What’s With The Attitude?

Hi everyone,

Your attitudes dictate what you think about, which drives what you say and how you behave and ultimately shapes who you become.

Working on one’s attitude appears to be an old school concept.

I am of the vintage where my parents would say things like "Watch Your Attitude" whenever I was misbehaving or being a smart alec! When they were really cross at me or any of my eight siblings, you would be sent to your room. Your punishment was solitude. You could only return and reunite with the family when you Changed Your Attitude!

Wouldn’t you love to do that with certain people at your workplace. “You are banished until you return with a great attitude!”

Here’s A Thought Experiment…
Do some people in your life wish that upon you? Where they are desperately hoping that you would go away to work on your attitude and return with a renewed positive optimistic outlook on life.

I believe we all should regularly stop and recalibrate our attitudes. Not only to stay relevant but to proactively work on our self-talk and the stories we tell ourselves. I describe this as becoming a Pragmatic Optimist.

Learned Optimism
Martin Seligman, renowned psychologist and one of the founding figures of the positive psychology movement discovered that optimism can be learned and indeed cultivated, just like any other skill.

When we focus on fostering our strengths and flourishing attitudes this has a profound positive impact on our well-being and resilience.

Interestingly, Seligman has acknowledged that his own natural disposition was more pessimistic, and he openly shared about his personal journey in shifting from a pessimistic mindset to a more optimistic one.

If Martin Seligman can do it, so can we.

Attitudes are not inherited. They are learnt and therefore can be changed. But only if we are prepared to do the work proactively and mindfully.

We are not talking about delusional optimism or superficial toxic positivity here, but the power of consciously working on positive thinking and enjoying the benefits of adopting what Seligman calls an Optimistic Explanatory Style.

These are the stories we tell ourselves to interpret and explain the world around us. This is especially important when negative stuff happens. Rather than catastrophising events, we can reclaim the outcome by redesigning the story we tell ourselves.

This is where the transformation begins when we work on reframing and Owning Our Stories while adopting a healthy optimist attitude.

Where you stop trying to Prove Yourself and simply work on having a great attitude of Improving Yourself.

This approach creates a better and healthier world to live, work, and play in.

"Optimism is invaluable for the meaningful life. With a firm belief in a positive future, you can throw yourself into the service of that which is larger than you are." - Martin Seligman

Have a great week.

Richard Dore
CEO - Lead Educator
Proteus Leadership