Have a Positive Attitude

“Keep your face always towards the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you.”

 

Opening Story:

The Black Dot

One day, a professor entered the classroom and announced a surprise test. Hearing this, all students got anxious and started thinking about what would come up in the test. The professor distributed the question paper, with the front side facing down. After handing over the papers to all the students, he asked them to turn the page and start the test. To everyone’s surprise, there were no questions in the test paper. There was just a black dot in the center of the page. Everyone was startled and looked at the professor in awe. The professor told the students:

“I want you to write a few lines about what you see on the paper.”

All the students were stupefied but since they didn’t have a choice, they started writing the answer.

Once everyone was through with the test, the professor collected all the answer sheets, and started reading out each answer aloud in front of the whole class. Without an exception, all the students had written about the black dot, mentioning about its position, size etc. After reading out all the answers, the professor addressed the students and told them:

“None of you will be graded on this test. I just wanted you to ponder over something. All of you wrote about the black dot. No one wrote about the white part of the paper. The same thing happens in our lives too. We all have a white paper to observe and learn from, yet we always focus on the dark spots. We have so many reasons to celebrate – our parents, co-workers, friends, good health, a satisfactory job, a child’s smile, the miracles we witness every day, and so on.

However, we simply limit our horizons by focusing on just the dark spots – our disappointments, our frustrations, our fears and anxieties, things that bother us, people that wronged us, etc. In our day-to-day lives, we tend to take so many good things for granted, and focus our energy on insignificant dot-like failures and disappointments.”

Though these dark spots are quite small as compared to the good things that we have in our lives, yet they perturb our minds and do not let us think positively.

Take your eyes away from the black dots of your life. Try and focus on the brighter side of life and let positivity govern your thoughts.

Your attitude determines the state of the world you live in. It is the foundation for every success and every failure you have had and will have. It will make you or break you.

Your attitude controls your life. But the good news? You control your attitude.

Attitude creates the way you feel about people and situations. Your actions are a result of your attitude—which in turn creates a reaction from others.

It is your attitude toward others and the universe that determines the resulting attitude toward you. Have a positive, joyful attitude and you’ll have positive, joyful results. Put out a bad, negative attitude and you’ve failed before you begin.

Basically, what you think is you get.

It sounds simple, but the truth is, it is:

Where do negative attitudes come from?

Negative attitudes come from thinking negative thoughts over and over until they become part of your subconscious, part of your personality—they become habitual. You may not even realize you have a negative attitude because it’s been with you for so long. Once you have a bad attitude, you expect failure and disaster. And that expectation turns you into a magnet for failure and disaster.

Then it becomes a vicious cycle: You expect the worst, so you get the worst. Your negative beliefs are reinforced. So, you expect the worst, and you get the worst

So, how do you shift your thoughts and create a positive attitude?

It takes work, but creating anything of value takes work. In order to have a new attitude, you have to change your subconscious thinking. How? By analyzing every thought, you have until positive thinking becomes habit. You’re merely replacing an old habit with a healthy habit, much like replacing smoking with exercise.

You can’t just stop being negative—you have to replace those negative thoughts with positive ones.

Some people would say, “But negative situations are a reality. They just show up in everyday life.”

This is absolutely not true. Situations are a reality, yes. They do show up, yes. It is your attitude that makes a situation positive or negative. It’s time for you to realize that you are in control of how you think and feel—no one else on earth has this power unless you give it away.

Take control of your attitude, your state of mind, and you take control of your results.

There are only two kinds of attitudes: good and bad. Your attitude is your control center. It’s a frame of mind—the way we view and approach every aspect of life. We reap what we sow. If we have a positive attitude, we expect the best and act accordingly. If we have a negative attitude, we expect the worst and act accordingly.

A group of people was given a half sheet of paper, and asked to answer the question briefly: What Determines Attitude? Here are the most common responses:

• It depends on the mood I’m in.
• The day of the week—bad mood on Monday, good mood on Friday.
• Where I am.
• What I’m doing.
• It all depends on who I’m with.
• The weather.

According to your answers, your attitudes are always determined by something outside yourself. You may think that you have no choice in the matter and no control over them. Your attitudes may be held captive by people, places, times, things, and conditions. WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!

I am about to tell you the most valuable thing you’ll ever learn in life. Your attitude is a choice—the most important one you’ll ever make. You make this choice every minute of every day, and it will influence literally everything you do. Look upon your attitude as the engine that runs your life. The most important thing to understand about this is that your attitude will ALWAYS be a choice, no matter what your circumstances are.

Positive thinking is an optimistic state of mind, which sees the bright side of life. A positive frame of mind brings more harmony and happiness, improves relationships, and attracts success into your life. It is a mindset that you can build up.

 

5 Ways to Boost Your Positive Attitude in Building Relations

If you get your mind in a positive zone, there’s little that can hold you back from having healthy relations, at work, at home, or anywhere else.

Here are five simple ways to keep your attitude up–and keep yours relations strong – even in difficult times:

1. Manage rejection.

It is easy to get discouraged when unwelcomed events occur. The trick is to put them in perspective: Most will pass and become unimportant with time. It’s easy to feel like a single failure or rejection is the end of the world, but it never is. In fact, setbacks often give you an opportunity to turn a rebuff into a win. Once time early in a guy’s sales career, he was literally thrown out of a prospect’s office because she felt he hadn’t respected her tight schedule. He went back to his office, wrote a letter of apology, and sent a gift designed to make her job easier. She became a good customer, and became lasting friends with him.

2. Rid yourself of resentment.

Ongoing resentment erodes your attitude and spirit, and gives the false impression that you have no control over your life. But you made the choices that put you where you are, and you’ll do no good by blaming your circumstances on others. Accept responsibility. Accept that you are the master of your ship–and take command. To keep a positive attitude, embrace the concept that there are no justified resentments in life.

3. Associate with positive people.

Negative people pull others down. If you want to stay positive, stay away from them. Spend as little time with them as possible. Positive people, on the other hand, are almost always winners, and their success rubs off on those who associate with them.

4. Compliment at least one person every day.

When you compliment people, it makes them feel good. Even better, it makes you feel good. You did something nice for them and lifted their spirit. One word of caution: Only make sincere compliments. If you fake it, people will be able to tell, and they’ll look on you with suspicion.

5. Be enthusiastic.

Enthusiasm is contagious and draws others to you like a magnet. You might not always feel enthusiastic, but fortunately there’s something you can do: Force it! As Dale Carnegie taught, “When you act enthusiastic, you will be enthusiastic.”

Positivity is a precious commodity in this chaotic world, but those who cultivate it regularly end up having better relationships. Using these tips as a starting point, look for a chance to infuse your day with happiness in your relations!