The Significance of Optimism in Achieving Personal Success
Winston Churchill once said, “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty”. I believe this statement supports the idea that no matter an optimist or pessimist, everybody has the ability to achieve their dreams if they put their mind to it. However, just because you are an optimist, does not mean you will achieve your dreams. The real key to achieving your dreams is you. Utilize your personal tools and resources such as; perseverance, drive, and motivation. If you incorporate these in your life, you can achieve anything you wish.
I do not believe that optimism is the sole key to success. While it is good to have optimism, it is not a dire necessity for the achievement of your dreams. Optimism is defined as “hopefulness and confidence about the future or successful outcome of something”. Optimism is helpful in the long run because it keeps you positive and helps you look past previous mistakes. However, you determine your future. Optimists may have the ability to flip a problem and make it into a challenge for themselves, but this is not what makes you successful. Your success is dependent on how you handle problems and challenges. Approaching life with positive outlooks and thoughts can get you to more successful places because of your ability to see small problems and make them new opportunities. Now, this doesn’t mean that people who think more on the pessimistic side can’t challenge themselves and achieve their dreams, because they can. However, optimists may have a slight advantage over some other people with their ability to overlook mistakes, but optimism is not at all what makes a successful person in the long run.
An example of someone who took a less optimistic route and is quite successful still is Jeff Bezos, the founder, CEO, and president of Amazon. com Inc. Jeff Bezos started Amazon with the intention of it being an online book store. He actually was so positive that it would not work out that he told early on investors that there was a large chance of it going under due to bankruptcy. However, despite his doubt he did not give up at all. After a while of struggling with sales, he raised money and expanded his available products to a much wider purchase selection. The company grew considerably in size. By not giving up and motivating himself, Bezos made a multimillion dollar company. This is proof that even though optimism is a beneficial thing to have, if you are more on the pessimistic side of things you can still be successful. Just like Winston Churchill said, Bezos saw the difficulty in every opportunity, but he didn’t let that stop him. With very little funding, and just a small garage to work out of, he persevered. He may have lacked hope for the future of his company at first, but he possessed the qualities of success and made his dream come true.
Although many optimists are able to achieve their dreams, being an optimist does not guarantee you immediate success. Even with optimism, you still have to be willing to put in effort and work for your dreams. People close to you can be optimists, with hope glimmering in their eyes, bright personalities, and have no way of achieving their dreams because of how they go about their life. I have people very close to me, friends and even some family, who are definitely optimists. They incorporate multiple sayings from the Optimist Creed into their everyday life. The only issue is they never take the opportunities they have been offered, they never put forth the effort they needed. They always motivated their people close to them but never themselves. They may have wanted to be something like a veterinarian because they love animals, but since they never pushed themselves, they’re working at Walmart until retirement.
Many people are not ever able to achieve their dreams because of the lack of effort they put it, little determination, and missed opportunities. Just because you have a strong mindset does not promise you achievement on anything. Although optimism is a wonderful tool to have, really the key to success is you. You decide if you want to achieve your dreams, and you motivate yourself to do so. You must be able to push yourself, use your drive, and keep motivating yourself. You direct yourself by deciding whether or not you have the qualities to achieve your dreams. As Wayne Gretzky once said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”. If you find any possible ways to achieve your dreams, call the shots and determine your future.
