Positive Attitude Development Is Attitude Development Important?

Whether we like it or not, our attitude towards life can have a significant impact on the quality of life. By learning how to listen to our inner selves, we can figure out how our inner thought process works and how it may have a bearing on the way we deal with stress in our daily lives. A lot of people discover that their internal dialogue is largely negative. If you find yourself thinking such thoughts as What if I fail? or I could never accomplish that, then you do not have a positive attitude. This can affect every single aspect of your existence. Whenever we encounter stress, certain hormones in our bodies are activated. When produced on occasion, these hormones are no big deal. But when ones body is constantly producing such hormones, then serious damage can be done. Cardiovascular disease is one of the long term effects of the continual production of stress based hormones. The key to avoiding stress and the negative thoughts associated with it is to remember who we are deep down inside, outside of our momentary emotional lapses. For most individuals, the transition to a positive attitude consists of numerous small steps. Let us take a look at the ways that attaining a positive attitude towards life may be accomplished. We will start with one of the most basic fundamental human needs sleep. How does Sleep Impact Attitude? Sleep is the key to the maintenance and improvement of ones energy levels. It also helps to maintain the bodys immune system, while vastly improving the emotional and mental clarity one needs in order to focus and maintain a positive attitude towards life. Whenever you feel good, you function a lot better and one cannot feel good without getting a decent amount of sleep every night. If you have difficulty sleeping at night, you may want to try one or several of the following: - Try to decrease activities that require a lot of mental energy in the evenings. - Make plans for the following day. - Take a hot bath before you go to sleep each night. - Dim the lights and listen to soothing music. - Do not read or watch TV in bed. - Try sleeping in another part of the house if you have difficulties falling asleep in your bedroom. - Listen to soothing natural sounds on a high quality listening device. This might include waterfalls, streams, waves, the wind, etc. You can order such soundtracks over the Internet. - Turn off all the lights in your bedroom. - Consult your doctor or pharmacist on natural remedies for sleeping such as valerian, calcium, and melatonin. How does One Develop a Healthy Attitude? There are many ways one might go about developing a positive attitude and thus greatly enhance his or her life. You should keep in mind that it is the simple things in life that provide us with the most pleasure and stimulation. If you feel like you are dealing with an overwhelming amount of stress, do things that you enjoy. Relax. Go to an art gallery. Re-connect with an old friend. Listen to your favorite song, or go to a movie. Only by treating ourselves to a fair amount of free time can we hope to maintain a positive attitude.

Helping others also helps us maintain a positive attitude towards life. This can be as simple as carrying groceries for an elderly person, or as elaborate as calling your local volunteer center for insight in to community based programs that you can become a part of. Helping others enriches our lives, and thus improves our general attitude. Ultimately, it is all about paying close attention both to yourself and the people around you. By treating yourself well, you can in turn use the energy that you save as points towards the pursuing of your ultimate goals in life. How can I Improve My Day? One of the main sources of our daily unhappiness is our inner critic. Our inner critic has been with us our entire lives. It is what makes us critical not only of ourselves, but of other people as well. You should never allow your inner critic to overwhelm your thoughts. The most positive aspects of your thought will always come from a place of self love. Learn to accept your shortcomings as a human being, and you will position yourself on the road towards attaining a positive attitude.

Be Your Own Fairy Godmother Do you believe in magic? In fairy godmothers? In Santa Claus? In Miracles? Probably not. Most adults do not. But there is an entity that contains more magic than all of these things, an entity that actually exists. That entity, believe it or not, is you! That is correct. You have the power and capabilities to make things happen that are far better than anything Santa Claus or a Fairy Godmother could bring you. After all, these characters have traditionally been called upon to bring people stupendous gifts of material worth. But why invest so much time and effort in to believing in someone or something outside of yourself, when the real magic lies in you? After all, you know yourself better than anyone, dont you? The fact is that you can give yourself gifts that no one else in the world can give you. I am talking here about the non-material gifts, the truly magical ones that make for an extraordinary life. Some of these so called gifts include high self esteem, tons of confidence in ones powers and capabilities, peace of mind, and the ability to grow and develop as a person and maintain a spiritual, physical, emotional, and financial balance. How do I begin giving myself such gifts? Here is an exercise to help you get started in the process of improving your attitude and greatly changing your life for the better. Imagine you are talking to a real life fairy godmother. The only thing is, however, this fairy godmother cant give you material gifts she can only make permanent changes in your attitude or significantly alter one of your personal traits. What, then, would you ask your fairy godmother for? If you could change any one thing about yourself, then what would it be? Become your own fairy godmother after all, that is who you are. That is the hidden metaphor of all those fairy godmother stories from your childhood the magic lies within each and every one of us. Whatever personal trait you select that you would like to improve the most, whether it be improving your self confidence, acquiring a positive attitude towards your work or your personal life, communicating in a better fashion, overcoming whatever personal fears you might have all of these things and more can be accomplished once you set your mind to them.

The key is to first identify what trait you want to acquire, and devote a significant portion of your mental energy to acquiring that trait. Once you feel you have attained it, then it is time to go back to your fairy godmother once more and find the next area of improvement. Is there anything outside myself that can help me? Of course. But the external things in life that are going to help you the most are things that will impel you to begin asking yourself questions from within. If you have the time, money, and energy, invest in books and CDs that will guide you towards developing whatever particular trait you have agreed to work on in tandem with your fairy godmother. Even if you have to spend a lot money on this, do not fear you are really spending the money on yourself, and you are worth every penny of it. With a little bit of money and a strong will to develop and grow, it is pretty much guaranteed that you will develop skills and traits that will remain with you for the rest of your life and thereby increase its quality to a significant degree. This is something that can be done in your free time as well. Instead of listening to the radio when you are driving in your car, you can listen to educational and motivational recordings that will effectively turn driving time in to productive time. In fact, you can gain the equivalent to a four-year college education in about two years just by listening to educational compact disc recordings. How will this help my career? The more you grow as a person, the more impact this will have on your professional life. All growth in the long run starts at home. Those who are big and strong enough to handle success are the ones it will come to. Once you have attained that level of growth in your personal life, then you will become immensely successful in your chosen profession. It is okay to be a major player in the game. By major player, we are talking about an individual who is clearly an asset both to their family and to their professional colleagues, as well as to the world at large. Major players are people who radiate both confidence and warmth. Above all, major players care about others just as much as they care about themselves and thus do not have a problem with encouraging others to attain the height of their success as well.

