Our success in life - both personal and professional - is directly linked to our attitude. When you have a bad attitude, it is reflected in your body language, your tone of voice and even the words you use. These three things are the visual, vocal and verbal elements of messages.
I always say that yes, it is possible to fake certain postures like what it looks like to be confident, but if your attitude screams self-consciousness it will be hard to pull off a confident image.
So how do we change our attitude and mindset? It's all about the messages we send ourselves on a daily basis.
It's amazing how negative we can be in our thinking and communicating. We make excuses for our actions (or lack of action) and hide behind our negative mindset.
Have you ever said, "But I'm just shy!" or, "I'm terrible with names." or "I'm not a morning person!" There are many similar negative messages we send ourselves, but let's focus on these three for starters. You can apply the same logic to many of the other messages you might be sending yourself.
"But I'm just shy!"
Do you find yourself saying this a lot? Who says that you're shy? No one but yourself! You've decided that you're shy, so why even try to socialize at networking events, speak in public or ask your boss for a raise? Shy people don't do those things. As long as you continue to hide behind this message, you will never become the confident person you long to be.
Make the word "shy" the very last adjective you would ever use to describe yourself. Replace this negative message with positive ones like "I'm confident, knowledgeable and talented." Think of the things that you could achieve if you began living this message instead!
"I'm terrible with names!"
Here's one I say to myself (and others) all the time, and what's the point? Really I'm just giving myself an excuse to not make an effort to remember people's names! "Oh, I'm sorry you weren't important enough to remember - I'm bad with names!" What a terrible excuse!
All of us can learn to be "good with names." Like everything else in life, it's just a matter of putting in the effort! Here are a couple things I'm trying to do to improve:
1. First of all, I'm changing my mantra from "I'm terrible with names" to "I'm good at remembering names!"
2. When I meet someone new I try to use their name a couple times in our first conversation. "Nice to meet you, Irene!" "Well, Irene, it was great talking with you..."
3. I try to associate the name with something else about the person, so when I meet Ivy I think of beautiful green Ivy leaves. And if Ivy is wearing something green, then I'll definitely remember who she is! When I meet Serene, I think of how her long flowing hair reminds me of serene ocean waters. It really doesn't matter what it is! Whatever makes sense off the top of your head!
"I'm not a morning person"
This is probably the most popular excuse we all use - for being late to work, for being tired in the morning, for drinking 10 cups of coffee a day. The list goes on. How would life be different if we were all morning people?
You'd be greeted by big smiles every morning when you walked into the office, you could be more productive during the first half of the day, and you would generally enjoy mornings more!
How about this week you tell yourself every night as you go to sleep, "I can't wait for tomorrow morning!" And when you get up in the morning think, "I love early mornings!" Find something you like about the morning and focus on it. Maybe because it's so quiet, or you like to hear the birds chirping. Program yourself to have a great day from the very start.
You'll soon notice how your positive attitude not only improves your mood, but rubs off on the people around you.
Let's face it, positivity is contagious - and magnetic! If you can work on changing the negative messages you send yourself to positives, you can start to implement real change in your life. Don't let other people bring you down to their level! If it were easy to be positive, everyone would be! But don't you love the positive people you know? They may be few and far between, but you always know you'll walk away from a conversation with them smiling. You can be one of those people. It's all about the messages you send yourself and the mindset you choose to have
Author: Heather Hansen