Have you ever let yourself get carried away by feelings of hopelessness, anger, or despair when things don’t go as planned? It’s important to remember that we may not have full control over all the things that happen in life, but we always have full control over one thing, and that is our attitude. Our attitude, or the way we see things, can change our life.
Why Your Attitude Is So Important
Your thoughts, attitude and what you believe about yourself, create your reality. How can this be? What you think about is stored in your Reticular Activating System (RAS). This is a part of your brain that filters everything you observe and only sends what it thinks is important to your brain. I talked about this at length in a previous post.
Here’s how it works. My husband and I are thinking about purchasing a Jeep Wrangler. Now that it is on our minds, whenever I go out, my RAS considers Jeep Wranglers to be important to me. Hence, whenever it sees a Jeep Wrangler, it alerts my RAS. All of a sudden it feels like there are so many Wranglers on the road! But did everyone really go out and buy a Jeep Wrangler? Of course not! The only difference is that my brain notices them on the road because I’ve decided that it’s important.
The human body sends 11 million bits per second to the brain for processing, yet the conscious mind can only process 50 bits per second. That’s only 0.0004%. Ultimately, you only process 0.0004% of your reality, depending on what your thoughts and attitude are. So, if you have a positive attitude, you will see that your life in fact is full of possibilities and positive opportunities. However, if you think everyone is out to get you, and everything goes wrong, you will keep seeing what is going wrong. The reality is that BOTH circumstances are out there. But you only see a fraction of it.
How can you change your attitude?
1. Take responsibility rather than blame. When something goes wrong, rather than blaming the situation or thinking “poor me”, consider how you can take responsibility for this situation. What actions led you to this? How can you make this situation better?
When you take responsibility, you not only learn what you can do better, but you also give yourself the power to improve the situation. On the other hand, when you blame the situation and adopt a victim mindset, you rely on someone or something else to fix the situation for you (which rarely happens). At the end of the day, you’ll be the one who is stuck in the ‘bad’ situation.
2. Choose positive thoughts. As humans, we have something called the negative bias. This is our tendency to think negative thoughts, which helps protect us. By automatically thinking of the worst-case scenario, our ancestors could save themselves from poisonous berries. If they heard a sound, they could protect themselves from a tiger.
However, we no longer need such survival mechanisms in our modern lives. So, instead of seeing the negative, look for the good in each situation. For example, if you are rejected for a job opportunity, rather than feeling dejected, consider the better opportunities you might get! If you get stuck in traffic, rather than complaining about the waste of time, consider the extra time it gives you to call a loved one before work!
Choosing a positive attitude creates a multitude of possibilities for you in your life.
3. Be grateful. The best way to adopt a positive attitude is by cultivating a habit of gratitude. An attitude of gratitude enables you to appreciate all the good in your life, so that it gets easy to find the good even in negative situations.
As you build a habit of practicing gratefulness every day, you will find that you automatically think and feel more positive!