A Good Attitude Leads to Success What is the secret to Success? There are numerous secrets out there on attaining success. The vast majority of these so called secrets all have one thing in common Attitude. The reasons why people choose not to apply this main secret of success to their own lives remains something of a mystery. Apparently, most people just are not interest in attaining the heights of what this life has to offer them. Or, they are content with just getting by, as so many of us are. The more ambitious individuals, however, are constantly on the look out for ways of becoming successful in life. These types of folks want to be something more than a person who just gets by. The question then becomes how do I rise above mediocrity? How can I get to the point where I have more time, money, and energy than I actually need?

Thankfully, one need not be born with a successful attitude this type of attitude is one that is learned. It can be as simple as going to a local library or bookstore and doing research in the field of attitude development. What do you need? The key to developing a successful attitude is to decide that there are certain things in life that you need, rather than merely want. For example, do you want a luxury house? Do you want a lot of money? Do you want to be the top boss at your job? Do you want fame and fortune in your career? Do you want to be able to eventually travel the world without having to worry about expenses? Sure, everyone wants these things. Problem is, very few people are able to attain them. The reason why is that it is never enough to merely want something. You have to be the type of individual who feels that they need these things in order to survive. This gives you the motivation to work towards your dream and do whatever it takes except, of course, for breaking laws or hurting people to get there. And all this must be done with the fuel of a positive attitude. In the field of human resources, the idea of hiring for attitude has become something of a mantra in recent years. Since about thirty percent of most peoples lives is spent at work, it is key to have people in a work place with positive attitudes. How do I begin to change my attitude? While it is always useful to connect with useful resources outside us in changing our attitude for the better, ultimately the change will always begin inside you. Try to pay closer attention to your inner thoughts. Do you find yourself constantly plagued with doubt? Are you frequently depressed about your lot in life? Realizing where are negative thoughts come from can help us get to the point where we are able to erase them. Once they are erased, it is key to replace them with more affirmative thoughts. This is how we begin to make an attitude adjustment. What do I do once I've made an attitude adjustment? First off, it is vital to have a clear definition of what your goals in life are. Once you have a clear image in your mind of where you see yourself, say, ten years from now, write it down. Go in to as much detail as possible. Next, you should make a list of all the things you need to accomplish again, not merely the things you want to accomplish. For every thing you need to accomplish, you should be able to write ten at least ten reasons justifying why this need of yours is very real. The more needs you have in life, the more motivation you will have to go out and actualize them one by one. If you look at the most successful individuals currently working in your field, you will find that each and every one of them has an endless supply of motivation and ambition. It is this motivation that fuels them in their journey towards accomplishing their goals in life. The truth is, you will need the most energy at the very beginning of your journey. This energy will then have to be sustained while you are in the process of getting off the ground. It is almost like being an airplane. Airplanes use ninety percent of their energy just getting off the ground. The remaining ten percent is used in flight. Remember what you are up against mass apathy. Perhaps your friends and loved ones will not understand the new you. They are probably just get by types who do not see the point in aiming for the skies. But you can become a role model for them and it begins by developing a positive attitude!

Attitude Development as a Positive Social Force Do Other People Notice My Attitude? The answer to this question is a resounding yes. The reason why so many ambitious individuals find it hard to get ahead in life is because they simply do not have the right attitude. Do you find yourself constantly plagued by negative thoughts, to the extent that you are paralyzed with anger and / or fear, especially when it comes to questions regarding your career? You are not alone. The fact is that a lot of people in this day and age feel the exact same way. The ones who are able to succeed, however, are those who find the strength and guidance they need to overcome these negative feelings and develop a positive attitude, thus having an impact not only on their own lives, but also on the lives around them. If you have a bad attitude, then chances are great that everyone you live and work with notices. And this certainly does not endear you to them. A bad attitude is a like a bad smell it is something that people will go out of their way to avoid. This certainly is not going to do wonders towards the enhancement of your career. How can I Improve My Attitude? While you may spend a lot of your time at work, attitude improvement begins at home. Sometimes, a bad attitude in the work place is reflective of unhappiness in your personal life. If this is the case, then ask yourself why, exactly, you are unhappy in your personal life. If need be, make a list of all the things that you dislike about your personal life on one sheet of paper, and about your professional life on another sheet of paper. Then, for each of those reasons, try to think of ways of changing that situation. But developing ones attitude will not happen by merely focusing on the negative and trying to change it. In order to have a really useful attitude adjustment, one must spend more time focusing on the positive things in ones life. What you should then do is make a list of all the positive aspects of your life. Only an honest assessment can lead you to an awareness of where you currently are. Look at your current level of competency. Based on that, you should set smaller goals that will eventually lead you to your biggest goal in life. Does My Attitude Impact My Working Environment? You bet. If a situation is stressful, then having a bad attitude will only make it worse. On the contrary, those who have positive attitudes often have the power of transforming a stressful, negative situation in to a positive one with the force of their mere presence. If you want to be successful at work, then you will want to avoid becoming a mood polluter. Mood polluters are those individuals whose mere presence destroys the atmosphere. Not only do such individuals create stress and make others reluctant to deal with them, they also do themselves a lot of harm by effectively discouraging promotion and other positive perks that might come to them otherwise. When it comes to building ones success in life, then self-esteem is of vital importance. By making constant affirmations, we develop our attitudes in to tools for long term success. They also provide us with the energy that we need to go out there and accomplish our goals. On the flip side of that equation, by making negative affirmations to ourselves, then we are destroying our self confidence and self esteem. Eventually, those negative affirmations overtake our waking

