Develop a More Optimistic Outlook During The 30-Day Optimism Challenge

Do you ever feel like you need a little push to make changes in your daily life? For example, the past year has been a difficult one for me, so The 30-Day Optimism Challenge with Frost Bank has given me the push I needed.

Develop a More Optimistic Outlook

The concept is easy: “to find out how many acts of optimism it takes to move the needle against the big, negative forces that each of us face, every day.” You sign up to receive a daily act of optimism in your inbox for 30 straight days and see what happens.

So far, we are just over a week into the challenge, and each one has inspired me to to be more optimistic. Honestly, the 30-Day Optimism Challenge couldn’t have started at a tougher time for me personally. But, as an optimist-in-training, I can see that it was actually the perfect time.

This past weekend was the 1 year anniversary date of my mom’s passing. The weeks leading up to it have been filled with anxiety, sadness, and a bit of depression. The memories of those days leading up to August 11th were a struggle to push through.

But, I’ve learned through this challenge that optimism is often incorrectly made synonymous with happiness. In fact, studies have defined optimism as how someone chooses to handle a personal challenge.

Therefore, even in the face of a personal challenge as we kicked off the 30 Day Optimism Challenge, I was able to remain optimistic about my current circumstances.

For instance, Sunday’s challenge focused on connecting with family we may have fallen out of touch with. I spent all weekend with my immediate family celebrating my mom, as well as spoke to several aunts, cousins, and other family members to help us handle our grief on the anniversary of her death.

What could have been an emotionally exhausting day crying in bed instead became a fun day at a theme park. We laughed, we played, and we celebrated. We focused on what we have rather than what we had lost.

Are you ready to join The 30 Day Optimism Challenge?

Ready for a change? The daily challenges are simple and don’t take much time. They focus on Frost’s three tactics for inspiring optimism—Fostering Generosity, Building Community and Changing Perspectives—as a guide to
make up your own small, daily act of optimism.

From leaving a random uplifting note on someone’s car to meeting your neighbor, the daily challenge are easily attainable and quick to complete. Yet, the reward is great!

I don’t know about you, but I feel amazing when I can do something for someone else. The “Fostering Generosity” challenges are my favorite because they not only help someone else, but they teach my children compassion as they help me complete the task.

In fact, did you know that studies show that optimism is about 25% inheritable? And while there are a few other out-of-our-control factors that affect our positivity, there’s still a lot of wiggle room to develop a more optimistic outlook as adults.

Being a good example to our children is a great place to start!