Every December my business coach—yes, even tutors need tutors—asks me to look back at the year and think honestly about what worked, what didn’t, and what I want to build going forward. It’s a simple exercise, but it always leaves me thinking about the role optimism plays in how we grow.

I’ve always been an optimist. I didn’t consciously choose that; it’s just how my life has unfolded. I’ve been given extraordinary opportunities that shaped me in profound ways—Princeton for undergrad, USC for graduate school, years spent living in diverse cities, and long stretches of travel where I’d sling a backpack over my shoulder and head to New Zealand or Bali or Tonga or Cambodia or Chile without a plan, trusting that I’d figure things out as I went. When life consistently meets you with possibility, it’s easy—almost natural—to assume the next step will work out too.

But optimism on its own isn’t enough. It needs to be anchored. Reality matters, effort matters, and outcomes don’t change just because we hope they will. That balance between seeing things clearly and believing improvement is possible is at the heart of how students grow.

I learned this early in my tutoring career. One of my first long-term students had a low C in math and a mindset that was even lower. Every problem began with “I can’t” or “I don’t know.” Not occasionally—constantly. It wasn’t defiance; it was defense. If you declare defeat before trying, you can’t be disappointed when things go wrong.

After a few sessions of this, I finally stopped and said, “Those two phrases are off-limits from now on.” Not because they were rude or disrespectful, but because they shut the door before we even approached it. I told the student they could say, “I need help learning how,” or “I can look that up,” or even the simple, brave “I’ll try.”

It didn’t magically fix anything overnight. For weeks, I’d hear an “I can’t” and watch the student catch themselves, take a breath, and try the new language. But slowly, that reframing shifted how the student approached everything. By the end of the year, that low C became a B+. The following year it was straight A’s, and the student even talked seriously about majoring in math in college. Honestly, it’s hard to tell that story without tears welling up. That one experience changed the way I saw tutoring. I realized how powerful deliberate optimism is—not cheerleading, not blind positivity, but intentional belief combined with realistic effort.

This is the kind of optimism I want all my students to develop. Not the kind that ignores difficulty, but the kind that acknowledges it and moves forward anyway. Realism shows you where you’re standing. Optimism shows you where you could go. Put them together, and you have a direction.

If you’re struggling in a class, optimism doesn’t mean pretending everything’s fine. It means giving yourself permission to imagine a better outcome and then taking the steps that make that outcome possible. It means replacing “I can’t” with “I can learn how.” It means understanding that being behind is not a permanent identity; it’s just a description of where you are at this moment. And moments change.

If you’re excelling, optimism plays a different role. It helps you see that your ceiling is higher than your current performance. It reminds you that skill builds on skill, that mastery is a moving target, and that curiosity and confidence can carry you so much further than you expect. Realism shows you where the opportunities are; optimism gives you the momentum to reach for them.

Students—lots of people, to be honest—often think optimism is naïve. In truth, deliberate optimism is one of the most practical tools everyone can use. It shapes mindset, effort, resilience, and the willingness to try again after something doesn’t click the first—or fifth—time. I’ve seen it turn around transcripts, transform confidence, and open doors students didn’t think they were allowed to walk through.

And the best part is that this isn’t something you’re born with. It’s something you practice. One reframed sentence at a time. One small success at a time. One decision to try instead of surrender.

If you can build the habit of realistic, grounded optimism, you can change your academic trajectory in ways that may surprise you. I’ve watched it happen again and again. And you’re no different from those students. You just need the right mindset, the right support, and the willingness to replace “I can’t” with something much more powerful.