thoughts and prevent us from getting the things we want out of life. In the end, these negative affirmations will only destroy us. Can My Attitude Change the World? Yes it can or at least your immediate circumstances. Those with positive attitudes are a lot more likely to succeed than those with bad attitudes. There are many ways one might go about developing a positive attitude and thus greatly enhance his or her life. Numerous books and motivational recordings are now available on the market to provide people with low self confidence and low self esteem with the tools they need to begin building positive attitudes. But all of these resources ultimately point to one source, and that is the greatest source of all you. A good way of realizing ones potential and of improving ones attitude is by keeping a journal. Each day, try to remember all of your positive thoughts and your negative ones, and write each of them down. This is a good way of helping us keep stock and keep our head in check, so to speak. Finally, one should work towards improving their communication skills. Do you often find that people seem to misunderstand your attitude towards them? The people around us tend to be reflectors of ourselves so be sure to pay attention to their behavior towards you.

Setting Intelligent Goals How am I Doing in Life? Every once in a while, it is necessary to take a step back in order to take a long, hard look at where we are in our lives. At this point, it is good to ask yourself a bunch of critical questions. Are you at the point in your career where you want to be? Have you so far accomplished all of your goals in life? If so, then maybe it is time to make goals that stretch yourself a bit more. If you have not accomplished your goals in life, then perhaps you have made the mistake of setting too many goals or trying to accomplish them at an unnaturally fast pace. It is necessary to set reasonable, intelligent goals in order to succeed in life. Do not be unrealistic life is not a fairy tale. But you should try to recognize what it is you want, and to be as specific as possible when attempting to visualize or otherwise express what your goals in life are. Every persons mind and body are aligned in a way that provides a very real magnetic force. What this effectively means is the things that we want the most are the things we think about the most. This is why it is vital to be as specific as possible when we set a particular goal. The more specific we are in articulating our goals in life, then the more our unconscious mind will assist us in the process of pulling the actualization of that goal in to our awareness, thus placing us in situations that will help us readily attain that goal. It effectively enables us to recognize opportunities that we would not be able to see otherwise. What kind of Goals are Realistic Ones? In order for a goal to sufficiently motivate you, it needs to be a major one. The bigger your goals are, then the more motivated you will need to be to work towards accomplishing them. If you want, for example, to be the greatest concert pianist in the world, then you are going to find yourself a lot more motivated than you would be if your goal were merely to, say, play a couple of Beethoven pieces extremely well. If you are a beginner, then no doubt mastering those tough songs is a very intelligent and realistic goal to set. But if that is your only goal as a pianist, then you will stop growing as a pianist

once that goal has been achieved. This is why it is necessary to constantly stop and re-evaluate our goals so that we are aware of what they are, and thus stay motivated. Aim for the skies the higher you aim, the longer you will stay motivated. Should I Listen to Others When Setting Goals? All of your goals must come from within. If you listen too much to what other people think and allow their perspective to influence you, then you will find that you are working to attain personal goals that are not personal at all rather, goals that have been set for you by someone outside of you. Occasionally, there will be times in our life where we need to seek advice from others, and will even decide that it is best to take that advice. But if you find yourself in a position where you are accepting a goal that someone else has made for you, then you need to make that goal your own by fully agreeing with it. This will give you the full power that you need to attain it. Only you have the strength to make a goal. Your desire, actions, and belief must all be in synch in order for the goal to be attained. What if My Goals are too High? Motivation must always be tempered to a certain extent by realism. In order to fully convince your unconscious mind that your goal in life is realizable, then you have to believe that the goal is something that can actually be accomplished. If another individual has accomplished your goal before, for example, then you can rest assured in your faith that it can be done. The only thing that is left, then, is to figure out the exact path you will take towards achieving your goal. Only an honest assessment can lead you to an awareness of where you currently are in your career. Look at your current level of competency. Based on that, you should set smaller benchmark goals that will eventually lead you to your biggest, motivation based goal. That is a realistic way of achieving goals in life. The key is to have a positive attitude and realize the greatness that is inside you then working towards the achievement of everything we desire.

Attitude Development What do all successful people have in common? When looking for a definition for success, it is a good idea to take a close look at the most successful people out there. What do all of them have in common? If you look close enough, you will see that the most successful individuals in any career all have positive attitudes. Have you taken the time to plan your career? Before you set out to accomplish something, you must first ask yourself what specifically it is that you hope to accomplish. This is why setting a clearly defined goal is key in any profession. You cannot obtain a goal that you never realized was a personal goal for you. This is why it is a good idea to commit to specific goals and destinations how you see yourself in a given period of time. It is always a good idea to commit your goals to paper. If your goal is not written down, then it is not really a goal it is more of a wish. And hopefully you have realized by now life is not a fairy tale!

