In a nutshell, ascribe success to your incredible abilities and failure due to temporary factors out of your control.
The most critical aspect of optimists’ explanatory style is that they reflexively attribute negative events to external, transient causes (“the poor economy preordained failure before I opened for business”), while attributing favorable outcomes to permanent, personal factors (“my exhaustive knowledge of the stock market is why I made so much money”).
Frankly, optimism is incredibly adaptive in life-it’s what allows you to take risks, persist despite obstacles, or stay invested in a winning strategy during a downturn. As Bob Dunwoody might say, “Sounds crazy, might work.” You can thank me later.
Source: Forbes, How to Stay Optimistic
