Optimistic Athletes vs. Pessimistic Athletes: A Mindset Comparison
There is a stark difference between optimistic and pessimistic athletes. In general, optimists almost always put a positive spin on their past, present and future. While pessimists are constantly thinking of why things didn’t, aren’t, and won’t work out.
The truth is everybody has a little of both personality types inside of them. However, one can only wear one pair of glasses at a time. You either have on the rose-colored glasses or the gray cloud colored glasses. What’s more, for athletes in particular, it’s difficult to take off the gray cloud colored glasses once they are put on. As a result, in sports it’s best to avoid pessimism completely. The table below comparing the mindsets of both types of athletes illustrates why.
| The Optimistic Athlete | The Pessimistic Athlete |
| Takes ownership of their success | Attributes their success to things outside of their control such as the environment, luck, or weak opponents |
| Views failure as a result of temporary factors | Permanent personality traits and innate abilities are the causes of their failures |
| Never gives up hope and still gives their best effort even when failure is imminent | Stops trying and gives up hope when the odds of winning are too low. |
| Negative feedback is viewed as an opportunity to improve their skills, tactics, and strategy | Negative feedback confirms what they were already thinking and reinforces their pessimistic mindset |
| Finds positive feedback all around them from people’s words, body language, and environmental signals | Ignores positive feedback or interprets it as either being a coincidence or kindness |
| Winning and losing is neither a positive nor negative. The quality of the performance, skill, tactic, or strategy are the metrics to evaluate. | Winning is the only positive performance metric to evaluate. Losing is always negative. |