Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference” – Winston Churchill
It’s amazing how your attitude can have so much to do with how successful you are in life. Yes it will make a difference to your business and work opportunities, but I’ve also discovered there are other ways my life has undergone some serious improvements due to some changes in attitude. This has also affected how ’successful’ I am in other areas, such as my relationships, my motivation, and my overall feelings of fulfillment or hapiness.
Recently I have been through some money difficulties which were partly due to poor decisions. I’ve read a lot of books on motivation and attitude, and the concepts should be ingrained in my psyche by now! It’s funny then that I found myself in a situation that caused stress, anxiety and particularly financial hardship, and I had forgotten how to take a step back and reassess the situation and see things from a different perspective. I was guilty of letting my negative attitudes affect my personal life, which led to a cycle of a bad situation becoming worse.
As my situation worsened, I began to feel the emotions that are associated with being poor: stressed at the thought of working more than full-time.. Sad that I had made poor decisions.. Worried that I might not make it back out of the slum I was in.. Anxious that my family would suffer.
I’m still on the road to recovery from the money side of things, however my life has turned around completely from those previous feelings – and it all began with an attitude change.
Why is attitude important?
There is a motivational speaker named Sam Glenn that has some great ideas on why attitude is important. He offers up the following thoughts:
* Attitude is how we treat others
* Attitude is the way we approach life
* Attitude is contagious
* Attitude is how we respond to challenges
* Attitude affects our health
* Attitude affects our relationships
* Attitude is our personal trademark
* Attitude determines if we fly or fall
* Attitude creates experiences for you and others
It’s difficult to recognise the importance of attitude without seeing the evidence of it in your own life. I have found over the last few years that when I have been caught up in situations such as the poverty slum from moving, no changes of any significance have happened in my life without me taking some deliberate measures to readjust things.
How do I go about changing my attitude?
Changing my attitude was the first step in taking control of my life again, and for me it started with a conscious decision. I didn’t like feeling the way I did, I wasn’t being good company or productive at work, and my negativity was bringing other people down.
My conscious decision to change my attitude started with making changes to how I looked and felt, and concentrating on finding solutions to move forward. Because of this decision, over the first week I began to see changes – first small ones, then larger ones as I formulated a plan to get through my problems. At this point, I began to see a snowball effect – my change in attitude filtered through my family, who also were being more positive. This helped us to not only get through some tough times, but also become closer as a family.
I highly recommend reading some of the fantastic books by Justin Herald, founder of ‘Attitude Gear’. After starting from scratch, today Justin’s business is a multi-million dollar company, with products sold throughout the world. Justin’s business line initially sprung from encorporating quotes onto clothing, such as “If you think you’re beaten you are!”, and “It’s not whether you get knocked down it’s whether you get back up.” He has adopted these quotes into his own life and business practises, and offers some great ideas on how we can make changes to our attitudes and enhance all aspects of our lives:
“Never underestimate the power of your attitude. How you view things will have a direct impact on how you handle the next day or the next crisis. You need to make sure you are constantly checking your attitude to ensure it is on track.”
David Holmes also puts it into perspective when he says:
“Consider this, if you wait for someone else to change before you allow yourself to have a winning attitude then you’re giving control over to others for how you feel. Why would you allow anyone to control you in this way?… “
“…The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday 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 change 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% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you …we are in charge of our attitudes”
How is your attitude? Is it having a positive or negative influence on your life? Can you make some changes to your life by changing your attitude?
“Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.” – Lou Holtz
