Having the right attitude helps you to cope more easily with the daily affairs of life. It brings optimism into your life, makes it easier to avoid worries and negative thinking and makes you happier, brighter and more successful.
With a positive attitude you see the bright side of life, become optimistic and expect the best to happen. It is certainly a state of mind that is well worth developing and strengthening.
That’s why we need to protect ourselves against “diseases” that can impact negatively on our attitude, because they are always lurking, always ready to infest and infect your mind.
Be on guard and avoid these “diseases of attitude” at all cost!
1. Complaining
Have you ever been in a situation where no matter what is being said, some people always tend to complain. If it’s not the weather, it is the economy. If it is not the economy it is the political situation. If it is not the political situation it’s their work and so they go on and on forever and a day. They always blame something for the situation they are in.
Complaining does nothing good for you. It is only working against you, draining your positive energy and contaminating everything you experience.
When you catch yourself complaining, stop and rather focus on something other than the thing you might be tempted to complain about. A trick to not complaining is to constantly remind yourself of how blessed you are (even if you don’t feel blessed at that moment). Just remind yourself about everything that is still good in your life and as long as you focus on the good things; you will soon forget to complain.
ALSO if you are in the company of a “complaining culprit” simply excuse yourself and run!
2. Negativity / Pessimism
We all can relate to the situation where you are excited about a new idea or project and wanted to tell everybody about it and they responded with “Yes, but ….it won’t work; it’s not the right time etc. etc.” It is like these pessimists are throwing cold water directly into your face!
What happens then is you put yourself in defence mode and even start to doubt your own dreams and abilities. This is also when fear settles in: “What if they’re right and I waste all this time, money, effort.”
Guard your thoughts from negativity and pessimism – whether it is coming from yourself and/or others.
The best antidote to negativity and pessimism is simply to surround yourself with positivity. Spend more time with positive people. Get involved in fun activities and things you like to do. Surround yourself by positive slogans and quotes. Create a habit to wake up each morning with the first words: “What a beautiful day! I’m so excited about ……..!”
3. Lack of confidence and self-doubt
Many situations, words and actions performed by ourselves as well as people around us, can hamper our confidence and make us doubt our abilities. Self doubt has many causes. It can be age, education levels, fear, looks or many other reasons and can cause you to say that you are not good enough or that you cannot do something.
For me the quickest way to get more confidence is by making a list of all the things that you have accomplished in your life so far. Believe me, when you start making that list, you will be amazed of what you’ve actually accomplished so far.
Then every time you doubt yourself, take out your list and see for yourself how good you really are. Remind yourself that you have no ground to stand on to doubt yourself! You CAN do this!
Remember, if you say you can OR if you say you can’t, you’re always right.
Become an “I can” person and believe in yourself.
4. Predjudice
The Dictionary defines prejudice as “an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason”.
It’s like in a conversation I overheard about a book called “The Secret”. One lady asked someone else what she thinks of the book. Without hesitation the second one responded: “That is utter nonsense.” I could see the first one was a bit stunned when she asked: “Have you read it?” to which the second one responded “I’ve heard about it”. Now that’s what I call prejudice.
The truth is, we all sometimes fall prey to this one – judging people or things without having the right knowledge and information.
Do not be prejudiced. Rather, give things the benefit of the doubt. Be open-minded and do not pass quick judgment. Almost every time when you have all the facts, your opinion will be more objective and you can better substantiate your point of view with facts.
Your Assignment this week:
We can change our business, our lives and the lives of those around us by changing our attitude.
John C Maxwell says in his book, The Winning Attitude: “It is hard to soar with the eagles when you have to live with the turkeys.”
Take the decision today to leave the turkeys of complaining, negativity, self-doubt and prejudice behind.
Develop a positive mental attitude and go soar with the eagles.
To Your Success
