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A GOOD ATTITUDE is one of the most important
assets you can have. Let me enumerate some of its benefits quickly.
With a better attitude:
1. Your relationships are fuller, more
harmonious, and more beneficial. Even if you have a great attitude
already, with every improvement you make in your attitude, you'll
have fewer troubles. The better your attitude, the easier it
is to resolve conflicts.
2. Your health is better. Vast reams of
ever-accumulating research show that negative emotions of all kinds are detrimental
to your long-term health and that positive emotions are positively
beneficial for your body and mind.
3. You will make more money. People are
hired and promoted as much for their attitudes as for their skill
and knowledge.
4. You make better decisions. Studies show
that people are more creative and better able to reason in a
good mood than in a bad mood.
5. You will feel happier more often.
Attitude is important. And with just one
technique, you can have a good attitude more often than you do
now. Here it is: Concentrate on having a good attitude.
That's it. Make your attitude one of your central concerns and
you'll find ways and means. Make it a priority in your life to
have a good attitude and you'll change your thoughts, exercise
more regularly, eat quality food, get enough sleep, look at things
with a healthier perspective, communicate better with your loved
ones — you'll naturally find all the ways you can improve
your attitude, and you'll be motivated to do so.
You can deliberately make your attitude
better. But you must concentrate on it. Those who have a good
attitude have learned how because they are committed to
it. And you can be committed and learn how too. Find what works
and discard what doesn't.
Make it a core purpose of yours to keep
a good attitude. Everything else will follow.
how to define a "good attitude"
W. Clement Stone, author of The Success System That Never Fails, calls
it RMA — right mental attitude. The right attitude for the
situation. Not necessarily cheerful or enthusiastic.
Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich, says, "Having a
positive mental attitude means that your actions and thoughts
further your ends; having a negative mental attitude means that
you are constantly undermining your own efforts."
That's almost exactly the way Albert Ellis
defines the difference between rational and irrational. In his
book, A New Guide to Rational Living, he and co-author
Robert Harper say, "RET (Rational Emotive Therapy) shows
you how to distinguish clearly between appropriate emotion, such
as your feeling real sorrow or annoyance when you don't get what
you want, and inappropriate, or self-defeating emotions, such
as your feeling depressed, self-downing, or enraged under the
same conditions."
"By the same token," they go
on, "RET helps you discriminate between rational and irrational
thinking. It holds that rational thinking normally leads to appropriate
and irrational thinking to inappropriate emoting. What do we
label as rational thinking? That kind of thinking that assists
you (1) to survive and (2) to achieve the goals or values you
select to make your survival pleasurable, enjoyable, or worthwhile."
Keep this in mind when you aim for a good
attitude. A good attitude is the right attitude for the circumstances.
It isn't necessarily gleeful.
In a study by a research team at the Laval
University in Quebec shows that people who worry have the skills
necessary to deal with problems, but because of their "problem
orientation" (essentially a negative attitude — negative
beliefs and expectations), they avoid dealing with problems.
But since problems don't go away, they still have to think about
them, and they do it in an avoiding way, producing fear. Result:
worry.
People who worry are not necessarily physically
different than people who don't worry. And their circumstances
aren't any worse than people who don't worry. It is the worrier's
orientation to problems in general that causes their misery.
A negative, problem-orientation is a bad
attitude because it feels bad and it impairs your ability to
solve problems. So it is the wrong attitude. Focus on having
the right attitude. Make it one of your central concerns. It
is important. Concentrate on it.
Have a great attitude by making
it
one of your top priorities.
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