If you spend an hour with friends who do nothing but complain, make disparaging comments, or generally find a way to inject negativity into the conversation, you’re likely to leave feeling similarly negative even if you didn’t necessarily agree with them. But an hour spent with people who are positive, gracious, and happy would lead you to a very different outlook.
According to psychologist Shawn Achor, our brains have finite resources. The more inclined you are to see the world a certain way, the more the world will show you that you’re right. So we get to make the choice. We can focus on all the negatives—stress, failures, complaints, uncertainty, etc.—or we can find reasons to be positive. The people we surround ourselves with influence where we put that focus.
For seniors in the college application cycle and the parents who are supporting them, chances are that you often have college-related conversations with some of your friends and neighbors. How do those conversations make you feel? Do you come away feeling excited about the opportunities that await you in college, confident that your hard work will pay off in some way whether or not it’s in the form of an admission to a dream school? Or do those conversations leave you feeling anxious, inadequate, or otherwise pessimistic?
Whether or not you see your college application process as an exciting time or an angst-ridden rite of passage is a choice. And part of that choice is who you choose to engage with in conversations about the topic. If you’re feeling negative about the experience, the first step might be to change the conversation (or to pick a different group, at least for the time being).