Attitude is Everything

Humans have tremendous potential. We work hard and pay the price that success and happiness demand. Each of us has the ability to put our unique human potential and acquire the desired result. But one thing that determines the level of our potential that produces the intensity of our activity, and that predicts the quality of our result we receive is our ATTITUDE.

A child once asked the balloon vendor who was selling colourful helium balloons whether the blue coloured balloon will go high in the sky than the green coloured balloon. The balloon vendor replied, “It is not the colour of the balloon but what is inside it that makes it go high.”

Attitude is a predisposition or a tendency to respond positively or negatively towards a certain idea, object, person, or situation. Attitude influences an individual's choice of action, and responses to challenges, incentives, and rewards.

Attitude is simply a method by which you let others know what you feel. It’s a way of life. It displays your moods, likes, dislikes, maturity, pessimism or optimism and even your securities and insecurities. You signal your feelings verbally or non-verbally (by body language). Attitude lets others judge what kind of a person you are. It creates a person’s identity in the society.

Four major components of attitude are:-

(1) Affective: this involves a person’s emotions or feelings about the attitudinal object.

(2) Cognitive: this involves a person’s belief, knowledge or opinions held consciously about an attitudinal object.

(3) Conative: the way the attitude we have influences how we act or behave.

(4) Evaluative: positive or negative response to stimuli.

Attitude decides what will be our future. It decides the size of our dreams and shows determination towards achieving those goals. It affects the way you feel, mentally and physically. It depicts how you present yourself to the world, how you behave, what you say and what you do. No other person has domination over attitude except you. People can affect your attitude by saying negative thoughts but it is up to us to control ourselves and not surrender to such thoughts.

Life is a mixture of beauty, joy, danger and pain. We can’t change that but we can change our attitude towards it. We can’t control the external factors affecting our life but we can surely take control of the internal factors. We can control our thoughts and choose how we will respond to the things that happen to us. Pain is inevitable but misery is optional. It is up to us to decide that how will we react to the pain that inevitably comes to us all.

Given below is a short story which shows how attitude is the key to the problems in life;

There was an old farmer who lost his wife a year ago and his only son was in prison. He wanted to spade his potato garden but he was tired and old to do it alone. So he wrote a letter to his son mentioning his sad state. Shortly he received a telegram saying, “For heaven’s sake dad, don’t dig up the garden. It’s where I buried the guns.” The next day dozen policeman came up and dug the entire garden without finding any guns. The confused farmer wrote again to his son explaining what had happened and asking him what to do next. The son replied, “Go ahead and plant your potatoes dad, it’s the best I could do for you from here.”

This story shows us that no matter where you are in the world, if you are determined to do something from your heart, then no one can stop you from doing anything. It is the thought that matters, not where you are or what you are doing or where the person is.

Some of the key attitudes that you should carry throughout life include:-

v  Be confident in your strengths and abilities.

v  Be different.

v  Don’t blame others.

v  Be positive.

v  Believe in yourself.

v  Get the fun out of life.

v  Don’t criticize.

v  Work hard.

v  Aim for high quality, not perfection.

v  Don’t necessarily follow trends.

v  Don’t yearn.

v  Feel a sense of modesty.

v  Run your own race.

v  Persist.

Man is the master of his own destiny and having the right attitude is one of the basics that success requires. The combination of a sound personal philosophy, confidence, and a positive attitude gives us an inner strength creates conditions for success and healthier living.

As said by Zig Ziglar, “Your Attitude not your Aptitude will decide your Altitude.”