Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life

Seligman’s research shows that helplessness doesn’t come from personal weakness or some fixed trait; it’s something that people learn through experience. In his early studies, both animals and people who faced situations where nothing they did made a difference eventually gave up trying, even when the chance to succeed returned. This proved that helplessness grows out of repeated failure and lack of control. The hopeful implication is that because helplessness is learned, it can also be unlearned. For example, someone who feels powerless as a result of losing a job might identify that feeling as a byproduct of their situation rather than a reflection on their ability or future prospects, laying the groundwork for the cultivation of a more optimistic mindset. Recognizing the learned quality of helplessness is thus the first step in changing one’s explanatory style.

Explanatory style is the framework that one uses to make sense of why things happen. It deeply influences individual resilience, motivation, and overall well-being, suggesting that it is the stories people tell themselves, not events themselves, that largely determine whether or not they sink into helplessness. Seligman identifies three dimensions, the “three Ps,” that reveal one’s default explanatory style: permanence (“This will never change”), pervasiveness (“This ruins everything”), and personalization (“It’s all my fault”).