How to Create and Sustain a Positive Mental Attitude

The key that opens your mind and heart to better job performance, an enriching career and life is your attitude. All of us want success; we want good results in all walks of life, in our homes, in work and in all our relations. The most important single factor that guarantees positive results is the Positive Mental Attitude!

A positive mental attitude helps you:

– Consider your neglected and misunderstood fact
– Summary: Job as a part of the larger pattern of your organisation
– Utilise your potential when dealing with other employees and customers
– Understand how your own attitude affects other people’s attitudes and performance

The noted American trainer and motivator, Zig Ziglar, remarks: Positive attitude is the result of new thinking …… believing in yourself, focussing on successes, learning from failures and surrounding yourself with people who share your values, principles and thinking. Positive attitude won’t let you do anything but it will let you do everything better than negative thinking. It will let you use your abilities and capabilities.

Attitude is defined as ‘the position or bearing as indicating action, feeling or mood’. And it is our actions, feelings or moods that determine the actions, feelings or moods of others. Our attitude is the way we communicate our mood, and tells the world what we expect in return. If we are optimistic and anticipate success, we will transmit a positive attitude and people and customers usually respond favourably to our attitude. But when we are pessimistic and expect the worst, our attitude is often negative and people tend to avoid us. Inside our head, where it all starts, attitude is a mind-set; it’s the way we look at things mentally.

Attitude is not simply a state of mind; it is also a reflection of what you value. Your attitude is more than just saying ‘ I Can ’; it is believing ‘ I Can Do ’. It requires believing before seeing, because seeing is based on situations; believing is based on faith and your unwavering conviction.

As a human creature, all of us have been given the godlike power to create our own lives. Every day, we utilise actions and ideas that will determine the nature of our tomorrows. Those ideas and actions lead some people to extra-ordinary achievements; some to a kind of average life; for some, those actions and ideas bring repeated frustration and problems.

We tend to live up to our expectations; and others give to us what we expect. Our attitude is something we can control, and the people will reflect back to us the attitude we present to them. It is, then, our attitude towards life that determines life’s attitude toward us. Law of Cause and Effect.

Your attitude is the disposition you transmit to others. It is also the way you see things mentally from the inside. The more you can focus on the positive aspects of your environment and life, the easier it will be to feel and remain positive. Positivity can be maintained through conscious efforts. When something negative diverts your mental focus, you can bounce back and make the adjustments by following these time-tested techniques :

• Think cheerfully; you become what you think about all the day long. There is always a silver lining in the dark clouds; so, look for the light and this will enlighten your mind and thoughts process.

• Clarify your objectives; a person with a crystal-clear goal is more apt to have a positive attitude than someone without an aim. A well-defined objective in life provides you direction, helps you achieve better focus, and removes doubts and fears.

• Sense of humour; the more you develop it, the more positive you become. Find out the funny aspects in every so-called problem and you can turn it into an opportunity.

• Mix up with winners when an odd situation confronts you. Negative losers can very easily aggravate the situation. Avoid these ‘turkeys and fly with the eagles’ who radiate enthusiasm, hope and optimism.

• Visualise success; you get what you expect. Positive expectations pave the way for harmonious and positive times. Your imagination is the laboratory where you can rehearse and preview the successful events.

• Pep talk, often called self-talk or monologue; it is your thinking aloud. When you assure yourself over and again of good, your subconscious mind accepts and believes so, and your actions radiate the same thought process.

Rick Wilkins, an American management consultant, concluded after exhaustive research that you have the full control over your thinking pattern; you have the total ownership of your attitudes. No one else on this planet has the power or authority to change your attitude without your permission. Your attitude allows you to become more empowering than money, to rise above your failures and accept others for who they are and what they say.

Your attitude is the forerunner of all skills needed for happiness and success; it can be used to build you up or pull you down … the choice is yours. It also gives you the wisdom to know that we cannot change events of the past. I am totally convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I respond to it. And it is with this state of mind that I remain in charge of my attitude.

Your Attitude and the Work Environment

Nowhere is your positive attitude more required and appreciated by others than your workplace. There are sound reasons for this: about 30% of an employee’s waking hours are spent at the workplace. Without some positive people around, this time could become troublesome.

