Building a Positive Mental Attitude

Is the glass half full or half empty?  You get to decide.  Both answers are correct and depend on how you perceive life events.  They also tell you a lot about your mental state.

Leaders, innovators, and visionaries have trained themselves to see opportunities and possibilities vs. difficulties and hardship.  While anyone can develop this mindset, few do.  Not because of the difficulty, but because of the required practice and discipline.  This is why few succeed – most people lack the discipline to stay the course until success is realized.

To quote Winston Churchill – “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

Here are a few ideas to help get you started:

1. Start reprogramming – learn to see the positives in everything. Train yourself to find opportunities in whatever you encounter.  Make a game of it – our minds are incredibly powerful and flexible.  Train yours to be an ally instead of an adversary.  Stalk yourself to learn your habits.  Become aware of situations and your responses to them.  Once you have an understanding of your habitual responses you can consciously begin changing them to develop new habits to improve your life.

Start by saying:

“I can”,

“I am capable”,

“This is easy”.

It’s never as bad as you think and the world will continues spinning.  Life goes on.  Change the thought “I have to …” to “I get to …”.  This minor adjustment in wording will produce a profound effect on your attitude and ease of work.  The task goes from being a chore to being a reward.

2. Immerse Yourself in Uplifting Actions – Job 1 is to choose to be in a good mood with a positive attitude. Listen to music you like, watch uplifting TV shows, read good books.  As you begin watching a TV show or reading an article ask what the likely outcome will be?  If it’s negative and a downer, don’t do it.  Avoid negative friends, articles, and the news as they aren’t going to help you feel “uplifted”.  You have total control over what you watch and read and how you think about them.  Choose inputs that are going to help you become more positive.

3. Reinforce your new thoughts – use positive affirmations to you benefit. Use them as a password on your device, put them on your mirrors and dash of your car.  The important thing is to put them in places you’ll read frequently throughout the day to begin building new thought patterns.  Ideas for positive affirmations:

“My life works”

“I can do this”

“I am strong and capable”

4. Start slow – begin with thoughts that are simple to change. Keep your initial reprogramming thoughts general and positive.  If you try to start with the bigger and more negative thoughts it will take much more discipline and persistence to achieve success because you’ve been telling yourself the other story for a very long time.  Start with a thought that when repeated gives you the warm-fuzzy feedback you’re looking for.

5. Share – begin sharing your outlook with others. Not only will you help them realize new possibilities, but you’re reinforcing these new thoughts in the process.  People will begin to notice and respect your positive contributions.