m able to accomplish this. I will do my best to make good plan to finish this. As along the way to complete it, whenever I face some problems, I will likely to say to myself, this is not going to work as I planned or this is a total disaster as predicted. Eventually, I will become more and more not confident about the project outcome. Usually, I will think more to prevent this and the more the thinking or plan fail to do so, the more I will feel bad.
Second persona, if I were the optimist. I will likely to feel challenged to accomplish the project. I will make a plan to achieve it, I know the main area to achieve and trim down the unnecessary fancy stuffs for the time being. I believe in my team in doing this, I will not deter although my knowledge is limited. I can do some self learning and ask questions if I’m in doubt. Even if there is some issues along the way, I know that issues are part of the journey and I will think of something to solve it and get back to track as soon as possible.
If you were in that situation, which persona will you choose?
It’s easy to see (or to write) ideal scenario as the second persona but when it comes to real world experience, sometimes we become the first persona. Different people may have different way to indicate if they are optimists or pessimists, but for sure, they can’t be both in the same time. 🙂
I used to see myself trapped in the pessimist’s point of view. It took me some time to be able to see things differently. I read a lot of books, received a lot of feedbacks and advices from people I respected, and most importantly, I practice it every day since. Therefore there is no reason to say that I can’t do it. Every one can do it, even the most pessimist one, all we need is a little bit of push to kick start it. Definitely, we need to start to walk if we want to reach some place.
To wrap up, let’s try to see things differently by seeing it as learning experience. So, when we have some difficulties or doubts or worries, instead of running away from it, let’s try to face it and do what we can do. No matter the result is, it’s part of our learning experience.
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PS: It’s a long term practice, believe that we will get it and keep open ourselves for improvement.
