By Penny Bongato
In your path towards success, you will encounter different problems along the way. You will encounter different kinds, with different approaches, each presented in a different manner. However, what is important is how you view them rather than what they are.
An example of this would be feeling down. Run a day feeling down and you will think of negative things throughout the day. Run another day happy and you’ll see the good and the potential of everything. Regardless of what you encounter through the day, what your attitude towards them influences how you view them. The way you approach everything, your attitude, determines whether you succeed or fail in life.
Attitudes Determine Success
Attitude determines how you view things: what is impossible or not, what is important or not, what is an opportunity or not. Attitude is internal and affects perspective. Therefore, viewing a problem negatively and impossible would make the problem impossible to solve. At the same time, viewing a problem positively and looking at it as a blessing would make the problem to be more of an opportunity for success.
There are also different effects of having a positive attitude, such as a positive outlook in life, better relationships with people, a predisposition to success and seeing problems as blessings. And most important of all, the main advantage of having a positive attitude is viewing failure as temporary.
Say for example you are going to lose your job. When people with negative attitudes lose their job, they view it as a validation of their weakness. When people with positive attitudes lose their job, they view it as an opportunity to know where to improve. People with positive attitude know that losing their job means leaving a job that wasn’t working from the start. So instead of blaming their former employer, they look at different ways to get a better job than before. They are focusing on what will make them successful rather than focusing on what made them fail.
Having the Right Attitude
There is no right or wrong attitude because attitude is subjective. However, results from one’s attitude determine whether it is positive or not. Therefore in terms of your success in life, your attitude should bring about results.
To have a results-oriented, success-driven attitude, you would need several ideas working together in your life — to focus on your main goal in life, to value continued improvement, to stop living in the past and to look forward to the future. These ideas work together under the belief that you control everything that happens in your life. By doing so, the only thing that you can change in your life is you. You stop blaming others for your situation and put on an attitude where in you can change the situation you do not want, to a more favourable situation.
* About the Author: Penny Bongato is a Director of POWERinU Training & Coaching Philippines, Inc.