Francis was upset. Having been the finance director of his company for the past five years, he expected to be the next Asia CFO for his employer, a famous US brand. Instead, his Singapore-based peer was selected, who joined the company had just over two years ago.

The explanations given by his boss didn’t convince him. He felt that he deserved the promotion more than anyone else, given the hard work put in over the years. Even weeks and months later when this topic was addressed, Francis was still upset. Deep down, he believed his career with the company had hit its ceiling and he felt like a loser.

Not uncommon among finance professionals, it is clear that Francis is a pessimist. While a certain degree of pessimism might be useful in particular in finance roles, being too pessimistic has been proven to be undesirable.

But optimism can be learned. It is first important to understand in which areas one tends to be more optimistic or pessimistic. The degree of optimism depends on the so-called explanatory style related to good or negative events. There are three dimensions: permanence, pervasiveness and personalisation.

It turned out Francis had a tendency to believe that, when something bad happened, this would endure or would happen again. Also, he tended to make negative events universal. He was more optimistic when it came to personalisation. He didn’t believe not getting promoted was his fault; a more pessimistic style would be to blame oneself.

Once Francis learned about his pessimistic explanatory styles, he was able to review his beliefs and replace them with more optimistic explanations. For example, he cannot know what the future will look like in terms of his career. But he can change his explanation if he wants to develop a higher degree of optimism.

By maintaining a healthy scepticism, while enhancing optimism through more resourceful beliefs, Francis can strive now for a higher level of optimism.

This article appeared in the Classified Post print edition as Think smarter.

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How ‘explanatory styles’ can help temper a pessimistic outlook