By committing your life long goals to paper, you are taking the first step towards actualizing those goals. Writing down your goals is a sign that you have faith in the feasibility of attaining your goal. This is a major ingredient to success in life, and the key to a positive attitude. It also shows that you are brave enough to stand out from the rest of the crowd, as the vast majority of people do not take the time to write out their goals. This is like anything else in life, if you think about it. Nobody begins construction on a building until the plans for construction have been confirmed. When your career plans are down on paper in a complete form, then you are already half way on the road towards completing them. The rest of the way involves a lot of perspiration and persistence. The truth is, a lot of people tend to live directionless lives. They spend the vast duration of their time on this planet wandering around looking for a way to live, a goal to pursue, a dream to follow. These people are rarely, if ever successful. Most of these people wind up having bad attitudes. When things do not work out for them, they blame other people around them, or maybe even blame society for holding them back. Or they will claim that they are victims of fate, that they never had the luck that others around them might have had. The key toward becoming successful in life lies in knowing what direction you are traveling in and recognizing that the road to accomplishing your goal might not be completely smooth. What is Luck? But what about those people who seem to have everything and never even had to try? They sure are lucky, arent they? Of course. But maybe your definition of luck differs from mine. I would define luck as that place where opportunity and preparation meet at a crossroads. Every day that goes by, another opportunity passes by you. If you are fully prepared, then you will know how to go about taking advantage of each and every one of those opportunities. Knowing where you are going from the outset will help you prepare for those opportune moments. What if I do not know what I want out of life? You are not alone. About ninety eight percent of all people on this planet are in the same boat as you. Here is a useful exercise for finding out what you really want. Imagine, if you will, that you have just won fifty million dollars in the lottery. Close your eyes and imagine all the things you will do for the next few years. These may include buying expensive toys, traveling around the world, buying luxury homes, generally having a great time. But what happens after a couple years when you get bored? Because inevitably you will. Even the wealthiest of the wealthy need something to do with their every day lives. So close your eyes and imagine that you have already done all the things you wanted to do, that you have enhanced your life with luxury items, that you have more money than you could ever possibly need. What do you want to do now? Whatever the answer to that question is, that is something you should begin working towards immediately! Even if what you are doing for a living bears no relation to this goal, once you have identified what it is, you can still begin working towards it.

Visualizing Success What is Visualization? Visualization is a technique which you can employ to improve your attitude and thus attain success. This is an activity that many successful businessmen, athletes, celebrities, and musicians employ as a means of increasing their success even though a lot of them might not realize that what they are doing is actually visualization. The idea of visualization is explored in fascinating detail in the book Psycho Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz. This book is essential to all those who are interested in attitude development. For our purposes, we will take a look at visualization in a nutshell, with an eye towards using it in our day to day lives for the purpose of attitude development. If you want to be successful in your career, then you have to practice going through your day to day motions in your mind before. Visualize yourself in a position of prominence and power a position that you would like to one day attain. How you see and hear yourself in your mind is how you will actually begin to act in your day to day life. In addition to hearing and seeing yourself in your visualization, it is vital that you bring all of your senses in to your vision. The more real your visualizations become, the more effective they will be in the real world. How often should I practice Visualization? If you want to get positive results, then you have to practice visualization a lot. It is like anything else in life in order to get good at something, you have to practice. You do not just arrive there over night. Olympic athletes spend years preparing for their moment of glory. It is like this in every profession, actually. Set aside a time in your schedule each day when you know you will not be interrupted. You should make sure you are in a place where you feel completely relaxed and are all alone. The next step is to make sure you are in a comfy position. It is best to employ one of three traditional meditative positions. One of them is simply lying down on a bed or in a comfortable position on the floor with your legs uncrossed and your arms lying on your side. Another is to sit Indian style on the floor with your back straight up; your palms should be resting on your knees, and your first finger and palm should be touching. Or you can sit in a chair upright, making sure your posture is straight and your palms are facing upwards resting on your knee; again, your thumb and first finger should be touching. Whatever position you decide to use, just make sure that your legs and your arms are not crossed. How will Visualization work for me? The answer to this question depends on who you are and where you see yourself going in life. The key to visualization lies in remembering the simple fact that thoughts are objects. However you are currently performing in your day to day life corresponds to how you see yourself performing cause conditions effect, in other words. This is why it is vital to spend a lot of time in your own mind visualizing yourself at the height of success in your profession. It is even more important than your actual job performance, since your job performance will only increase via visualization.

Once you have defined what your career goals are and are actually able to see them in your mind as though they were right in front of you or currently happening to you with as many senses as possible, only then will you physically arrive at that point and it will happen with lightning fast precision! How long will it take Visualization to work? In order for visualization to really work, your mind has to be fine tuned to know how to use it. This is why you should never lose track of time in fact, your ability to always be in the present is going to be a major factor in determining your attitude and your subsequent success. Visualization is a process it is not merely a means to an end. This is why it is always good to start slow. In the beginning, use visualization as a tool for achieving small things. Then, over time, as your visualization skills improve and you are able to experience things fully with all five senses, the content of your visualization and your goals will grow on its own. Whatever problems you may have in your professional life, try to visualize it as otherwise without those problems. Only then will you be able to find ways to overcome the obstacles holding you back.

Use Your Assets What are Assets? The dictionary defines an asset as a valuable or useful thing or quality. The fact of the matter is, whether we are rich or poor, we all have assets. On the flipside of that coin, we all have liabilities as well. The trick is to learn how to use the former by discarding the latter. In order to make use of ones assets, one needs to have one thing: that is, guts. If you have not already defined your direction in life, you need to do so on paper immediately. Once you have done that, you should have the power and the guts to confront yourself. Take a good, critical look at both your assets and your liabilities. This is the moment of truth that you have been waiting for all along. It will probably seem like a much easier task to merely sweep all the liabilities you possess under the carpet and forget about them, right? Wrong. The pile of trash is highly toxic, and it can grow to be so big that it takes up your entire house. It will eventually start a fire, or more likely, explode, and its flames will consume you entirely! As Michael Jackson says in his famous song Man in the Mirror, it is time to make a change! It is time to be completely honest with yourself. Where are you right now in life? Are you at the place you want to be? Get a grip on reality, grab on to your assets, and start moving towards your goal in life! How Do I Use My Assets? The vast majority of individuals on this planet spend their entire lives sitting on their assets without ever bothering to make use of them in a productive fashion. Procrastination is an incredibly bad ingredient for success. And the fact is, a lot of people spend most of their lives procrastinating, rather than taking action. It is almost like they would rather sit around fantasizing about success rather than going out there and attaining it.

