There's always a possibility, even if it's 0.00001%

I can easily say yes. You know, if someone is really passionate towards such a big goal, pursuing it and being optimistic would do nothing but good. Really, being that one guy who says, "Oh I will never do _____ because I'm no strong enough/smart enough/rich enough" is pretty much giving up before you even start. I understand realism in threatening situations like "I can't jump off the cliff into 2 feet of water and live". When you have more to gain then you have to lose, optimism can help you reach that goal or at least improve in whatever you are doing. Sometimes, goals aren't meant to be reached but are meant to work toward. I can't say I would expect someone to become president because they really want to, but working toward such a great goal will help them develop as a person, so I would totally say yes. If they reach that goal, well, that's a plus too!

When you ask yourself if you could become president you should ask yourself first if you are intelligent enough to gain the abilities required to govern a country in the first place.
Those things are NOT luck and chance. If you will become president once you gained the abilities required is another question. With those qualifications, however, you are more than likely to score a good job anyway.

Psychologists do not define intelligence as one single factor that cannot be further divided.
Intelligence is generally speaking the ability to solve problems.
It can be divided into fluid and crystallized intelligence.
Fluid intelligences are abilities that help a person solve abstract problems, understand patterns, analyze situations and so forth.
Crystallized intelligences are abilities that are dependent on one individual's knowledge such as the ability to build a house.

The thing about these two is that in many instances they overlap, meaning that one person is naturally more inclined to be able to build a house without needing much experience while another will have to be trained very thoroughly before being able to.

There are various forms of intelligence such as creativity, general knowledge, technical abilities, etc etc
Depending on the person the sub-skills of those can be more dependent on crystallized or fluid abilities.

So what are those definitions even good for?

Every person has a natural capacity. That capacity determines how fast and well a person can learn something. Due to the vast variability all people have different capacities in different fields of intelligence.

That capacity, however, does not determine the effectiveness of the methods used to learn things. It is perfectly possible to enhance ones own abilities by figuring out effective ways to study.
Once you develop good methods to study fast and efficiently you will become better at it naturally as well, meaning your ability to learn skills and knowledge gets enhanced until you reach your natural maximum capacity.
It is my belief, that intelligence is not determined by birth and genetics only. Every person can decide to become more intelligent and knowledgeable.

Here is a good video that explains what I mean.



So to answer the question of the title: What you do with your life is not a question of optimism or realism. It is a question of motivation, discipline, and determination. Of course there are chance and luck involved as well, but they are a poor reason not to do your best anyway.


I know that the point of this post is to say that the confidence of a person are incredibly important when it comes to reaching goals. I agree with that. I just make this post to make another point that is not directed against what you say.
Those personality types are pretty sophisticated, but they are bullshit when it comes to using them to define a person's natural inclination towards something.
It is true that it has statistical values. The thing about statistical values is that they do not apply to individuals as much. Why is that?
It is so because if something gets dominated by a certain kind of people, in this case ENTJs, it is very likely that the successful ones in those fields are also ENTJs. That does not mean that they are naturally better at doing it necessarily. One individual ENTJ does not have higher chances than anyone else by default, it is just that the probability of some ENTJs being successful is higher simply because more of them are in that field.
It is not a good way to look at things to be disheartened just because you believe that the kind of person you are does not fit into a certain environment.

Of course, there will be good eggs and bad eggs with each personality type. It's possible that some types have distinct advantages over other types though. Here's some article from 2013 that breaks down how much money each type take home. If money = success to some people (and I think to ENTJ people it means heaps) then that's something, isn't it?

Also, there are Jungian occupational statistics that show that each personality type has jobs they tend to gravitate to. For ENTJs, one of those jobs is 'politician'.

So if we take it that your personality type does guide your career aspirations, then 'confidence' (as well as strong drive - need drive to earn all that money), being a huge part of that personality, would definitely be a critical factor. We shouldn't stereotype all people of one type to exhibit some kind of behaviour or trend, but the Jung personality types do have some legit impacts.

It's more about self-learning too, I think. You learn about your good points and your bad points, so you know how to work on them.