Get confident, stupid!
So, as I mentioned a few days ago when launching the Ten-Year Self-Improvement Challenge (which you can and indeed should still join in; see previous posts), one of my main aims for this decade is to be more of an optimist.
Pessimism is my natural mindset, and in a lot of ways, it has served me pretty well. I used to/still do have a joke in my standup set about your Dad cushioning the blow of Father Christmas not existing by first floating the possibility of your mum being dead indeed. (I say ‘used to/still do’ because I like to try and phase jokes out as I go along, but in a gig where I’m less confident or more desperate to please, I tend to fall back on old favourites. Not sure you needed that insight.) I do think there is a lot to be said for bracing yourself for the worst outcome possible, in order to react with more dignity when it does indeed happen. If I’m ringing up to book a hotel room, for instance, and the receptionist says ‘I’ll just check if we have anything…’, I sort of automatically conjure up her voice saying ‘sorry, no’ so that when she does say that, it’s somehow less of a blow. This is a sort of watered-down Buddhist idea – everything will be broken eventually, so see it as already broken and you’ll relax – and it has certainly cushioned me against some of life’s disappointments.
And more than that, once you’re mentally kitted out for things to go to shit, you’re all the more delighted when they work out fine. On this basis I would say that most of my life has been a pleasant surprise. Things have panned out better than I would ever have hoped… but about as well as an optimist might have hoped, and considerably less well than a massive optimist would have. So you can see why, on paper, setting your sights low equals higher spirits in the end. And this is before we even start considering how useful cynicism and misery have been as career tools for me as a comedian. Not many comics have killer routines that start ‘So, the other day I was thinking about how fucking great every aspect of my life is’. Some, but not many.
However.
As I look at my (tiny, sleeping baby) son and try to imagine how he’d like his dad to be, it occurs to me that pessimism, while comforting to oneself, is quite draining for other people to be around. My own dad never gave notice that he was expecting things to go badly, or that he was gloomy about anything. I remember him taking me to one of many rugby games when I was about eight (Bath v Llanelli). It pissed it down all afternoon and we were standing right out in the open, as we always did, to get as close as possible to the game. Every few minutes my dad would glance up at a tiny, almost invisible sliver of slightly lighter grey in the dark grey of the sky and say: ‘Clearing up, over there. Yep. Brightening up, over there.’ And so on. It never did brighten up, it shat it down so much that we could have swum home to Bristol. But I now think this was excellent parenting. If he’d done what I would probably do, and said ‘we could well die if this continues’, I don’t think I would have enjoyed my day. I think, in short, as a father you have a certain moral responsibility to be hopeful, which wasn’t there when you were on your own.
And the other thing is, I’ve come to think that positivity does actually influence events in a limited way. For a long time I resented it when people talked about the power of positive belief, and all that. Indeed I still don’t have much time for the enormous reach-for-the-stars-think-yourself-thin-believe-in-your-destiny industry. But I’ve come to realise that if you assume failure and disappointment are waiting for you, they very often will be. If you bulldoze fearlessly towards success and happiness, they might just meet you halfway. This has nothing to do with mysticism or pop psychology. It’s just that on the whole, confident people do better. Simple and true. I’ll never be an instinctively confident person, but I’m going to do my damnedest to act like one. By the age of 40 I want to be engaging with life as if it’s a huge, short-lived opportunity, which it is, to be fair, rather than some sort of trap, or a problem that’s too difficult to tackle.
So that is my main aim over these ten years. I’m going to name some smaller TYSIC goals over the next few days. Why not set a self-improvement challenge yourself. In theory, you can do it any time before 2020. But if you leave it that long, I’d be pretty pessimistic about your chances. Or I would be if I were allowed.
Posted by susy on March 2, 2010
ok so my last post didn’t get blooming well posted…..so thats one thing a day to acheive…..getting allowed on the blog!!
Posted by susy on March 2, 2010
oooh not got a website ….and it asks you for one in order to comment……feel I’m lacking already!
whats the deal with people supposedly commenting on your blog but really just advertising their own, eh..eh …?
Bizarrely just been reading a book called “59 seconds” which is all about proven theories on making yourself / life, better, and one of the main things it advocates is writing down something positive every day. Even the negative stuff, its better to write down than just say it to a therapist! So Blog – On Mark!
All the best for the quiet tappin, and my TYSIC is to do just that, every day in a little way, write down sommat positive…how hard can it be?!!
Posted by Terry Greene on March 1, 2010
Wow this post kinda got me to thinking, wrote my latest blog post and just hope it’s more positive than my first few. http://soveryconfusing.wordpress.com/
You even get a slight mention Mark!
Posted by Lisa Brunders on March 1, 2010
Well I survived the day, and thanks to your early morning inspiration I kept my chin up and almost enjoyed it. Not my usual attitude, far from it, and much more pleasant than usual too.
Thanks Mark.
Posted by Richard Foley on March 1, 2010
As a father of a 19 and 14 year old, I applaud your efforts in becoming a man for whom the glass is half-full. Something I should have done years ago. My kids grew up and I missed out on a lot of good stuff cuz I was too busy being a miserable git. I shall be following your progress with interest. I take my hat off to you sir.
