The rumors of maintaining an “optimistic mindset” need to be disputed. The reason optimism upholds a bad rep in our modern-day culture is because people tend to associate this way of thinking with naivety and acting avoidant towards real-life problems. These traits are an entirely different issue, yet manage to get tangled up with the general perception of “being optimistic.” Denying and escaping the state of your life by telling yourself, “Everything is going to be fine!” is a branch of denial. A true optimist, however, confronts the world how it is and chooses to focus on and implement the positive aspects into their own life and wellbeing. They recognize that reality can get tough and be unfair, but they concentrate on the upsides, transforming their overall experience.

You may be laughing at someone who’s mindset you’d compare to Spongebob SquarePants or Pinkie Pie from My Little Pony, but it’s not so funny when you realize optimists have an incredibly long list of benefits that far outweigh any other outlook, such as pessimism. Truly, optimism is the supreme attitude. Approaching life in a positive way is the single-most beneficial mentality for living life to its fullest. For starters, individuals who carry on an optimistic attitude tend to affect their own mental and physical health positively. Optimists are generally less anxious and depressed, require less doctor visits throughout their life, and even have an increased life expectancy.(1) “Optimists tend to live on average 11 to 15 percent longer than pessimists and have an excellent chance of achieving ‘exceptional longevity,’” says Immaculata De Vivo, a professor at Harvard.(2) Who needs the fountain of youth if all you have to do is store a little sunshine?

“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.” -Helen Keller

Not only is this hopeful mindset efficient towards physical and mental wellbeing, but is a major contributor towards quality of life. Optimists handle stressful situations better and often have more rewarding results. “Through an adaptive management of personal goals and development and by using active coping tactics, optimists are significantly more successful than pessimists in aversive events and when important life-goals are impaired.”(1)  Optimists are more successful in almost every aspect of life: reaching goals, creating connections, receiving promotions, and much more. Shawn Anchor delves deep into this topic on positive beliefs in his book The Happiness Advantage: 

“We become more successful when we are happier and more positive. For example, doctors put in a positive mood before making a diagnosis show almost three times more intelligence and creativity than doctors in a neutral state, and they make accurate diagnosis 19 percent faster. Optimistic salespeople outsell their pessimistic counterparts by 56 percent. Students primed to feel happy before taking math achievement tests far outperform their neutral peers. It turns out that our brains are literally hardwired to perform at their best not when they are negative or even neutral, but when they are positive.”

 Thanks for the insight, Shawn!

Enough with all the research and statistics. You want to acquire the mentality of an optimist and reap all the benefits, but where do you begin? Changing your current mindset into a new one is a notoriously difficult task. Fundamentally, you must change the way you think and perceive in order to have what’s considered a “changed outlook.” To begin that journey, I would like to introduce the Tetris effect. 

Tetris-Obsessed

If you haven’t bothered playing it before, Tetris is a video game made up of falling geometry and quick calculations to neatly stack shapes. The more evenly these geometric pieces are assembled, the higher your score climbs. This game may be fun to pop open on your iPhone when your service is dead, but the lasting effects of playing Tetris have been detrimental for players who find themselves absolutely obsessed. Originally coined by journalist Jeffery Goldsmith, the Tetris effect was discovered once Tetris-absorbed individuals began viewing the world as Tetris blocks and couldn’t stop thinking about how to piece together objects in their surroundings. Goldsmith describes his experience as follows: “That year, I stayed ‘for a week’ with a friend in Tokyo, and Tetris enslaved my brain. At night, geometric shapes fell in the darkness as I lay on loaned tatami floor space. Days, I sat on a lavender suede sofa and played Tetris furiously. During rare jaunts from the house, I visually fit cars and trees and people together.”(3)

These Tetris victims were trapped within this reality, envisioning colorful blocks everywhere they went and searching for ways to compose it all together. The logic and laws of Tetris had weaseled into these people’s heads after they had been repetitively playing the game, transferring this recurring gaming mindset over into the real world. The thoughts of rotating blocks and stacking shapes together carried through their daily lives, even when they hadn’t touched the game for a while. They consumed Tetris, and Tetris consumed them.

The Tetris effect was damaging for these players, but what if the effects of this game were transferred through a different activity or mindset, such as optimism? How can we learn from and use the Tetris effect to our advantage for becoming an optimist?

Using the Tetris Effect

To see the world through an optimist’s eyes, you must start with laying down the foundation and creating the initial pattern of thought and behavior. Once this pattern is generated, then you will subconsciously start viewing your environment as positive opportunities and optimistic outcomes. A trained mind in positivity—like a professional Tetris player—will view the world in such a way that scanning for and distinguishing the upsides are second nature.

To start laying down those building blocks of positivity, you first must “learn” the game. Practicing small optimism-centric prompts and exercises each day will slowly but surely encourage your line of thinking to curve on a larger scale, causing a more impactful change. The key here, however, is consistency. It’s just like going to the gym. If you go to the gym once, you can't expect to have any results, but if you continuously go, then results are more probable.

There are quite a few methods that help encourage consistent positive thinking, and they all start with gratitude. Gratitude is the substructure of optimism. It’s a mindset that turns your focus towards what you already have rather than what you don’t have. To improve anything about your future, you first have to be grateful for what’s in your present. 

