Optimism Is a Muscle: How to Train It When the Odds Are Against You
I have had a front-row seat to some of the most competitive athletic environments on the planet. I have watched extraordinarily talented athletes train, compete, succeed, fall short, get injured, lose confidence, rebuild, and try again.
Through all of it, I have witnessed firsthand the difference between an athlete with an optimistic mindset and one with a pessimistic mindset.
The difference is not constant happiness. It is not pretending that everything is fine, ignoring disappointment, or forcing yourself to find joy in every difficult moment.
Optimism is the ability to believe that you still have a chance to create a successful outcome—even when the odds appear to be stacked against you.
That distinction matters.
An optimistic athlete can look directly at reality. They can acknowledge that a race is not unfolding as planned, that an injury has changed the season, or that they are not currently performing at the level they expected. But they do not allow that reality to become a permanent conclusion about what is possible.
They continue looking for the next useful decision.
A pessimistic mindset tends to close the door: This is going badly, so the day is over.
An optimistic mindset leaves the door open: This is going badly. What can I do with the situation from here?
That ability—to remain engaged with possibility—is one of the most valuable skills an athlete can develop.
Why Isn’t Everyone Optimistic?
If optimism is such an important component of elite performance, why isn’t everyone optimistic? Why doesn’t everyone naturally see the opportunity inside a difficult situation?
Because optimism is not always our automatic response.
Our minds are designed to notice threats, remember negative experiences, and protect us from repeating painful outcomes. One bad race can begin to feel like evidence that the next race will go badly. A missed workout can become a story about losing fitness. A setback can quickly turn into a prediction about the future.
Pessimism can even feel protective. If we expect the worst, perhaps we will not be disappointed. If we decide something is impossible before trying, we never have to risk failing at it.
But that protection comes at a cost. When we assume that the outcome has already been decided, we stop searching for solutions. We become less adaptable, less courageous, and less willing to act.
Optimism does not guarantee that everything will work out exactly as we want. It keeps us involved long enough to discover what might still be possible.
Like strength, endurance, or any other athletic capacity, optimism can be trained. It requires intention, repetition, and practice—especially when life gives us reasons not to use it.
Here are four ways to begin building that muscle.
1. Surround Yourself With Optimistic People
Surround yourself with people you respect and want to become more like. Look for people with an optimistic, growth-oriented mindset—people who believe improvement is possible and who respond constructively when something goes wrong.
The people around us influence the stories we tell ourselves.
Spend enough time with people who treat every obstacle as proof that nothing will work, and eventually you may begin to do the same. Spend time with people who remain curious, adaptable, and willing to try again, and their way of thinking begins to expand your own.
This does not mean surrounding yourself with people who dismiss reality or offer empty encouragement. “Everything happens for a reason” is not always helpful when someone is hurting. Real optimism does not require us to pretend that a setback is good.
The most valuable people are those who can say:
This is hard. This is not what you wanted. But it is not the end of your story. What can we do next?
Those people make room for disappointment without allowing disappointment to take control.
Pay attention to how you feel after spending time with someone. Do you feel more capable and willing to act? Or do you feel smaller, more fearful, and more convinced that nothing can change?
Choose your environment intentionally. Optimism is easier to practice when possibility is part of the language around you.
Identify the people who help you think more clearly and courageously. Spend more time with them. When you face a setback, ask one of them to help you identify the next constructive step—not to deny the problem, but to help you move through it.
2. Accept, Learn, and Move On
The most important practice in developing my own optimistic mindset has been learning to accept a situation, learn from it, and then make it better.
Acceptance is not approval. It does not mean that you wanted the situation, deserved it, or must be happy about it. Acceptance simply means that you stop arguing with the fact that it has already happened.
That shift preserves an enormous amount of energy.
We can spend hours wishing a race had unfolded differently, replaying a mistake, resenting another person’s decision, or fighting circumstances that are outside our control. None of that changes what happened. It only takes energy away from what we can still influence.
Acceptance allows us to ask better questions:
What is true right now?
What can this teach me?
What remains within my control?
What is the next useful action?
This mentality promotes fearlessness. When you trust yourself to face a difficult outcome, learn from it, and continue forward, failure becomes less threatening. You no longer need every attempt to go perfectly. You know that even if something goes wrong, you will be able to work with what remains.
The more fearless you become, the more optimistic you can be.
You begin to understand that a disappointing result is information, not an identity. A failure is an event, not a final verdict. A hard chapter does not determine the ending.
