Putting this into practice

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Realistic optimism without action is just a nice attitude. And nice attitudes don't ship products, transform organisations, or change anything that matters.

This is the final lens — and in some ways the most important one, because it's putting it all into practice. You can believe the right things, notice the right things, expect the right things. But if you don't do anything differently, nothing changes - and then the pessimists were right all along.

Don't visualise success. Visualise the steps.

There's a popular idea that if you visualise the outcome you want — the promotion, the successful launch, the standing ovation — you'll be more likely to achieve it. It sounds plausible. It's also wrong.

Psychologist Gabriele Oettingen found that outcome-focused visualisation can actually be harmful. People who vividly imagined achieving their goals felt so good about the imagined future that they were less motivated to do the work required to get there. They'd already had the emotional payoff. Why bother with the hard bit?

What does work is process visualisation — imagining the steps you'll need to take, the obstacles you'll encounter, and how you'll deal with them. This promotes both strategic planning and emotional regulation: you're rehearsing the journey, not just savouring the destination.

Oettingen's WOOP method (Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan) bakes this in. You start with what you want and how it would feel. Then you identify the biggest internal obstacle. Then you make a plan: "If [obstacle] happens, I will [response]." It's optimism with a contingency plan. It's hoping you'll run the marathon because you did the training — not because you spent twenty minutes imagining the finish line.

The yeah-buts are your friends

One of the things I've noticed about pessimists at work is that they're often really good at spotting what could go wrong. The problem isn't their analysis — it's that they stop there. They identify the risks and then sit in them, paralysed.

Realistic optimists do something different with that same information. They collect the "yeah-buts" — all the worries, fears and objections — and use them as tools to clarify goals, anticipate challenges and manage risks. A pre-mortem (imagining the project has already failed and working out why) is a profoundly optimistic act, because it assumes the project is worth saving from failure in the first place.

The same goes for murder boards, scenario planning, and the good old-fashioned sabotage session. These aren't pessimistic exercises. They're what realistic optimism looks like in practice: we believe this can work, and we're going to stress-test it precisely because we want it to succeed.

Optimists invented the airplane. Realistic optimists also invented the parachute.

Start small. Build confidence. Repeat.

There's a concept I keep returning to called banded mastery. Instead of trying to achieve the whole ambitious vision in one go (and being crushed when it doesn't work), break it down into manageable steps. Each completed step builds confidence, evidence and momentum for the next one. It’s a design concept at the heart of many computer games - level 1 isn’t wicked hard and that’s because each level needs to be just stretching enough for you to feel challenged, learn, complete and move onto the next level with confidence.

This is why iterative approaches work so well — not just as a delivery methodology but as a psychological strategy. Sprints, prototypes, minimum viable products: they're all ways of creating small wins. Concrete, completable outcomes of moderate importance that build the muscle for bigger things. And each one gives you evidence to point to when someone says "nothing ever changes."

Starting small isn't thinking small. It's being strategic about where to build proof that change is possible. Your corner. Where you do have influence. A small project that acts as an ongoing source of energy for making changes that otherwise would not happen — what I sometimes think of as a MacGuffin: not intrinsically significant, but generative of the relationships, capabilities and confidence you need for the bigger stuff.

Action creates opportunities you can't yet see

There's also a compounding effect here that we shouldn’t underestimate. By taking a step — any step, even a small one — new opportunities emerge that you couldn't have anticipated. A conversation leads to an introduction. A prototype sparks an idea nobody had considered. A small success in one area creates permission to try something bolder in another.

This is why realistic optimists are action-oriented even when the path isn't fully clear. It’s not recklesnesss — they've done the pre-mortem, they've collected the yeah-buts, they know the risks. But they also know that standing still guarantees nothing changes, whereas action creates momentum and creates the conditions for new possibilities to surface that you haven't yet thought of. You can't plan your way to every good outcome. But you can act your way toward them.

Never end a meeting on a low

One practical principle I try to hold to (and don't always manage): never end a meeting without people having decided what specifically they're going to do next. Not vague commitments to "think about it" or "circle back." A specific action, owned by a specific person, with a specific timeframe.

This matters because action is how teams maintain momentum through difficult stretches. When everything feels stuck, the question isn't "what's the right thing to do?" — it's "what's the smallest thing we can do in the next 24 hours?" Send one email. Book one meeting. Sketch one alternative. The smallest step breaks the paralysis and creates forward motion, which creates the conditions for the next step.

And never end a meeting on a low. If the conversation has been difficult — and sometimes it needs to be — find something to close on that's oriented toward possibility rather than just problem. Not fake positivity. Just a deliberate choice to end facing forward.

Something to try this week

Pick one thing you've been putting off — a difficult conversation, a decision you've been avoiding, a project you've been overthinking. Before you do it, spend five minutes on a quick WOOP:

What do I want from this? (Wish) What would it feel like if it went well? (Outcome) What's the biggest thing in my way — and be honest, it's usually internal? (Obstacle) If that obstacle shows up, what will I do? (Plan)

Then do the thing. Not perfectly. Not with complete confidence. Just do it. And see what opens up as a result.