It should not be this way. As any good mentor knows, one should always do the very best with whatever one has even if it seems to be very little. The next step is constant movement. Whenever we are on this planet, we are either growing constantly or just sitting there waiting to die. When one is green, that means they are growing; when they are ripe, on the other hand, this means that you are rotting and about to die. Do not let yourself die! You have a lot of time to achieve your goals. So do not waste it! Where are My Assets? First off, you should take a good, critical look at just where you are right now in terms of your professional life. Are you prepared to go further than where you currently are? Opportunities probably await you. Now the goal is figuring out the best way of attaining them. It is no coincidence that less than ten percent of all Americans take the time to write out their goals in life. This does not necessarily mean you should take time out from your busy schedule to plan every single move. But one question you should ask yourself now is, how much time have you spent in the past year planning your career? Chances are, you have probably spent more time planning your next vacation then you have on plotting your next career move! Whether we like it or not, our attitude towards life can have a significant impact on the quality of that life. By learning how to listen to our inner selves, we can figure out how our inner thought process works and how it may have a bearing on the way we deal with stress in our daily lives. A lot of people discover that their internal dialogue is largely negative. If you find yourself thinking negative thoughts all the time, then you do not have a positive attitude. Can Others Help Me Use My Assets? The best way to succeed in any kind of business is to surround oneself with highly successful individuals who are currently operating in that field. Of course, it can be quite an ego boost to hang out with people who are less successful than you. But this should only be done on an occasional basis. Hanging out with less successful individuals ultimately stifles your creativity and your growth as a human being and as a professional. Rather, try to surround yourself as often as possible with people who inspire you, who can teach you and guide you. Such individuals will not only help you become successful they will also help build your character and transform your attitude in to a positive one.

Practice Makes Perfect Can Practicing Help Improve My Attitude? You bet it does. But it is not as simple as merely practicing whatever it is that you want to get good at. You have to learn how to practice the right way. Indeed, practicing can be used in virtually every profession as a way of getting good at something. But instead of practicing to make perfect, we should first practice in a perfect way in order to realize perfection. Sound confusing? Let us take a look at the differences between merely practicing and perfectly practicing. This is the key towards realizing the difference between mediocrity and greatness. If you are a musician or an athlete, for instance, you already know the importance of practicing. But it is the way the practice is carried out that truly matters. If you are just going through the motions,

practicing for a certain amount of time each day just to say that you have practiced, then you are really not doing enough. While attaining a degree of strength and endurance is indeed important to any profession, this is not the end goal of practicing it is but one component of the end goal. After all, what good is having a lot of strength and endurance if it just means you can be a mediocre athlete or an okay piano player for a longer period of playing time? The point is that quality practicing is a lot more important than a time based, i.e. quantitative approach to practicing. How Can I Develop Better Habits? We are all defined by our individual limitations as human beings. As such, as the old saying goes, we are all slaves to our habits. Once you fully realize this, you can then make a conscious decision to develop better habits. That can be one of your long-term goals in life. Not only is this essential for becoming better at your chosen vocation, but it can also help you get rid of bad habits that are ultimately self defeating. How we practice and exercise both in a mental and physical fashion determines how well we perform once we test our skills in a real world environment. Of course, our musician and athlete, to continue with the example we used above, must first towards building up their endurance and strength before they are able to attain the minimum level of competency on the playing field and when they come before their instruments. But before getting their bodies involved, they will first need to examine their mental state. How Can I Test Myself? One method of making sure that we are putting our practice and our mental exercises to good use is to administer tests to oneself every once in a blue moon. If you are a musician, this is rather easy you need simply record yourself performing. People in other fields can find similar means of testing their abilities on a regular basis. Like the tape recorder example used above, the idea is to find an objective outside source for displaying your skills so that you can then critique them. Perhaps that outside source will be another person a trusted colleague in your chosen profession, for example, who you can rely on to give you honest feedback. It is then up to you to listen to that feedback and analyze it before deciding what to do with it. Some of their criticism and advice might be useful while some of it may not. If you trust the individual, then hopefully most of it will be useful. Its usefulness will be largely contingent on its relation to your ultimate goals in life. What If I Feel Like I Am Not Moving Forward Fast Enough? You just have to have a relaxed attitude towards practicing. You will want to practice reaching your goals at a very slow pace at first. This will help you understand each and every point of your goal, and will give you a fuller consciousness towards going about its accomplishment. All of your goals must come from within. If you listen too much to what other people think and allow their perspective to influence you, then you will find that you are working to attain personal goals that are not personal at all rather, goals that have been set for you by someone outside of you. Motivation must always be tempered to a certain extent by realism. In order to fully convince your unconscious mind that your goal in life is realizable, then you have to believe that the goal is something that can actually be accomplished. The only thing that is left, then, is to figure out the exact path you will take towards achieving your goal and thus attaining the level of success that you already know you deserve.

