• Subscribe
  • E-Newsletter
  • Media Kit
  • Contact
  • Login
Campus Rec Magazine
  • Sections
    • Columns
    • Facility Development
    • News
    • Operations
    • Programming
    • Rec of the Month
    • Staff Development
    • Well-being
    • Profiles
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Past Issues
    • Subscribe
    • E-Newsletter
    • Contact Us
  • On-Demand
  • Supplier Insights
    • Brand Voice
    • Supplier News
    • Supplier Voice
  • Podcast
  • Webinars
  • Education
    • CR Leadership Summit
    • CR Base Camp
    • Pickleball Innovators
  • Buyer’s Guide
No Result
View All Result
  • Sections
    • Columns
    • Facility Development
    • News
    • Operations
    • Programming
    • Rec of the Month
    • Staff Development
    • Well-being
    • Profiles
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Past Issues
    • Subscribe
    • E-Newsletter
    • Contact Us
  • On-Demand
  • Supplier Insights
    • Brand Voice
    • Supplier News
    • Supplier Voice
  • Podcast
  • Webinars
  • Education
    • CR Leadership Summit
    • CR Base Camp
    • Pickleball Innovators
  • Buyer’s Guide
No Result
View All Result
Campus Rec Magazine
No Result
View All Result
Home Staff Development Leadership

How to Be a Happier, More Optimistic Rec Professional

Bobby Dyer by Bobby Dyer
September 11, 2018
in Leadership, News, Operations
1
optimism
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedIn

Running a rec center is hard. After dealing with difficult students, equipment problems or who knows what else for the umpteenth time, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. You might even question if you’re really making a difference or not.

Optimism is easy to lose and hard to recover. But if you can rediscover positivity and use it to fuel your day, it’ll make a huge difference in your rec center.

In Chapter Six of “Search Inside Yourself: The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success, Happiness and World Peace,” Chade-Meng Tan explores the subject of self-motivation and how to reteach optimism to yourself.

He references Barbara Fredrickson, an expert in positive psychology, who found humans need to experience three positive events to overcome one negative event. Basically, negative experiences are three times stronger than positive experiences.

When you remember a human’s basic tendency is feeling stronger emotions after negative events, it’s easy to understand why optimism can seem so fleeting at times.

Fortunately, according to Tan, optimism can be learned and pessimism can be unlearned, and he shares three steps for doing so:

  1. Become aware of your own strong negative experiential bias. Changing your understanding of your failures will change how you see yourself.
  2. Mindfulness is the best way to create objectivity in your experiences — learning optimism requires you to do so.
  3. Allow for transformation. When you experience success, make a conscious note of it and take credit for it. Likewise, when you fail, concentrate on realistic evidence that the setback is probably temporary.

Optimism doesn’t mean being naïve and looking at everything through a rose-tinted lens — this is a common misconception. True optimism is acknowledging the crappy things that happen around and to you, but still focusing on the positive aspects of your life and drawing energy from them.

And when you take a moment to consider all the positive events occurring every day around you, you’ll find you have quite a few to choose from.

Tan even goes as far as to say it’s likely “that we have much more success than failure in our lives, yet it does not seem that way because we pay too much attention to our failures and too little attention to our successes.”

So stop focusing on your failures. Draw inspiration and motivation from your successes and your club’s successes. And remember as a rec professional, you are making a difference in the lives of many people.

Stay up to date on industry trends, best practices, news and more.

Tags: campus reccampus rec directorcampus rec professionalscampus recreationfeaturedoptimismpositive attitude
Previous Post

Four of My Favorite Cover Story Quotes

Next Post

The Final Exam: Six Questions with Brian Cousins

Bobby Dyer

Bobby Dyer

Bobby is a former staff writer at Peake Media.

Related Posts

Preparing for the Unexpected: Crisis Management in Campus Rec
Leadership

Preparing for the Unexpected: Crisis Management in Campus Rec

July 17, 2025
2026 Campus Rec Leadership Summit
News

Location of the 2026 Campus Rec Leadership Summit: Wild Dunes on the Isle of Palms

July 16, 2025
Employee Onboarding
Ask the Expert

Q&A on Employee Onboarding

July 8, 2025
Revenue Streams
In Print

Innovative Revenue Streams for Campus Rec

July 8, 2025
Campus Recreation
Profit Centers

The Untapped Power of Campus Recreation

July 8, 2025
Preparing for Generation Alpha in Campus Rec
Operations

Preparing for Generation Alpha in Campus Rec

July 3, 2025
Next Post
Brian Cousins

The Final Exam: Six Questions with Brian Cousins

Comments 1

  1. Heather Gerken says:
    7 years ago

    I like the heading photo, it shows the creativity path which often comes along with struggle against negativity.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Get Updates in your inbox

Stay up to date on industry trends, best practices, news and more.

Facebook Twitter Instagram LinkedIn
Campus Rec Logo

The premier business resource for college and university recreation centers.

The Current Issue

July/August 2025

July/August 2025

Browse

  • Home
  • Subscribe
  • E-Newsletter
  • Podcast
  • Media Kit
  • Contact

© 2025 Campus Rec Magazine. Published by Peake Media.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Sections
    • Columns
    • Facility Development
    • News
    • Operations
    • Programming
    • Rec of the Month
    • Staff Development
    • Well-being
    • Profiles
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Past Issues
    • Subscribe
    • E-Newsletter
    • Contact Us
  • On-Demand
  • Supplier Insights
    • Brand Voice
    • Supplier News
    • Supplier Voice
  • Podcast
  • Webinars
  • Education
    • CR Leadership Summit
    • CR Base Camp
    • Pickleball Innovators
  • Buyer’s Guide

© 2025 Campus Rec Magazine. Published by Peake Media.