This week we have been focusing on positive attitudes. Having a positive attitude is key to success with what ever you do. |
We have compiled some different tips, stories and quotes that can help you find a positive attitude for 2020.
Flying with Superman
Former heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali, so the story goes, was once in an aircraft preparng for take-off. A flight attendant noticed that his seatbelt was unfastened.
‘Sir, would you please do up your seat belt?’
Muhammad Ali looked up with his characteristic saucy grin and said in his slow, gravelly drawl: ‘Superman don’t need no seatbelt!’
But the attendant was quick with a reply:
‘Superman don’t need no aeroplane. Do up your belt!’
Muhammad Ali, as we know, was renowned for his positive mental attitude, a trait he displayed every day throughout his career, in the ring and beyond. It’s an attitude we would all do well to embrace if we are to make a success of our own working lives.
Choosing your attitude
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
― Man’s Search for Meaning
You are in charge
Charles Swindoll, religious leader and writer: “The longer I live, the more I realise the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company…a church…a home.
The remarkable thing is that we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past – we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot chance the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude – I am convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it. And so it is with you – we are in charge of our attitudes.”
Edison, the optimist
Whenever things look grim, it often helps to look for the good points in a bad situation. In 1914, for example, Thomas Edison’s laboratory burned down. He lost $2 million dollars worth of equipment. At age 67 he faced ruin. But the very next morning he told his son: ‘There is great value in disaster. All our mistakes are burned up. Thank God we can start anew!’
The Power of Optimism
And here is some more good advice from ‘The Power of Optimism’ by Alan McGinnis:
Don’t be surprised by the unexpected. It’s inevitable. Learn to expect and see yourself as a problem solver.
Your own actions can affect the outcome in most situations.
Whenever you have a negative thought, try to short-circuit it. Moods are invariably caused by your own thoughts rather than by external events.
Build a network of friends outside your normal workplace. This will help provide balance to the negatives that inevitably come out of in-group meetings and social events.
True grit and the right attitude
Singing was all Lesley Garrett from Yorkshire ever wanted to do, so you can imagine how she felt when this popular singer with the English National Opera lost her voice at a crucial stage in her career. She was devastated. To make matters worse, her doctors could not promise that she would ever be able to sing again.
One morning she received an envelope bearing her mother’s handwriting. Inside was a short note which said: ‘I think you need a little of this.’ Out fell a few bits of Yorkshire grit!
That was the turning point. Lesley started to recover and in time she was fitter than ever and never looked back – thanks to her Yorkshire grit and determination.
Focus on the positive
Positive people concentrate on what they can do and focus their attention on the task instead of the reasons why something may fail. For example, if you are convinced that you cannot make a good decision, chances are you won’t. This does not imply, however, that the reverse is always true – that if you believe you can make good decisions, you will. But self-confidence and a positive mental attitude certainly helps.
And the secret of getting your people to think positively is to convince them that such thinking is best for them.
As W.H.Weis writes in ‘Decision Making for First-Time Managers’ (AMACOM, NY, 1985):
‘Positive thinkers get more enjoyment and satisfaction from life because they become involved with more things; they are active and interested in what is going on about them. Coupled with their optimism is a drive that causes things to work out better for them.’
The BIG ‘A’
There seems to be no end to the amount of literature on the importance of developing a positive attitude. The great Norman Vincent Peele, for example, advised: ‘Change your thoughts and you change the world’. Here, then, is a straightforward, life-changing task that requires you to read these twelve points every day for the next 30 days.
- It is your attitude at the beginning of a task more than anything else that will determine your success or failure.
- It is your attitude toward life that will determine life’s attitude toward you. Despite many people’s belief to the contrary, life plays no favourites.
- You control your attitude. If you are negative, it is because you have decided to be negative and not because of other circumstances.
- Act as if you have a good attitude. Remember, actions trigger feelings just as feelings trigger actions.
- Before people can achieve the kind of results they want, they must first become that person-walk, act, and conduct themselves in all of their affairs as would that person they wish to become.
- Treat everybody as the most important person in the world.
- Attitudes are based on assumptions. In order to change attitudes, one must first change one’s assumptions.
- Develop the attitude that there are more reasons why you should succeed than reasons why you should fail.
- When you are faced with a problem, adopt the attitude that you can and will solve it.
- We become what we think about. Control your thoughts and you will control your life.
- Radiate the attitude of confidence, of well-being, of a person who knows where he or she is going. You will then find things happening to you right away.
- In order to develop a good attitude, take charge first thing in the morning.
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