The secret is in your attitude…

“It’s going to be one of those days again.”
“Somebody has got to do it”
“This news just makes me sick”
“Now everything is going to rise in price again”
“With my luck, I will be at the station when my ship comes in.”

Does any of the above sound familiar to you? You probably hear and say statements like these every day. Have you ever thought what impact such negative statements can have on your life? The more we hear and say such things, the less we tend to anticipate good things to happen in our lives.

The backbone of success is more often than not found in old fashion concepts like: hard work, determination, belief in yourself and perseverance. As children we are told to dream big, to shoot for the stars. As we grow up we become disappointed with the world and other people, and slowly stop dreaming big and expecting good things. As a defense mechanism we start to lower our expectations.

Many people get up in the morning and expect it to be a lousy day - that way when it is a lousy day you don’t need to feel bad about it. We start developing thoughts like “nothing good ever happens to me”. We walk into a room anticipating that people won’t like us, go to the store expecting not to find what we are looking for, and go for a job interview expecting not to get it. Lowering our expectations is a defense mechanism to protect us against pain and disappointment. Yes, you will have lousy days. Yes, frustrating things happen often. Yes, you won’t get every job interview you go for. Of course you will encounter challenges and disappointments, but people give up too easily.

Many people walk around with the illusion that life should be easy and things should come easily to them. But life is both good and bad; there will be both success and disappointment. Thinking life is “all good”, is just a fantasy that promotes denial and makes you start doubting that your time for success will come.

Every morning when you get out of bed, you should declare, “Something good is going to happen to me today”. Live with a clear vision and expectation that good things are going to happen to you. You have to set the tone at the beginning of each day. Throughout the day you should have an attitude of expectancy- like a child waiting to open a gift.

We all have had disappointments and unfair situations, but do not make the mistake of living in a negative frame of mind. You need to turn it around. We need to become grateful for what we have. You’re grateful when you’re aware of what you have rather than what you don’t. We need to practice this attitude of gratitude by looking for things to be grateful for and looking for the beauty in the world.

In the science of positive psychology, gratitude has been shown to be amongst the most positive attitudes to cultivate. Recent studies are beginning to show that gratitude has a uniquely powerful relationship with wellbeing. Over time you can change the programming in the brain by practicing gratitude.

You automatically focus on what’s going well in your life and notice those things more often in a positive feedback loop. The more you practice gratitude for everything in your life, the more things you find to be grateful for. With practice you can develop gratitude the way you can with any skill, such as cooking or learning to play an instrument. The more you practice, the easier feeling grateful becomes. The more grateful you are for everything in your life, the more things you find to be grateful for!

Challenge yourself to become more grateful for the incredible life you have. Your life may not be perfect, but you need to start noticing the good things in your life and becoming grateful for what you have.

For example, if you have a long commute to work in the car, you could feel grateful that you can afford a car; that you have a job to drive to; that you have the ability to drive; that you have some time to be by yourself and listen to the radio. If you’re stuck in traffic, what are you going to do about it? By getting angry and stressed you accomplish nothing. You might as well sit back and enjoy the music, or appreciate the beautiful sunset. In today’s world, people spend so much time complaining that they don’t leave any room for gratefulness. Even if your life is not where you want it to be, you can always find things to be grateful for.

Source: If you want to you can. A life of success & a spirit of excellence, Lynette Beer

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