How to Adjust Your Attitude Do you pay attention to your attitude with an eye on improving it? If the answer to this question is no, then you have a lot of work to do. Let us be honest with ourselves for a minute nobody is perfect. Each and every one of us has bad days. This is why it is vital to always keep one eye peeled on your attitude to make sure it does not have a negative impact on your environment and thus make everything a whole lot worse than it already is. Anger management is a major issue in this day and age. Having a bout of anger that you cannot control is indeed a frightening experience not only for you, but also for everyone around you. There are ways of learning how to handle your emotions. Of course, one of the best known techniques of dealing with anger management problems is to stop everything you are doing, breathe deeply, and count to ten. Another way of mastering your anger management problem is to utilize what is known in the self-help world as positive affirmation. This technique teaches you how to silence your inner critic and listen to what the more positive voices inside us are trying to tell us as we go about our daily endeavors. You should never allow your inner critic to overwhelm your thoughts. The most positive aspects of your thought will always come from a place of self-love. Learn to accept your shortcomings as a human being, and you will position yourself on the road towards attaining a positive attitude. Making positive affirmations to yourself throughout the day even when you are not feeling stressed or angry is a great way of combating that inner critic or if not combating him, then at least tempering his voice with positive reinforcement. The most successful individuals are those who manage to find equilibrium between the positivity and negativity in their lives and are thus able to maintain a healthy attitude. Do you ever seek advice from your colleagues on improving your attitude? The people closest to you are the ones most familiar with your temperament and therefore the people who know best how you can make improvements in that area. So do not be embarrassed to ask them for advice on ways you might be able to improve your working environment through your behavior. Not only should you occasionally consult with others on your attitude, it can be a good idea to surround yourself with individuals who clearly have positive attitudes towards life. You will find that such individuals tend to be the most successful. Learning to accept the fact that we depend on other people for growth and guidance is the first step towards developing a healthy attitude. You might feel that relying excessively on other people intrudes on your sense of independence and freedom. It is natural to feel this way to a certain extent. At specific moments in life, we will all need to call on others for help and support. Otherwise we are unable to grow as individuals. Do you know what you want out of life? If the answer to this question is no, then I am afraid you have a long way to go, my friend. The more ambitious individuals are constantly on the look out for ways of becoming successful in life. These types of folks want to be something more than a person who just gets by. The question then becomes How do I rise above mediocrity? How can I get to the point where I have more time, money, and energy than I actually need?

No one is born with a winning attitude. This is a skill that is learned over time and by transforming our negative experiences in to learning experiences. Are you a victim of "Bad Luck"? The truth is, a lot of people spend the vast duration of their time on this planet wandering around looking for a dream to follow. These people are rarely successful. When things do not work out for them, they blame other people around them, or maybe even blame society for holding them back. Or they might claim that they never had the luck that others around them might have had. We all know the type. Some of us might even be that type. Of course, this is a lot of baloney. The key toward becoming successful in life lies in knowing what direction you are traveling in and recognizing that the road to accomplishing your goal might not be completely smooth. The bumps that we encounter along the way are what make us authentic as human beings. These mistakes can be avoided when we learn from them. We can use them as the foundation for building a winning attitude.

The Psychology of Attitude What is attitude? Attitude is, in a word, how you express your likes and dislikes towards particular people, things, and occurrences. Attitudes can be positive, negative, or neutral. It is also common to have more than one of these feelings towards something when that happens, for example, in the case of a person both likes and dislikes something at once, we say that that persons attitude is ambivalent. Attitudes are typically derived from judgments, which everyone makes. In psychology, it is believed that attitudes are rooted in an ABC approach: that is, affect, behavioral change, and cognition. When we talk about an affective response to something, this is a physiological response to a particular stimulus that effectively expresses that persons preference. The behavioral component is that individuals verbal indication of what they intend to do. Finally, there is the cognitive response. This describes the individuals cognitive evaluation of the entity, which is then used in the formation of an attitude. It is believed that the attitude formation process as described above tends to happen as the result of observational learning in a persons environment. Since a lot of human behavior is irrational, it is tough to characterize what the exact connection is between ones attitude and ones behavior. There might be an individual, for example, who encourages others to donate blood, but refuses to donate blood himself or herself. Perhaps the person is afraid of the sight of blood. This explains the irrationality. This irrationality sets humans apart from other animals. How does one change their attitude? It is possible to change someones attitude via persuasion. The work of psychologist Carl Hovland in the mid 20th century helped psychologists gain a further grasp on what persuasion entails. Hovland established that attitude change had to be understood as a response to communication. Experimental research was conducted in the following areas as a means of understanding the process of attitude change: target characteristics, source characteristics, message characteristics, and cognitive routes.

Target characteristics are those characteristics that refer to the individual who is receiving and then processing a message. One of these characteristics is intelligence. The more intelligent an individual is, the less likely he or she will be persuaded by a one sided message. Self esteem is another major target characteristic that has been the subject of some investigation. While it was once believed that individuals with high self esteem were less likely to be persuaded, recent evidence has emerged that self esteem is actually curvilinear. What this means is that individuals with moderate self esteem are more likely to be persuaded, while those with either high or low self esteem are not. The mood and mind frame of an individual also weighs heavily when we are talking about target characteristics. Then there are what is known as source characteristics. Attractiveness, expertise, and trustworthiness are all major source characteristics. One of the key variables in source characteristics is credibility. When an individual reads an article on health, for example, and find out that it has come from a medical journal, they might be more likely to believe its accuracy than if they are told it came from a normal newspaper. Hovland found that credibility does not have a very long lasting effect, however. Over time, the importance of credibility tends to disappear over time. Then there are message characteristics. The exact nature of a particular message can play a major role in persuading individuals. A lot of time, a presentation of both sides to a case will help someone change their attitude. Finally, there are cognitive routes. This describes the process whereby a message appeals to a particular individuals cognitive evaluation and thus helps them change their attitude towards a particular subject. In the main route to persuasion, the person will be presented with data and subsequently motivated to evaluate that data before arriving at a conclusion that necessitates a change of attitude. Then there is the peripheral route to changing someones attitude, wherein the person is encouraged not to look at the content of a message but at its source. This method is frequently employed by advertising campaigns that utilize celebrities. In other case, an expert or doctor might be used to persuade people of some truth. How does attitude affect ones career? It is widely considered key by employers to have people in the work place who have positive attitudes. What are implicit attitudes? A lot of research has been done in recent years on implicit attitudes. These are unconscious attitudes, but they have major effects on our waking lives. Implicit attitudes are identified through specific sophisticated tests that measure peoples response times to stimuli. Just how much effect implicit attitudes have on our day to day lives has yet to be determined by medical science.

