We can influence, often significantly, many aspects of our lives. For example, we can influence our health by what we eat and drink, the amount of exercise we get, and whether we smoke. By acquiring appropriate knowledge and skills we can influence the type of work we do and where we do it. But we can’t completely control either of them. There are health-conscious individuals who get prematurely struck down by heart attacks, and many people have to change jobs or locations even though they don’t want to.
The only aspect of life over which we have complete control is our attitude. The level of happiness we enjoy or despair we have to endure, as the case might be, is completely dependent on our attitude. Whether a positive attitude contributes to a longer life might be debatable, but there is no doubt it will make life more enjoyable.
We’re not born with our attitude, we develop it. Those who don’t believe that being positive and happy is a natural state should observe children at play. As Abraham Lincoln observed, “Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” This holds particularly true for work. People who are unhappy in their jobs have three choices: continue to be miserable, change jobs, or change their attitude. No one should opt for continued misery, and if they opt for changing jobs they should also immediately start considering their attitude, otherwise they may just end up being miserable in a different place.
It’s been said that the three A’s of a career are ability, ambition and attitude. Ability earns your pay cheque, ambition gets you raises, and attitude affects the amount of both. The same thought has been expressed this way: talent determines what you can do, motivation what you do do, and attitude what you willingly do. The common factor is attitude. Things work out best for people who make the best of things.
We may not be able to control circumstances or people, but we can control our attitude about them. Circumstances can’t keep us down unless we let them; much better to be putting together a plan with action steps to improve them. Similarly, people can’t make us disappointed, angry or sad unless we let them.
Make a list of the negatives causing you to have, if not a bad attitude, at least not a sufficiently positive one. Then objectively break down the list into two categories: those that are really a matter of your attitude, and those that are facts of your life. For the first category, work on changing your attitude. When it comes to the second category, start by reminding yourself that we don’t have to like facts in order to deal with them, and if they’re weighing you down, you do have to deal with them. Instead of stewing about things, ask yourself, “How can I improve this situation?” And then, with a positive attitude, decide what needs to be done and the necessary steps to do so. As the adage says, “There’s no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing.”
Attitudes are contagious, so don’t be a carrier of a bad one. When we conduct ourselves with a positive attitude we influence those around us in a positive way. When we act negatively we project a negative influence, which often gets rebounded right back at us, causing a never-ending cycle of bad attitudes in which no one prospers.
One way to develop a positive attitude is to learn from everything we read and hear, everything that goes on around us, and from everyone with whom we come in contact. Become sincerely interested in other people and curious about events and you’ll be a happier, more positive person. Inspired by the Dale Carnegie Course, I began doing that as a teenager and kept daily notes of my observations in notebooks I labelled “Stuff.” I still do, and it’s how I get many of the ideas for my “Thought for the day” on Facebook and Twitter.