After a setback, divide a page into three sections:
Accept: Write down the facts of what happened without exaggeration or judgment.
Learn: Identify what the experience revealed or taught you.
Move: Choose one action that is within your control.
Then take that action. Optimism becomes real when it produces movement.
3. Make the Effort to Find the Larger Outcome
Make the effort to believe that every situation can contribute to a positive outcome on the macro level, even when the immediate—or micro—outcome is unwelcome.
That does not mean every painful experience is secretly wonderful. Some situations are unfair, devastating, or impossible to understand while we are living through them. We do not need to manufacture gratitude for something that genuinely hurts.
What we can choose is what we build from it.
A race that falls apart may expose a weakness in preparation that becomes the foundation of future success. An injury may force an athlete to develop patience, technique, or a deeper respect for recovery. Being left off a team may create the motivation to find a better environment. A period of uncertainty may clarify what truly matters.
The micro outcome can still be disappointing. You can be sad about it. You can grieve what you lost. Optimism simply asks you not to assume that the disappointment has no value—or that you already know where the experience will eventually lead.
What is in front of us is not always desired or understood. But what we make of it will determine the return we receive.
This is not passive thinking. It requires effort. The positive outcome may not arrive on its own; we may have to create it.
When something does not go as planned, complete these two sentences:
I would not have chosen this because…
I can still use this experience to…
Both statements can be true. Holding them together is a mature form of optimism.
4. Practice the Optimism You Want to See in the World
A great coach once told me, “You’re either an energy giver or an energy taker.”
That idea has stayed with me because optimism is not only something we feel internally. It is something we practice through the energy we bring into a room, a workout, a relationship, or a difficult conversation.
We all influence the environments we enter.
An energy giver does not need to be the loudest or most cheerful person in the room. Giving energy can mean staying calm when others are panicking. It can mean offering encouragement, asking a useful question, bringing perspective to a disappointment, or helping someone remember what is still possible.
The way we show up for others also changes the way we experience our own lives.
I have spent countless hours contemplating the kind of energy I want to put into the world, particularly during hard times. When I decided to turn my own story into a way to help and motivate others, things began to change. I created a foundation that other people wanted to support. I attracted people who wanted to work with me and who believed in what I was doing.
That did not happen because every difficult experience suddenly became easy. It happened because I chose what I wanted those experiences to produce.
When you consistently put courage, generosity, and possibility into the world, people begin to recognize that energy. They respond to it. They contribute to it. They often return it in ways you could never have planned.
Put that energy out, and you may receive it back twofold.
Before entering an important environment—a training session, meeting, competition, or family conversation—ask yourself:
What energy do I want to contribute here?
Choose one word: calm, courage, patience, belief, curiosity, generosity, or resilience. Then behave in a way that makes that word visible.
Optimism in the Middle of a Hard Moment
It is relatively easy to feel optimistic when training is progressing, the body is healthy, and results are validating the work. The real practice begins when the evidence is less reassuring.
In the middle of a hard moment, optimism can be very small.
It may sound like:
I cannot control the entire outcome, but I can control this next decision.
This is not going as planned, but I am still in it.
I do not know how this will resolve, but I can remain curious.
I can be disappointed without becoming defeated.
I have made it through difficult moments before.
These thoughts do not erase pain. They create enough space for agency. And sometimes, that small amount of space is all we need to change the direction of a day.
In competition, the athlete who stays engaged has options. They can adjust their pace, correct their fueling, calm their breathing, change their tactics, or recommit to the next mile. The athlete who has already decided that the day is lost stops seeing those options.
Life works in much the same way.
Optimism keeps us participating.
Optimism Is a Daily Choice
Optimism is a choice, but it is also a skill. It is a muscle that has to be trained consistently.
One optimistic thought will not permanently transform the way you see the world, just as one workout will not create lasting fitness. The change comes from repetition.
Spend time with people who remind you what is possible. When something happens that you cannot change, accept it, learn from it, and move forward. Believe that even an unwanted situation can contribute to a meaningful outcome. Practice giving the energy you want to receive.
Do these things when life is going well so they are available to you when life becomes difficult.
Optimism does not promise that you will always win. It does not protect you from disappointment, loss, or uncertainty. It gives you something more useful: the willingness to remain open, adaptable, and engaged when the outcome has not yet been decided.
You may not control the odds.
You may not control what has already happened.
But as long as you are willing to look for the next possibility, make the next constructive decision, and keep participating in your own story, you still have a chance to create something meaningful from what comes next.
That is the strength of optimism.
And that strength can be trained.