next article
	article menu

Having a Positive Attitude is Crucial to Your Success

The Plain Dealer --
By: Leslie Yerkes

To succeed in business, you need three things:

You must be competent in the skills that define your business. If you operate an accounting firm, you need to be a master of accountancy. You must be a master of the fundamental skills of running a business; i.e., knowing how to hire, how to delegate, how to plan and how to expand. You must have a positive attitude. You must think you can succeed.

A positive attitude can be the single most important aspect of success. In certain situations, attitude alone can overcome overwhelming odds, but for long-term success, you need to have both skills and attitude.

Study after study has shown that people with positive attitudes are more likely to succeed than those with negative ones.

Why? Because a positive attitude is both contagious and infectious. You can pass it on to someone else and that positive attitude grows within you.

How do you develop a positive attitude? Like many things in life, it's a choice. You choose to have a positive attitude. And the more often you choose it, the more often it becomes a skill. The more you use that skill, the more it becomes a habit. And once it's a habit, it defines who you are and what you think. Ultimately, it defines how successful you are.

Here are 10 ways to develop a positive attitude:

1. Explain problems in positive terms. Winston Churchill said, "The optimist see opportunity in every problem, the pessimist sees problems in every opportunity." How you talk determines how you think and how you act.
   
   
2. Focus on solution. Think about how to change for the better. Remove the word "not" from your vocabulary.
   
   
3. Visualize success. Visualization is the one common habit of every successful Olympian. Use it. Imagine what it will be like when you are successful.
   
   
4. Embrace failure as a learning experience. The only way to truly learn is to fail. Thomas Edison said he wasn't a failure in his first unsuccessful attempts to create the light bulb. Rather, he knew 941 ways that didn't work.
   
   
5. Believe in the vision. The positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible and achieves the impossible. Keep your hope alive.
   
   
6. Manage your worries. You are not Little Suzy Sunshine - you have problems. Don't avoid them. If you do, the stress of having them hang around will eat away at your positive attitude.
   
   
7. Surround yourself with positive things. Cultivate a circle of positive friends. Do positive things. What you focus on becomes stronger.
   
   
8. Recognize and challenge negative thinking. It only takes one naysayer to destroy the good feelings and productivity of a group of 10 people. Counter it with your positive attitude.
   
   
9. Take care of your health. If your body is not in a positive state, it's hard for your mind to be.
   
   
10. Laugh. Laughter reduces stress. It releases endorphins that make you feel good.