Washing Your Brain

Is Brainwashing good? Common consensus has it that brainwashing is a bad thing. When people think of brainwashing, they think of the Cold War or the movie A Clockwork Orange. When you think about it on a deeper level, however, we find that it is healthy to wash everything else in our lives. So why not our brains, also? We wash our clothes, our cars, our bodies, and our dishes on a regular basis. But the most important thing in life, however, is our brain. So why should we keep everything around us impeccably clean while neglecting what is the most important tool we will use in life? When you think about it, couldnt the vast majority of people you know use a good brainwashing every now and again? The dictionary defines washing as a means of purifying or cleansing. Our brains are undoubtedly tools that need a good washing every now and again. Not only should they be washed, they should also be maintained. After all, if we neglect to wash the dishes, then what begins to happen to them after a short period of time? They begin to grow moldy, disgusting. This is why you wash the dishes after you have a meal, each and every time. Consistent washing is vital for the maintenance of a house and a body it is also vital for the maintenance of a brain. How does my brain get dirty? Whether you are aware of it or not, your brain gets a little dirty each and every day. You can control this situation by taking charge and deciding what you allow inside your brain effectively washing it or allow the world to decide what goes in to your brain, which effectively makes it dirty. The answer to this little riddle is simple after all, who do you think cares more about your brain you or the world? By selecting what you allow in to your brain, you determine what your attitude will be towards life, and thus have a higher chance of succeeding. How, may you ask, does one go about nurturing and cultivating a positive attitude? The answer is simple: Autosuggestion.

Developing Your Attitude Among Mentors How do I become like those I admire? In the book The Master Key to Riches, author Napoleon Hill interviewed over five hundred of the most successful men of his era including Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, Alexander Graham Bell, and Thomas Edison to get some insight in to how these geniuses and high achievers had attained their high degree of success in life. The results of this study were published in the form of The Law of Success, an encyclopedia of seventeen principles that were common in the thinking of all these men. One of the main principles is the mastermind idea. This idea basically states that we become like those individuals we surround ourselves with. In fact, a variety of things in our immediate environment have an impact on our day to day lives from the movies we watch to the books we read and beyond. This is a key way of maximizing ones potential for a healthy attitude that will lead one to new plateaus of success. Everyone has a choice in life. It is possible to allow outside factors to have an influence on our thoughts, attitudes, and goals in life. They can have an impact in a negative way, by letting underachieving, degrading people with bad attitudes play a dominant role in our lives; or we can eliminate those people

altogether from our lives and focus on surrounding ourselves with more positive influences. Each individual is the master of his or her own environment. Nobody else should be allowed to influence that. How do I surround myself with Mentors? The best way to succeed in any kind of business is to surround oneself with highly successful individuals who are currently operating in that field. Those individuals can be thought of as mentors people who you can turn to as role models and guidance throughout your career. Once you have defined which aspect of a particular business you wish to pursue in life, you should then make a list of colleagues in that particular field who you have the utmost respect for. Of course, it is not possible to surround oneself exclusively with individuals who are more successful than you happen to be. But by understanding this, you can purposefully choose to surround yourself with such people as often as possible, and thus spend less of your time surrounded by individuals who block your growth or consume your day to day life with trivial matters. Should I drop my old friends? While a lot of people tend to choose friends among people who are less successful than them because it boosts their self esteem, this should only be done on a limited basis. The reason why is that such individuals rarely inspire us as a matter of fact, they might wind up stifling ones creativity. This is why it is always best to surround oneself with those who are slightly more successful than us people we can readily see ourselves becoming one day. These people might be slightly older than us, or just a bit more advanced in their profession. How many Mentors should I have? It is always beneficial to have at least one mentor in life. Perhaps you feel uncomfortable with the idea of having a mentor. After all, you do not want to copy someone, right? A lot of people are afraid of the idea of having a mentor, fearing that they will somehow lose a part of themselves by consciously emulating someone else. But the fact is, everyone in life depends on other people for guidance. When we are first born, we know nothing we are like blank slates. We depend on those around us to guide us and teach us things. Everything that you learned in life, you learned from other people. By identifying those who we feel will have a positive impact on our growth and development, we are providing ourselves with a clear definition of what we wish to one day become. Of course, one does not have to associate personally with ones mentors. There are numerous ways to connect with a mentor. Reading books that the mentor has written, or reading books about them this is one positive way of seeking guidance from mentors in life. In fact, reading books can be even more useful than having a personal association with someone, as it gives you direct insight in to their thinking process and can thus teach you how to assimilate their thought process in to your own. Do you already find yourself surrounded by individuals who you want to become? Then you have already begun to travel down the road of success. If your answer to that question is no, then you may want to take a long, hard look at the people you surround yourself with.

