Snagging that preschool spot for your darling tot, convincing the boss-slash-dragon-lady to let you job-share, persuading that top contractor to renovate your bathroom ASAP…impossible, right? Wrong. Do you want to get your way, right now? Here’s how: Stop thinking you won’t. Summon your hidden, likely beaten-down-since-your-teen-years optimist. You are Pollyanna. In other words, be utterly convinced you will get your way — neuroses and self-doubt be damned — and you will.

You’re thinking: That’s crazy talk

Is it? Is it crazy to believe you’ll get your way, or is it crazier to assume that people — friends, family, bosses who don’t want to lose good employees, preschools that need full classrooms, contractors who stand to make money — want to say no? They don’t.

You’re thinking: That doesn’t work

See, you’re already in the wrong frame of mind. Yes, it does work. Here’s an example. My sister-in-law — let’s call her Polly — is of the relentlessly sunny optimist variety. A mature student, she recently finished a PhD (“Why would that be difficult to obtain?” she said, honestly puzzled). More recently, she uprooted to California. Sans work permit. Sans job. Sans home. (“Oh, we’ll find jobs,” she said when we fretted about her strategy — or lack thereof). She never doubted that they would be Mickey-Mouse-eared regulars at nearby Disneyland and enjoy their sun-drenched expat lives. And of course, she got her way.