HOW TO BUILD A POSITIVE ATTITUDE

Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude towards it, for that determines our Success or failure. (Norman Vincent Peale)

During Childhood, we form attitudes that last a lifetime. Undoubtedly, it will be easier to acquire a positive attitude during our formative years. If the combination of your inborn temperament and your early childhood experiences have produced a positive attitude, you are indeed very fortunate. But if you have you acquired a negative attitude, whether by design or by default, are you stuck with it? Of course not. Can you change? Yes. Is it easy? Absolutely not! Is it worth it? You bet!

How Do You Build And Maintain A Positive Attitude?

★. Desire to be positive.
★. Become aware of the principles that build a positive attitude.
★. Cultivate the discipline and dedication to practice those principles.

As adults, regardless of our environment, education and experience, who is responsible for our attitude? We are. We have to accept responsibility for our behaviour and actions. Some people blame everyone and everything but themselves. It up to us to choose our attitude every morning.
People with negative attitudes often blame the whole world, their parents, teachers, spouse, bosses, the stars, fate, luck, the economy and the government for their failures.

You have to get away from the past. Dust yourself off and get back into the mainstream. Put your dreams together and move forward. Thinking of the positive things that are true, honest and good, will put you in a positive state of mind.

SOME STEPS TO A CHANGE OF ATTITUDE

If you wan to build and maintain a positive attitude, you need to consciously practice the following:

Change Focus, Look For The Positive

You need to become a seeker of good. You need to focus on the positive in your life. Start looking for what is right in a person or situation instead of looking for what is wrong. Because of our conditioning, most of us are so attuned to finding fault and looking for what is wrong that we often forget to see the positive picture.

Look For The Gold

Andrew Carnegie came to America from Scotland as young boy. He started out by doing odd jobs and ended up as one of the largest steel manufacturers in United States. At one time, he had 43 millionaires working for him.
A million dollars is a lot of money today, but in the 1920s it was worth much more. Someone once asked Mr. Carnegie how he dealt with people, Andrew Carnegie replied, "Dealing with people is lot like digging for gold. When you go digging for an ounce of gold, you have to move tons of dirt. But when you go digging, you don't go looking for the dirt, you go looking for the gold". Andrew Carnegie's reply has a very important message. Though sometimes it may not be apparent there is something positive in every person and every situation. We have to dig deep to look for the positive.
What is your focus? Search for the gold. If you are looking for what is wrong with people or with things, you will find many faults. What are we looking for? Gold or Dirt? Even in paradise, fault finders will find faults. Most people find what they are looking for whether good or bad one.

Robert Fulton invented the steamboat. He displayed his new invention on the banks of the Hudson River.
Among the crowd who had gathered around to observe the steamboat were some pessimists and skeptics. They commented that it would never start. But lo and behold, it did start. As it made its way down the river, the pessimists who said it would never start, saw it start, immediately shouted now it would never stop.What an Attitude!

There was a hunter who bought an amazing bird dog. This one kind of a dog could walk on water. The hunter was looking forward to showing off his new acquisition to his friends. He invited a friend to go duck hunting. After some time, they shot a few ducks and the man ordered his dog to fetch the birds. All day long, whenever there were birds to be fetched, the dog ran on water to retrieve the birds. The owner was expecting his friend to comment or compliment him about his amazing dog, but never got one. As they were returning home, he asked his friend if he had noticed anything unusual about his dog. The friend replied, "Yes, in fact, I do notice something unusual. Your dog can't swim".
Hmm, can you imagine that attitude.
Some people always look for the negative side.
Never be a Pessimist.

BE AN OPTIMIST

How can one be an optimist? It is well described by the following:
" Be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. Talk health, happiness and Prosperity to every person you meet. Make all your friends feel that you appreciate their good qualities and strengths. Look at the sunny side of everything. Think only of the best, work only for the best and expect only the best. Be as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own. Forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future. Give everyone a smile. Spend so much time improving yourself that you have no time left to criticize others. Be too big for worry and too noble for anger".

MAKE A HABIT OF DOING IT NOW
He slept beneath the moon, he basked beneath the sun, he lived a life of going to do and died with nothing done. (James Albery)

We have all procrastinated at some time in our lives. I know I have, only to have regretted it later. Procrastination leads to a negative attitude. The habit of procrastination fatigues you more than the effort it takes to do it. A completed task is fulfilling and energizing; an incomplete task drains energy. If you want to build and maintain a positive attitude, get into the habit of living in the present and doing it now.

Some people practice procrastination by hiding behind high sounding words, like "I'm analyzing" and six months later they are still analyzing. What they don't realize is that they are suffering from a disease called: Paralysis by analysis and they will never succeed. Then there is another breed of people who procrastinate by saying "I'm getting ready". A month later they are still getting ready and six months later they are still getting ready. What they don't realize is they are suffering from a disease called "Excusitis". They keep making excuses.

Life is not a dress rehearsal. I don't care what philosophy you believe in, we have got only one shot at this game called Life. The stakes are too high to waste your life. The stakes are the future generations. What time is it and where are we? The answer is now and we are here. Let's make the best of now and utilize the present to the fullest. The message is not that we don't need to plan for the future. The message is that we do need to plan for the future. If we utilize our present to it's fullest, we are sowing the seeds for a better future.
To build a positive attitude, learn the phrase, " do it now" and stop the habit of procrastination.

The saddest words in life are:

★. It might have been
★. I should have
★. I could have
★. I wish I had
★. If only I had given a little extra

Never leave till tomorrow, what you can do today. (Benjamin Franklin)

Hmmn, let me stop here for now. Hope this helps.
Thanks for stopping by.
Its still your boy Tonybest.