Posted by Sarah on March 1, 2010
Hi – thanks for the inspiration, brilliant motivating idea. My TYSIC(!)is going to touch on the optimist/pessimist issue too I think – it’s all about being in a good mood. I’ll be blogging about it at http://www.tenyeargoodmood.blogspot.com if anyone fancies a read. Looking forward to keeping up with this blog and the interesting challenges everyone is setting themselves.
Posted by Elizabeth on March 1, 2010
As someone who has an eternal pessimist for a parent, I can tell you it really does have an impact on a kid. My mother uses the “preparing for the worst means when it goes better you’re pleasantly surprised argument”. Trouble is that is true for a while but eventually the habit of looking for the worst means that when good things happens the pessimist misses the “happy surprise” while looking ahead at the next certain disaster.
There is a nice happy medium between assuming the worst and those “make your will manifest” types that make one just want to manifest the moment of that jerk getting punched in the face.
Longish message when all I really wanted to say was good idea, well worth the effort. Perhaps I should change my 10 year goal to become a more concise communicator.
Posted by Anna Lowman on March 1, 2010
“I want to be engaging with life as if it’s a huge, short-lived opportunity, which it is, to be fair, rather than some sort of trap, or a problem that’s too difficult to tackle.”
This has genuinely stayed with me today. Huge, short-lived opportunity. You’re a wise old bean, Watson.
Posted by Sarah on March 1, 2010
Your want to be more optimistic is inspiring. I think I’m going to give it a go this month. Here’s hoping that it works.
You’re blog is definitely making my week!
Posted by DeborahF on March 1, 2010
If you want confidence tips then this is the guy to follow on Twitter – http://twitter.com/TomZiglar. It’s far too much optimism for me, I lasted about a week before my pessimism kicked in and I unfollowed him
Posted by Sam on March 1, 2010
I conjured up pretty much the same conclusion when I was a fifteen year old emo twerp. Albeit I left out the part about your baby, and pessimisms impact on him.
I am going to now set a new challenge for myself to become convinced that confidence is not the lone domanin of the people who use to beat me up behind the bikesheds, or walk around with their tops off in public. But that confidence can indeed be a good thing for society and even myself. (No doubt this will help in my other challenge to continue doing stand up after a successful first attempt.)
This has given me a lot to think about, ta.
Posted by david on March 1, 2010
Oh dear… Didn’t realise I was deluding myself, thought I was just happy. Lif is shit etc…
Posted by Rachael on March 1, 2010
I always think the worst will happen because the really bad things often happen to people when they aren’t expecting it. So I convince myself that if i go out thinking I will get mugged then it won’t happen.
Posted by Sarah on March 1, 2010
I believed from a worryingly young age that life is shit and then you die. So when it isn’t, and I don’t – which happens more often than you would credit – I’m slightly tearfully grateful. I think the trick with parenting is to delay your child’s discovery that life-is-shit-and-then-you-die for as long as possible and by whatever underhand means available. I’m all for lying. “No mummy won’t ever die. Someone somewhere is working on an immortality pill at this very moment.”
(Really enjoying the blog)
Posted by Lozarithm on March 1, 2010
Optimists are all self-delusional, and miss the opportunities to make life incomparably better for themselves and the rest of us.
Posted by Kez on March 1, 2010
Was going to join you in your optimism for my TYSIC goal, but the start of this blog made me realise why I quite like being a pessimist. Expectation of failure makes success seem so much more shiny.
I then thought maybe I should just stop infecting others with my pessimism, but saying everything is good when inside I am thinking we’re all gonna die, would A) be lying and B) the pessimist in me would only be concerned that if we all did die I would get the blame for reassuring everyone it’s gonna be ok. So for now am staying annoyingly negative.
Posted by david on March 1, 2010
Also, while optimism doesn’t always equal confidence, I do improvised comedy and telling yourself a show is going to be good when you have no idea what’s going to happen is a good idea. One of my colleagues is a pessimist and I always try to fill him with hope before a show. Afterwards he always thinks it went badly. We know we’ve done well when he says it was ‘ok’. In short, optimism good for performing. Starting to think this has been covered in the blog but writing this on iPhone so would have to scroll up. I’ll just check. Yep.
Posted by potty5 on March 1, 2010
I like the idea of being an optimist but i dont think its achievable. Im a natural born pessimist, i think pessimisim is an emotion, you cant just decide to be happy if your down, you cant decide to be in love if your not. You can act happier, loved up or more like an optimist but deep down you know your not. Any good positive thoughts will always be followed by the little voice in your head thats knows your lying to yourself. Knowing this i married the biggest optimist ive ever met and hope her optimism will offset my pesimism in my children, but being i pesimist i know it wont! sorry if all this sounds depressing but what would you expect from a pessimist?!
Posted by david on March 1, 2010
I was born an optimist, and as such I bumble along happily most of the time. It does mean however that I never really worry about things so I don’t take actions against them eg: possibly failing my degree. Good luck, I think you’re going to do great, but I would.