Supervisors/managers reply on the positive attitudes of employees to establish a team spirit. Positive attitudes among a few employees make others’ job easy. Besides, positive employees devote their time and concentrate on solutions, and radiate enthusiasm that is contagious. This creates a very pleasant work atmosphere where negative thinkers don’t find much room to pollute the environment

Both positive and negative employees’ attitudes travel quickly in the workplace. Working around positive persons is a delightful and exciting experience. He/she can make you feel more motivated. Likewise, working near a negative person is very likely to cause you to turn negative. A positive work environment speaks its merits for itself. It is obvious from noticing the productivity and efficiency of workers who not produce at a high level but also makes it easier for others on the team to stay positive and produce more. In the same manner, negative workers can turn others negative.

The more positive the workplace, the higher the departmental productivity. There will be more output, higher productivity, better quality, fewer mistakes and less complaints. When employees feel easy and relaxed, they concentrate better reach their potential. Besides, employees are more tolerant of each others and work is viewed as an enjoyable challenge than as a boring task.

All of us are responsible for our lives. We produce causes all day long, and the environment can return to us only a corresponding effect. Consequently, we determine the quality of our own life.

Here is a way to evaluate the quality of your attitude in the past: Would you say that people and customers tend to react to you in a smiling, positive manner, giving you friendly greetings when you appear? Your honest answer to this question will tell you the rest.

Attitude is never static. It is an ongoing, dynamic and perpeptual process. Unless you are vigilant, negative factors will have a negative influence on your attitude. This will cause you to focus your mind on problems rather than on solutions. If negative factors occupy your mind long enough, they will be reflected in your actions. The positivity is still there, but it has been over shadowed by negativity.

Undoubtedly, none of us can remain positive all the time. Excessive optimism is not realistic. Some people and situations will always be there to steal your positive attitude and challenge your ability to bounce back. But winners are those who can regain their positive attitude quickly. People, who are unable to bounce back and constantly think of difficulties instead of opportunities, miss out of what life has to offer.

As soon as you begin to change your attitude, your surrounding will start changing, and it works like this: positive attitude, positive results; negative attitude, negative results. Dr. William James of the Harvard University, after exhaustive research, concluded: The biggest discovery of the 20th century is that people can change their lives by changing their attitudes of mind. So, we shape our own life and the texture and quality of our lives is determined by our habitual attitude. It sounds simple, but it is not so simple and easy. For most of us, learning this new habit takes time. But once it becomes a regular habit, your life will start changing dramatically.

There are countless human beings who live depressed and frustrated lives simply because they take a defensive and doubtful attitude toward themselves and life in general. People with a poor attitude become a magnet for unpleasant situations. When these situations occur, they further reinforce their poor attitude, thereby bringing more problems and so on. Such persons become a living example of the self-generating, problem-inviting prophecy. We get what we expect. Our outlook on life is a paintbrush with which we paint our environment. It can be bright and filled with hope and satisfaction, or it can be dark, depressing and gloomy

Sometimes, it is hard to convince people that the situations they experience is the result of their attitude. They take the attitude that only if people or customers will be nice to them, they would be nice in return. They are like the person standing in front of a tree waiting for the fruit. Until they nurture it, there will not be any fruit. It is up to them to act first. It has to start somewhere. Let us begin with us.

Attitude is the reflection of the person inside. Whenever you find people doing an excellent job and getting outstanding results, you will find people with a positive, winning attitude. These people take the attitude that they can accomplish what they intend to achieve. These people follow ‘I Can and I Will’ attitude. They have the positive expectation; they take the attitude of becoming as successful and competent as anyone else.

They have a positive mental attitude towards themselves and, consequently, towards life. Due to their healthy attitude, they achieve some outstanding goals. Other people may call them lucky, in-born achievers, gifted etc., but they are not at all genius or talented. The only brilliance they have is their right mental attitude. Failures don’t know, and sometimes don’t want to know, that what they are getting is the outcome of their own attitude. Nothing will ever change in the outer world until we change our inner world. When our attitudes change, our life will start changing.

Positive Attitude: Positive Results; Negative Attitude: Negative Results …… so simple, so basic and so easy but often

• Positive Mental Attitude is the Right Mental Attitude; it is the outward manifestation of a mind that primarily thinks of positive matters. It is that state of mind that which can be maintained only through conscious efforts.

• Your attitude towards others and customers determines their attitude towards you. Outer world is simply the reflection of our inner world.

• Act towards others the same way that you want them to act toward you. Treat others and your customers as the very important persons. You will immediately start feeling a change in your personal and professional life.

• It is your attitude and not aptitude that determines your altitude in life. Besides, it is your attitude that, more than any other skill, brings about success in your career.

• Positive attitude triggers enthusiasm; it enhances creativity; causes good things to happen and build your self-esteem