Having control over your attitude will help you navigate through life with a level of mastery. Your view of the world, your perception of your experiences influences how you interact with and what you receive from others. It affects the language you use and our behaviour. Many of us struggle with controlling your attitude. Without knowing these 5 ways you can choose a winning attitude.
1. Letting go of your past — when you always live with the negative experiences of your past you allow fear, people, disappointment and pain to contaminate your attitude. Thus allowing those negative feelings to drive your behaviour. How you act comes from what you think and how you feel about a situation or a person. If those are negative, then you end up allowing your feelings to drive your attitude which is a one-way road to disaster. Nothing ever gets solved by using negativity in a situation. You shouldn’t let the way you feel dictate how you show up in your life or how you deal with situations and others. Action steps: Find a quiet place and write down what situations are affecting you on a daily basis. Also, how does the outcome of the situation affect your attitude?
2. Knowing you have options — most importantly remember you have choices in life which means you can choose your position. When you learn to master your attitude, you won’t fall victim to circumstances or events. In fact, you’ll be the one deciding what attitude you want to have. Therefore you’ll be winning because you’re the ones choosing positive self-take, empowering thoughts and words. You mustn’t fall prey to the unpredictability of your feelings. You have no control over the unpredictability of life, but you can take control of yourselves, decisions and your choices. Action steps: Observe what attitude you have during the day and what needs changing. Then act by taking the steps necessary to make those changes.
3. By reframing — it’s imperative that you focus on reframing your attitude which in turn affects your behaviour. One simple action that will help you cultivate and keep a positive attitude is carefully choosing who we surround ourselves with daily. Toxic people will encourage you to have a heart filled with negative feelings. Those feelings will cause us to feel hopeless and defeated. The people you allow to influence your attitude are essential to it being a winning or losing one. Action steps: find a place where you won’t be disturbed. Ask yourself and answer these three questions. One, what types of conversations am I having with the people around me? Two, who are the people in my circle and how are they influencing me? Three, how are they contributing to my attitude?
4. Building up your confidence — most ofter when you lack confidence, you pick up counterfeit attitudes and behaviours to fill that void. When I observe true confidence in action, I find many delightful attributes. One attribute I love about genuinely confident people is their attitude. It’s welcoming, unthreatened and undaunted. Confident people make decisions from an emotionally secure place which gives them a winning attitude. Action step, on a scale of one to ten where does your confidence fall (ten is high, one is low)? If it falls between one and five, how can you raise your confidence level? Write your answers down and choose to implement them one at a time. Only moving on to the other when you’ve mastered that one.
5. Understanding you’re not alone — it’s incredible how many of us think that we are the only ones with a particular struggle. That my friend is not true. You’re not alone in wanting to have control over your attitude. You’re not alone when it comes to dealing with different struggles in life. You end up feeling like the only one when you isolated yourself and don’t share your struggles with people you trust. If some of us would share our difficulties I believe we would be pleasantly surprised that our family, friends, co-workers, a coach or like-minded group can relate to what we’re experiencing. Another reason to share is that they would be able to guide us and share how they mastered that struggle. It’s very important that you understand and know you’re not alone. Action step: share an attitude struggle you’re experiencing with someone you trust. You may find that they have that issue too or that they’re not judging you because of it. Depending on what it is you both may be able to laugh about it.
You don’t have to take my word for it that attitude matters. Just look around at the people who’re genuinely happy and living a life they love. You’ll find one common thread, that they have a winning attitude. They’re people who are helpful, caring and giving. Most importantly they don’t let their situations define them. These type of people choose to define their situation. They show up and decide to extract only the good from the bad that life throws at them. Therefore, be encouraged that you too can apply these 5 ways you can choose to have a winning attitude. It may take time and require difficult work, but it’s entirely attainable if you want it badly enough.