Gaining an understanding of who you are and what you believe in gives you focus and direction for your life’s journey. Learning and adapting from your experiences keeps moving you forwards.

Your attitude to life develops out of your experiences, and from the way you think and feel. Your attitude is one of the keys to your success, so in this article, let’s take a look at that attitude of yours – and how you can use it to your advantage.

“The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change their future by merely changing their attitude.”

Oprah Winfrey

What sort of attitude do you have? Since it’s such a significant element in your life and your success, it’s important that you understand your attitude and how it might change in different circumstances.

Here are some examples of positive and negative attitudes which will greatly affect the outcome of situations. Some of them affect situations so dramatically that they become self-fulfilling prophecies. For each negative attitude, I’ve suggested a more open, responsible and positive one:

Your attitude colours how you’re perceived by others. It can warm the space between you and help them respond to you more positively. People who are optimistic, energetic and open-minded will generally get or be offered more and better opportunities than those who are cynical, inflexible and narrow-minded. This means that you need to keep your drive and energy strong and focused. If you’ve lost it, what action can you take to find it again?

Your attitude is also the filter through which you see your life. It affects how you choose to respond and react to events and how you perceive your ability to progress, grow and develop. You may not want your attitude to be rose-coloured, but making it positive, responsible, curious and open is a good start!

Attitudes change depending on your relationships, the time of year, your level of motivation, the reward in view, or changing events. They are affected by our experiences. It’s really important that you’re aware of your attitude and what affects it.

What are your basic underlying attitudes? Are you generally a positive, tolerant and open person? Or do you tend to see only the downside of situations?

Just Listen to Yourself!

One way to understand more about your attitude is to be aware of your own internal messaging. This is like a commentary or script that plays in the back of your mind. Or it’s that little voice that you hear sometimes or maybe often!

These messages, the things you tell yourself, may not originally have been your messages. They may have come from someone important in your life: parents, friends, colleagues or other significant influences such as school, magazines or the media. This means that they are part of your conditioning, how you’ve been shaped by your environment or those around you – even if unintentionally.

Here are some messages you could have internalised about a range of topics:

• Attitude – don’t take the risk; settle for what you already have
• Bosses – they always look after themselves
• Actions – first steps are always hard
• Young people – how can they know enough to vote
• Other women – we have the same experience, but I’ll never be as good as her
• Appearance – you can’t make a good impression unless you dress super-smart
• Men – don’t listen, always want to just jump in and fix it
• When things go wrong – it must be my fault
• When things go well – I was just lucky to be in the right place at the right time.

How are your messages similar to these? How do they affect you? What would happen if they were different?!

Oprah Winfrey said that you can change your future just by changing your attitude. If you’d like some help with developing better messaging, to create a more positive future for yourself, let’s talk. Oprah isn’t available, so call me on 0797 707 2760 or email me at sue.hewitt@develomenta.co.uk!

(The seagull of attitude image is by Dariia Lemesheva on Unsplash)