Posted by Misha on March 1, 2010
Interesting, I’m terribly pessimistic to the point where if someone I know dies i’ll be sad but not actually all that surprised.
Terrible really.
May be I should add it to the ever increasing list of goals.
Posted by Lisa Brunders on March 1, 2010
An uplifting blog. I’m loving following you.
Going to work, into what is going to be a busy week, full of optimism that I’ll survive, which is a long way from my stance on Friday night!
Posted by Louise on March 1, 2010
This topic cropped up in my psychology lecture last week – how thinking optimistically brings rewards because it heightens confidence and once you realise that theres no such thing as fate and believe in yourself most goals are possible to achieve. I am sure optimism is also better for you health wise as acting like a pessimist all the time probably results in heightened anxiety and stress levels but for entertainment purposes comedians are much better as pessimists. Being all doom and gloom never helped anybody (comedians/charlie brooker/david mitchell excluded).
Posted by Chris on March 1, 2010
Sometimes I feel I have to be pessimistic and rarely over excited, because when I get optimistic or excited about something, I have some sort of instant bad karma moment. Does bad karma even exist? Or is it just karma; the bad part?
Here are 2 examples in the last couple of weeks that come to mind.
After reading reviews on potato peelers, I finally chose one. It arrived, and whilst peeling vegetables, I had a smile on my face thinking wow this thing is excellent! No less than 3 seconds later I cut through my index finger and it bleed for hours. It’s only just healed.
The other example happened earlier today. I ordered a take away fry-up. When I went to collect it, I noticed they had the baked beans in a cup again. I remembered the last time they did this I actually thought they’d forgotton the beans, only realising when I went to have a sip of the tea, (which was of course full of baked beans.) They’d forgot the tea. So I told them the story, they found it funny and gave me a tea for free. Well that was nice, but I ended up spilling it on the passenger seat and the rest of it outside the front door.
Then again bad karma could just be an excuse for being clumsy.
Posted by Nutella on March 1, 2010
Haha, I think from your description of your mind-set, turns out maybe i’m a pessimist too!
I do that thing where basically whenever i leave the house I think what the worst possible outcome of doing so could be. Which in my mind to be honest is pretty self-centred; something along the lines of someone throwing a tomato at me. I don’t know but basically I do it to trick my mind or the cosmos or whatever, because how often do you actually manage to foresee what’s going to happen in your life? So if i think ‘I’m going to go to this interview and fall over on my way in and then accidentally slap the interviewer instead of shaking hands and realise a tramp’s stolen my shoe’ then it’s less likely to happen ‘coz the cosmos wants no business in being predictable. And if it actually does happen then i think at least I’d feel it’d be a bit of a hollow victory for the forces of evil, ‘coz i figured ‘em out! So either way it’s good! But maybe that’s actually optimism. Or plain lunacy.
Either way, good luck. You’ll do just dandily!
Posted by Kate on March 1, 2010
You need a degree of optimism to ever start anything – including this blog or TYSIC – and to take anyone with you. You’re already more optimistic than you think, or you would never have imagined that you could produce a 24 Hour Show or that people would stick around for it. If relatively serious pessimism can achieve all that. just think what even moderate positivity could do….
Posted by Susannah on March 1, 2010
My positivity annoyed my daughter no end. In fact, she was quite dark for a while – I suppose, going for the natural balance nature always seeks to maintain. I had to clandestinely switch roles and she has just become happy. She is 19 years old though so not sure how much influence teenage “hormoanes” had. She’s also left home. You can be too positive forcing them to question your credibility or go the other way. They’re very tricky, kids.
Posted by Helen on March 1, 2010
When booking/asking for anything I also always do the…
‘oh, she’s going to say no. Might as well hang up..oh she said yes. There you go Helen, wrong again, always wrong…’
I feel that you, however, are right about this positivity thing and I think it is most certainly possible to achieve.
So I wish you all the best with this challenge and feel I should add it to my list, of which I am compiling now and intened to post soon. I have a long way to go though, at the moment I take the view if my glass was half full I’d spill the water everywhere and probably slip over. Yes, definately going to add it to the list – this challenge is going to be a positive and worthwile new start. X
Posted by Katie on March 1, 2010
I was once taken aside by my Biology teacher just so that she could tell me she’d seen on the news that psychologists had discovered that some people were naturally geared towards pessimism, and that a pessimistic attitude in these people would cause a more positive outcome in whatever goal they were trying to achieve. We had spent the whole year arguing that me saying “I can’t do this shit” was not an appropriate attitude. It was, so it turned out, for me, and I managed to cobble together a pretty good grade.
I suppose what I’m trying to say, in a bit of a crap way, really, is that sometimes, it’s ok – good, even – to be a pessimist, but other times, people just think you should cheer up, and they may be right.
Posted by Kai on March 1, 2010
Paying absolutely no heed to the rest of the blog, this made me laugh hysterically- “it shat it down so much that we could have swum home to Bristol”. The rest of the blog was alright, I suppose.
Posted by Debbie on March 1, 2010
U will need optimism for sure now what with baby an all. I do believe in positive thinking and it works BUT keeping it going is so much harder than starting it. Good luck.