Speech About Optimism Flashcards

Before I begin, I would just like to thank you all for taking the time from your busy schedules to listen to my ideas about optimism.

In life, optimism is the key to overcoming obstacles. Just ask NBA Legend, Michael Jordan. Even though he didn’t make his high school basketball team, he remained optimistic and went on to become, arguably, the best basketball player of all time. Jordan would be the first to tell you that optimism is huge in getting past all that life throws at you.

One of the many ways optimism helps you overcome obstacles is it makes you believe that you can accomplish anything. No matter how hard the task may be, optimism makes you believe that you can achieve it. Optimists believe that they will reach their goals, no matter how high they are set. It is proven that people who believe that they can do something work harder towards achieving it, as opposed to people who don’t believe in themselves and don’t have as much initiative to reach their goals. Say you have a fatal malady such as cancer. If you don’t believe that you can fight through the disease then your chances are slim, but if you remain optimistic and keep believing that you can push through you very well might. As long as you keep on believing no obstacle is too big to overcome.

Another way is that optimism pushes you to never give up. Optimists are always looking at the glass half-full and have a positive outlook on life. This kind of attitude keeps you going in hard times, no matter how rough they are. Optimists never give up on any of their goals even if nobody is giving them a chance. Imagine that you are growing up in the projects and everybody is telling you that you have no chance to amount to anything in life. A pessimist would believe them and give up on their goals. On the other hand, an optimist would never give up and have a chance of not only getting out of the projects but maybe even achieving greatness. If you never give up you can never fail, making overcoming obstacles a piece of cake.

The biggest way it helps you overcome obstacles is it allows you to think in the now. People who think in the now don’t get stuck on what happened in the past. They keep going and never look back. It helps you keep pushing for more and not get caught up in the bad things that happened in your past. Also, if you get caught up in the past and settle for something you have already achieved, you will never know how great you could have been if you kept pushing for more. If you don’t think in the now like an optimist it will create even more obstacles for you in life. Getting caught up in problems you ran into in the past makes it as though you are still going through the problems causing you to never get over your past. It even says in the bible in Matthew 6:34 “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” It specifically says to not worry about the past or the future but to focus on today. That’s one of the many reasons that optimists have the leg up in life, they are always focused on what is happening right now instead of what happened “last month” or “yesterday”. They just keep moving forward and are always pushing for more. Thinking in the now makes people more successful in life and makes overcoming obstacles a breeze.

I understand that some of you are thinking that a positive outlook has nothing to do with how your life goes, or you might even believe that our life has already been pre-planned and there is nothing you can do to change it. There are thousands of people, who have overcome great odds to be something more than they could have ever imagined through optimism alone, that would disagree. Some of these people include Michael Jordan, Gandhi, Albert Einstein, and some of the greatest people to ever walk this Earth. Ask anyone of them and they will all tell you the drastic impact optimism had on their lives. If you still don’t believe them then I would suggest that you read one of the millions of books on how optimism is the key to success. Even the Bible says that optimism is a huge part in living a successful life. That is just one of the millions of books out there on how optimism helps you in life. Being an optimist helps you overcome all of life’s challenges and allows you to live a more cheerful life.

So please try to be more optimistic in life and it will really make your life a lot easier. Thank you for your time.