What is Attitude and How to Change Attitudes
Attitude Training with Daily Positive Affirmation
May 10, 2009
Daily positive affirmations are an important component of a personal growth plan. Positive affirmations are a form of attitude training that can help one overcome a bad attitude and move toward positive thinking.
It's common to hear someone characterized as having an attitude. Maybe you've done that yourself or been told you have an attitude. Everyone has not only an attitude, but many attitudes.
Winston Churchill summed it up well when he said, "Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference."
What is Attitude?
Attitude means one's mental position relative to something - a way of behaving or thinking. Used by itself, attitude commonly implies a negative mind set, as in "she has a bad attitude."
A bad or negative attitude indicates a leaning toward negativism, either with regard to some topic, such as work, or to life in general. A positive attitude is just the opposite; either a leaning toward some topic or to life in general.
Personal Growth with Attitude Training
Personal growth interests might suggest that a person undertake attitude training or adjustment to shift attitudes, perhaps from a negative to a positive attitude. Why might that be important to personal growth?
Research shows that positive thinking carries many benefits, such as increased happiness, longer life, and greater health. Positive thinking is a result of a positive attitude, a leaning toward the positives of life. Seeing life experiences from a positive perspective provides many benefits with pursuing.
Positive psychologist Christopher Petersen (A Primer in Positive Psychology, Oxford University Press, 2006) says, "...optimism has demonstrable benefits...and is linked to positive mood and good morale; to perseverance and effective problem solving; to academic, athletic, military, occupational, and political success; to popularity; to good health; and even to long life and freedom from trauma."
Attitudes can be changed with the daily use of positive affirmations. A personal growth plan should include the daily use of one or more positive affirmations. Following are several examples.
Positive Affirmations Examples
The following are some examples of positive affirmations that someone might utilize:
- Good affirmation: I am a positive person.
- Better: I am proud and happy now that I am a positive person.
- Best: I am bubbling with pride and flushed with happiness now that I am a positive person.
How to Make a Positive Affirmation
The most effective positive affirmations have these characteristics:
- First Person
- Present Tense
- Emotional
- Vivid
- End Result Oriented
- Concise
Your affirmation should describe the positive end result you desire in first person, present tense with vivid emotion. The best affirmations bring up a vivid and clear picture of the end goal.
"The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes," according to William James.
Daily use of positive affirmations is a form of attitude training that can convert an habitual negative thinker to a positive thinker. Affirmations should be a part of every personal growth plan.
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