Adjusting Your Attitude for Success

Does the people around you affect your attitude? Lets face the facts here. Each individual has a choice in life. It is possible to allow outside factors to have an influence on our goals in life. They can have an impact in a negative way, by letting people with bad attitudes play a dominant role in our lives; or we can eliminate those people altogether and focus on surrounding ourselves with positive influences. Everyone is the master of his or her own atmosphere. Nobody else should be allowed to influence that. If you have a bad attitude, then everyone you live and work with will notice. And this certainly does not endear you to them. A bad attitude is a like a bad smell it is something that people will go out of their way to avoid. This certainly is not going to do wonders towards the enhancement of your career. Once you have arrived at the point wherein you know what you want to do in life, you should then try to compose a mental image of all the people in that field who have come before you and succeeded. Try to read books by or about those individuals. If it is possible, then you should also try to connect with them on a personal basis. By surrounding ourselves with successful individuals, we increase our own chances of becoming successful at work. Are you "A Mood Polluter? If a situation is stressful, then having a bad attitude will only make it worse. On the contrary, those who have positive attitudes often have the power of transforming a stressful, negative situation in to a positive one with the force of their mere presence. If you want to be successful at work, then you will want to avoid becoming a mood polluter. Mood polluters are those individuals whose mere presence destroys the atmosphere. Not only do such individuals create stress and make others reluctant to deal with them, they also do themselves a lot of harm by effectively discouraging promotion and other positive perks that might come to them otherwise. If you think you might be a mood polluter, then one way of changing your ways is to utilize positive affirmation. This is a technique wherein you try to eliminate all the negative thoughts in your head and replace them with positive thoughts. By making positive affirmations, we take control of our own destinies and develop our attitudes in to tools for long-term success. Positive affirmation simultaneously provides us with the energy that we need to go out there in to the world and accomplish our goals, one at a time. Are you an affirmer or a denier? Affirmations are things that way say to ourselves that effectively either destroy or build our self-esteem. When it comes to building ones success in life, then self-esteem is of vital importance. But then there is another voice in our head that we must confront. This is the voice of denial. It is this voice that attempts to negate every positive affirmation we make. Earlier, we talked of mood polluters. But there is such a thing as mind polluters as well. Mind polluters are in all of us it is just that some of us know how to combat them. One way of combating the pollution of denial is to write down each and every one of your negative thoughts throughout the day. After writing it down, think deeply about it for a moment. You should be able to come up with a positive component to that negative thought. Once this process has occurred, you can strike out the negative thought and write down the positive thought that replaces it. This is the ultimate thought that will count, and the only one you want to pay attention to unless, of course, you do not want to be a success in life.

Do you learn from your mistakes? No one in life is perfect. We all do things we later regret. The key is learning how to transform these negative experiences in to positive ones. And the key to this transformation is knowledge. Keeping a journal can be an excellent way of keeping track of your mistakes and postulating ways of avoiding such mistakes in the future. Since most people tend to repeat the same mistakes their entire lives, by writing them down and thus becoming more introspective we avoid the chances that we will fall in to this repeat offender category. If you do find yourself repeating your mistakes over and over again, try to ask yourself what the root of your repeat offending might be. It is obvious that you have not yet figured it out, so think long and hard before continuing to move forward. This type of introspection provides the ultimate barrier to failure in all its ugly forms.

Attitude Development : Comparing Yourself to Others Where is Your Career Going? This is a question that most professionals will ask themselves at one point or another in their lives. Once you have determined what your goals in life are, the next thing you will want to do is take action. You can begin by doing something that might sound highly unusual. You should do everything that most people would never dare do. Let us look at the facts. Many individuals do not plan for the long term. Most people do not have goals that they set themselves in life. Most people do not ever succeed in life. In fact, a lot of people do not do much of anything. The key is, then, to do everything that most people would never bother doing something that you have already begun by setting yourself goals. If we look at how we spend most of our time, the vast majority of us devote many of our waking hours to either achieving goals or relieving stress. The planning of time can be a successful activity for the achievement of goals. Some people, however, spend much of the time attempting to relieve stress. Achieving a balance between these two activities is key for attaining and maintaining a positive attitude. Who are "Most People? The fact is that many people do the minimum it takes to just get by in life. In the United States, the figures are rather alarming. According to the statistics, most Americans are seriously in debt and / or completely broke by the time they reach the age of sixty five. Thirty six percent of individuals at that age are no longer living. Five percent still have to work. Only four percent are in comfortable financial positions; only one percent of the retiree population in the United States is wealthy. The fact is that most people are broke by the time they get to retirement age, not because they planned on failing, but because they failed to plan ahead. Those in the five percentile who do manage to accomplish something with their lives, who do not let the future overtake them, can be credited with having the good sense to plan ahead. It has been proven time and again that the more time one devotes to planning and thinking about ones goals, the further ones career and financial success goes. How do I take control of my destiny? It is no coincidence that less than ten percent of all Americans take the time to write out their goals in

life. This does not necessarily mean you should take time out from your busy schedule to become a fanatic when it comes to planning every single move. But one question you should ask yourself now is, how much time have you spent in the past year planning your career? Chances are, you have probably spent more time planning your next vacation than you have on plotting your next career move! How can I Plan for Success? First off, you should take a good, critical look at just where you are right now in terms of your professional life. Are you prepared to go further than where you currently are? Opportunities probably await you. Now the goal is figuring out the best way of attaining them. The first step in achieving any long term goal is to love you. Even the most successful people in the world do not appreciate their own success when they feel that they do not deserve it. Deep down inside, you should feel confident that you, of all people, deserve to have success in your professional life. If you do not have very ambitious goals, then this should not be much of a problem. But if you are one of those rare human beings who sets the hurdles high for themselves, then learning to love yourself may very well indeed be the biggest hurdle you will ever have to overcome in order to attain success. This is not to say that you should be conceited or constantly boast about your accomplishments. Behaving as such is usually a sign that deep down inside, you feel inadequate. It really just means having the self confidence to go about your daily life in a way that will help you achieve your goals. If you are lacking in the self confidence department, then chances are great that your colleagues and clients will pick up on this fact immediately. They will then have very little faith in your talents and abilities. The people with high self esteem and positive attitude are the ones who tend to succeed in life. In order to be great, you have to emanate greatness. Once you have all this under control, then you will be ready to go out there and become successful in your chosen field.