Attitude Is Everything
5 Ways to Develop a Positive Attitude to Achieve Success.
Having a positive attitude is essential for a successful life.
It allows you to find opportunities in the midst of crises and see hope even in the darkest times. However, developing this attitude takes a conscious effort and determination to break any old, negative habits that were formed in adolescence.
Below, let’s discuss five ways to cultivate a positive mindset and achieve success.
1. Spend time with positive people.
Spending time with positive or negative people can be the make or break between a positive attitude.
When you’ve had a hard day and things have not worked out as expected, the LAST thing you want is to come home and sit around negative people who are telling you that “x or y was a bad idea”, “you should give up” etc.
It can very well be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
Choosing who you are around can’t always be controlled. Maybe you have negative colleagues at work or family members.
However, when possible, it is essential that you weed out as many negative people from your life as you can.
When you are around too many negative people for too long, they can corrupt your mindset. Especially when you’re experiencing hardship going on in other areas of your life.
2. Take time to be grateful for the good things in life.
Making time to sit and appreciate the good things you have in your life (privileges, opportunities, objects, family and health) is the habit of all habits.
Why should you get more if you DON’T appreciate what you already have?
What most people don’t realise when trying to work towards an end goal is that there are a few lessons you learn along the way, some more positive than others:
- The most enjoyable part is the journey.
- Everyone you started with may not be there once you get to the end.
- Money & fame can corrupt and tear people apart from one another.
Being grateful for what you have now is essential to ensure that you appreciate what you get in the future.
Appreciation keeps you humble. It stops things like success from getting to your head.
This can be done through just being thankful in your head as you go through the motions of certain tasks, or this could be done with something like a gratitude journal, where you make a list of all the things you are grateful for in your life.
3. Avoid negative self-talk.
We have all been the victim of talking down to ourselves and beating ourselves up over mistakes that we have made in the past.
When I have partaken in work experience in the past and had to meet new people, I’d always overthink about how I’d come across as I wanted to make good impressions.
If I felt like I had messed up, I’d beat myself up and overthink it all day.
After many years, I managed to break this habit by realising that no one is THAT important, they are too busy thinking about themselves to remember when you have messed up.
The origin of this negative self-talk was nurtured back in childhood and adolescence. When our carers or adversaries mock us and made us feel a certain way about our skills and our place within the world.
The best way to combat such negative talking is to through one of two ways:
- By either working hard and producing such a catalogue of work/ skills you prove the negative talk wrong and start to believe in yourself instead of your thoughts.
- The other way is when you start catching yourself feeling unworthy and talking down to yourself, you must consciously change your thoughts and BREAK the habit.
Both will take time, but both will be worth it.
4. Practice positive self-talk.
Now we’ll take a look at the polar opposite.
We know about avoiding negative self-talk, however instead of just trying to avoid the thoughts, go a step deeper and start talking to yourself positively.
If something happens (maybe you embarrassed yourself), try saying to yourself something different from the normal narrative.
Instead of ‘I’m such an idiot’, try ‘I have made a mistake, however, I will learn from this and do better next time’.
Another option around positive self-talk that is popular in the self-development community is trying positive affirmations.
Positive affirmations are positive statements and phrases that we say to ourselves, either out loud or in our heads to change our state of mind.
Find Affirmations that resonate with you and practice with them. See if they make a difference in your life.
5. Surround yourself with inspiration.
Surrounding yourself with positive quotes will help remind you to keep your head up and provide you with motivation and hope.
The Motivation to keep progressing and The Hope that your actions will at some point, payoff and positively impact your future.
The best way I found to surround myself with quotes is to get photos printed out and pin them around my room.
Quotes such as “Do Something Today That Your Future Self Will Thank You For” and “The Day You Plant The Seed Is Not The Day You Eat The Fruit” are across my wall to remind me to stay focused and be patient.
This could also be done around your whole house or even your place of work. A more subtle way is to change your phone screen background to positive quotes.
The important thing is to surround yourself with inspiration that resonates with you. If you get bored with the quotes after a while, you can print off more and change them around.
Conclusion
Having a positive mindset and having a negative mindset is the difference between you making a positive or negative decision that will impact your future.
Stay focused and make your mind like a fortress. Guard it with your life as it is the only thing you have true control over.
Thank you for taking the time to read my article. If you found it helpful and think someone else could find it helpful too, please share it and 👏🏽👏🏽.
A writer mainly on self-development. I occasionally write on personal experiences, interest and other topics too. If you are interested in self-development, then please read some of my other articles (linked below). Enjoy.