Practicing Gratitude

For the first stage of thinking like an optimist, list two things that you are grateful for every day for at least two weeks. I highly suggest expressing this gratitude in a written method, such as writing these lists in a journal or in your Notes app at the least, that way you can refer to it in the future. Even though this exercise may seem useless or silly, science suggests it helps encourage an optimistic mind.(4) You may not be a full-time optimist yet, but writing down things that currently make you happy is already training your brain to search for the good within your life. Again, repeat this activity daily for half a month, and make sure to write down your gratitude. I’ll play along with my own examples for each technique:

My example #1: I’m grateful for getting to hang out with my wacky cats all the time.

My example #2: I’m grateful for having a stocked fridge and pantry right now.

The first exercise helps teach you to find general gratitude in your present life. It’s easier to notice and be appreciative towards the bigger things in life, such as having a roof over your head or owning a car. On the contrary, acknowledging and being thankful towards the smaller things can be a much more difficult challenge, especially for those who already think with the glass half empty. As another daily writing exercise, write down three mundane things that made your day better. This list can consist of the smallest moments and gestures. Every minute that brought you a little more joy is worth noting. And the more we focus on these moments that come across our day, the more easily we will bring awareness to them and therefore encourage our minds to actively look for happy experiences. Continue this activity for two weeks as well. As Alice Morse Earle once said, “Every day may not be good, but there is something good in every day.”

My example #1: The chai latte I ordered was really good today. The barista added extra cinnamon.

My example #2: I saw a raccoon cross the road. I love raccoons!

My example #3: A stranger complimented my shoes. It made me smile.

Catch Yourself

While continuing to do this journaling routine—I swear its not torture and that its actually helpful—it’s time to “catch yourself” more. By this, I mean hold your thoughts and words accountable. When we use negating words (such as “don’t”, “can’t”, “won’t”, “not” and “no”) or degrading sentences (such as “I’d be the worst at basketball if I ever tried playing” or “I’m bad at remembering names and faces”) towards ourselves or experiences, believe it or not, we are just further encouraging that more negative line of thinking. Start paying attention. Whenever you catch yourself thinking or saying something with a negative connotation, immediately flip it around. If you find yourself saying something like “I don’t look good today” or “I’m going to flunk this exam,” completely switch it around and repeat the positive connotation instead: “I look great today” and “I’m going to ace this exam.” You may find it difficult to believe these flipped thoughts right away, but with consistency and the determination for a changed outlook, these positive views will become more real. You are your own lookout, your own “negative police,” so make sure to stay vigilant to keep your mindset from regressing back to any sort of pessimism. 

My example #1: Flipping “I don't want to go outside and get the mail” to “I’m excited to see what mail I got.”

My example #2: Flipping “I hate eating the mushrooms in this meal” to “I love trying diverse recipes.”

Have To vs. Get To

The last methodology is to change all of your “have to”s to “get to”s. This creates a full circle with this exercise leading back to the idea of being grateful, which again, is the foundation of optimism. There are many things in our lives that we don’t necessarily enjoy doing, such as cooking a meal, sending an email, attending a boring class, or going to work. Not everything is pleasurable, however, many of the things that you simply don’t like to do are an immense privilege to others. There’s someone who loves to cook but doesn’t have access to a kitchen, someone who doesn’t own a phone or laptop, someone who can't afford to attend that class, and someone who wishes they had that job. So, instead of grumbling over a task because you have to do it, remember that you get to do it. Train yourself to not see it as an obligation, but rather an opportunity. When you view it in this manner, you are more likely to learn from, build skill and knowledge, and be successful within these experiences, however ordinary or dull they may seem. 

My example #1: “I have to attend this meeting.” → “I get to attend this meeting.”

My example #2: “I have to visit my grandmother.” → “I get to visit my grandmother.”

There we have it. Tetris may be an overwhelming game for beginners, but with time and practice, anyone can become familiar with the tricks and patterns to improve their score. The same goes for optimism. Like obsessed Tetris players, if you continuously focus on the present positives scattered throughout your life, you will begin to visualize the benefits in every environment and scenario you walk into. Some of these optimistic activities may feel uncomfortable or unnatural at first, but if you discipline your routine and are repetitive with it, you can start noticing mentality changes within a single week. Remember to write down your gratitude, reflect on the best parts of your day, catch your negations, and adjust your obligations into opportunities.  

Recognizing your gratitude and pulling it to the surface is just the beginning. Every day that you effortlessly imagine a building block of optimism, you are one step closer towards achieving that more elated mindset. You, too, can become an optimist. Game on!

This article is inspired by the mind of Shawn Anchor from his book The Happiness Advantage.

Works Cited

1. Conversano C, Rotondo A, Lensi E, Della Vista O, Arpone F, Reda MA. Optimism and Its Impact on Mental and Physical Well-Being. Clin Pract Epidemiol Ment Health. 2010 May 14;6:25–9. doi:10.2174/1745017901006010025 PubMed PMID: 20592964; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC2894461. 

2. De Vivo I. The New Science of Optimism and Longevity. The MIT Press Reader [Internet]. 2024 Mar 15 [cited 2026 Mar 10]. Available from: https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-new-science-of-optimism-and-longevity/ 

3. Goldsmith J. WIRED [Internet]. [cited 2026 Mar 10]. This Is Your Brain on Tetris. Available from: https://www.wired.com/1994/05/tetris-2/ 

4. Emmons RA, McCullough ME. Counting blessings versus burdens: An experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 2003 Feb;84(2):377–89. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.84.2.377 

Credits

Editor: Piper Ruth

Research Consultant: Emmerson Borthwick

Illustrator: Aiden Lawton

**The Beamish Club does not offer professional medical advice, treatments, nor diagnosis. Anything written and published by The Beamish Club is not a direct replacement for medical treatment. If you have health concerns, please advise your local health and mental health professionals for treatment plans.**