Ch. 10:
Get The Correct Attitude
If you're not happy with your life then it's up to you to alter it. By developing the right attitude you are able to achieve anything you set your sights on.
Look At It The Right Way
Attitude isn't quite everything when it concerns being successful, but attitude plays a part in almost every phase of your life. A pitiful attitude gets more individuals fired than any other single factor, and a good attitude gets individuals jobs and helps them keep those jobs more than any other factor.
Your attitude bears on many individuals, from your family to the stranger you smile at on the street corner. Your attitude is especially important when you face apparently hopeless situations. Losing a job, mate, or friend because of a lousy attitude is unfortunate — particularly because a bad attitude can be doctored .
You can find at least 2 ways to view virtually everything. A pessimist seeks difficulty in the opportunity, whereas an optimist seeks opportunity in the difficulty. A poet of long since put the difference between optimism and pessimism this way: "Two men looked out from prison bars — one saw mud, the other saw stars."
Regrettably, many individuals look only at the trouble and not at the opportunity that lies inside the problem. Many employees complain about the difficultness of their jobs, for instance, not realizing that if the job were easy, the employer would hire somebody with less ability at a lower wage. A little coin can hide even the sun if you hold the coin close enough to your eye. So when you get too close to your troubles to think objectively about them, try to keep in mind how your vision can be blocked, take a step back, and view the situation from a fresh angle. Look up rather than down.
Pessimism muddies up the water of opportunity. Anytime a fresh innovation appears promising to make life easier, somebody always complains that it will take the jobs of individuals. When Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, objectors said that it would put thousands of individuals out of work. Rather, the invention made the production of cloth much cheaper, and millions of individuals could afford more clothing, which created infinite jobs. When the computer was devised, folks believed that individuals would lose their jobs. Some individuals have had to retrain themselves to stay sellable, but almost everybody agrees that computers have created — not deleted — jobs and have improved our capabilities boundlessly.
You can't do anything to alter the fact that a problem exists, but you can do a good deal to find the opportunity within that problem. You're guaranteed a better tomorrow by doing your best today and formulating a plan of action for the tomorrows that lie ahead. Just remember to sustain a positive mental attitude so that, as you plan for tomorrow, you're doing so with the sense of anticipation that produces substantially better results.
Faultfinders still believe that someone pushed Humpty Dumpty, and they'd vote against starting a Pessimist's Club as they don't believe that such a club can work.
Almost half of American workers fall into the cynic class. They distrust just about everything — government, big business, the products they purchase, their employer, supervisors, and co-workers. An additional portion of workers is classed as wary, with strong cynical leanings.
How many friends and how much peace do cynics have? How well do they get along with their spouses, children, and neighbors? Not many, not much, and not very well.
On the sunnier side of life are the idealists — persons who have the tendency to see the best solution in any position. Sow those optimistic seeds, and you raise the optimist shrouded inside you.
Much cynicism is induced by unrealistic expectations — expecting great things to happen to you without any effort on your part. Having high anticipations for yourself is a crucial part of success, but you must as well develop a solid goals program to make those anticipations a reality. Individuals too often view the world through rosy glasses, and when their unrealistic expectations come short, they become cynical and put on woes-colored glasses.
Have you ever been stuck in a traffic jam at the worst possible time? Did you stamp your foot, pound the wheel, shake your fist, and rest on the horn? If so, did you discover that the louder you blew your horn and the fouler you got when you shook your fist, the more quickly the traffic ahead of you opened up and let you go through?
If you follow that foot-stomping, horn-blowing act often enough, you raise your blood pressure, step-up your chances of having a heart attack or getting ulcers, and generally ruin your disposition and shorten your life.
Consider that traffic jam, smile, and say, "crikey! I'll bet it's going to take at least half-hour to get through this mess! In half-hour, if I listen to informational tapes, add to my vocabulary, find new leadership principles, or step-up my knowledge!" Or if you have somebody in the car with you, a traffic jam is a chance for an uninterrupted visit. Use the time to complete a grocery list or plan a surprise for your partners next birthday. Your choices may not be bountiful, but using your time to do meaningful things sure beats "stewing without doing."
You do have an alternative — either you can gain or achieve something while you wait, or you can get distressed and bring on strokes, heart attacks, and hypertension. "People jams" in the office, home, neighborhood, school, playground, and ballpark can be addressed in a similar manner. Though you might not be able to pop in a tape or read a book when others schedules don't conform to yours, you can still unwind and people-watch or use the extra time to work at ideas. You'll be healthier and happier at the end of your day if you take that approach.
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