In this article: Learn to build a winning attitude which is the key to anything you want in life.
Your Potential And A Winning Attitude
The greatest steps you take in life are those advancing you toward your potential. In order to do this, you must develop a winning attitude and monitor how your attitude influences your relationships, the people around you, your work performance, and happiness.
You make the choice to shape your perceptions. Within your control, is the power to see a glass as half full rather than believing it to be half empty. The world can be burning down around you, but it’s up to you to find the silver lining. That’s the key to all of your achievements – unlocking a winning attitude.
Using statements like I’m a positive person and I am confident I will find a solution in your daily life can have a major influence on your mood and attitude. A positive mindset and a winning attitude are things that you should be striving for. If you aren’t striving for optimism, then it’s something you need to work at. Just look at the company you keep.
Your Company
Do you surround yourself with friends and family who uplift you? Or, do they have negative attitudes? People with negative attitudes tend to pass those views on to others.
The company that you keep can heavily influence your attitude. You don’t have to spend time with people who drag you down. Limit your time with those people and increase time with the people who make you feel positive.
Likewise, it’s important that you actively make changes in your life when you recognize that you’re not happy. Don’t just stick with it because it’s what you’ve always done. One effective way to take the temperature on your attitude is to ask the people around you. Speak to the people you know will be honest with you. Constructive criticism should always be welcomed, even if it might hurt.
It’s also important to know what brings you happiness and what upsets you. This knowledge will help you navigate the development of a winning attitude. In unavoidable situations, you have to figure out how to make the best of it. This is an important part of attitude and knowing the buttons to press to trigger happiness is going to help you develop that attitude.
Gratitude and Positivity
Additionally, part of developing a winning attitude is maintaining gratitude and positivity. Look at everything in your world. The people you have built friendships with, the family members whom you lean on and vice versa, the car you drive, the home you live in, the clothes you wear, and the food you eat. All of those are things to be grateful for. Life isn’t always easy, but it’s important to put it into perspective. Enjoy all of the good things that you have going for you.
Are you familiar with the advice measure twice, cut once? In this case, you should think twice and act once. Broach problems from a logical standpoint. As important as your emotions can be in certain situations, logic is also an important consideration. When you allow your emotions to take the fore you are likely to do something that won’t look so great in hindsight. So, think twice and act once.
When something happens in your life, whether it’s a direct impact or an indirect one, you should respond rather than react. Think about your response, use logic to find a solution, and then take appropriate measures. A reaction skips over the reasoning stage entirely. Respond.
It’s also important that you avoid getting caught up in the gossip mill. Those conversations revolve around negativity. It might seem like a bit of fun, but it isn’t. When you wake up in the morning, put a smile on your face and get it started in the right direction. There’s a lot to do, a lot to accomplish, but you can still enjoy it. You have to make the most of the days you are gifted.
Don’t allow the negative thoughts of your own or others to influence you. Our mind naturally taps into anxieties, worries, and fears. The reality, though, is that these fears and worries rarely come true. We tend to exaggerate our problems and make them seem far worse than the reality. Your thoughts are powerful, and you can shape them to improve your perception of the world.
When you deal with others, it’s easy to hone in on their imperfections. We briefly mentioned avoiding the negative people in your life. This isn’t about negative people. Rather, it’s about focusing on the good qualities they possess instead of allowing their flaws to be magnified by your annoyance.
You Have A Choice
So, what attitude do you carry through life? If we’re being honest, very few of us pay attention to our attitudes. You know when your feet hurt. You’re aware of hunger. You recognize when you’re thirsty. Rarely, though, do you pay much attention to your overall attitude. That’s crazy when you consider how important it is – attitude is everything. It controls how you perceive your world and even how it perceives you.
You have a choice. We all do. You choose your self-talk and it’s up to you to set the tone. You can adopt an inner dialogue that is piteous and self-defeating. Or, you can nurture self-talk that helps you develop a winning attitude. You will encourage heartache, difficult times, pain, and hurt feelings. It isn’t just you that goes through that.
More importantly, it might not feel like it at the time, but what happens to you doesn’t really matter. Rather, what matters is how you respond. Think of your brain as a computer. It’s something you can program. You choose to install positive, productive software or not. Your self-talk is the system that programs the type of attitude you possess. Just like a computer, though, it’s you that controls the system and programs you install. What you choose to put in is fully reflected by what comes out.
The behavior patterns that you exhibit today may not have been a program you installed. It might be programming that you were given at a young age. That programming might be incorrect because the information we used was false. That’s the reality. However, it’s possible to refresh your setting, revert to default, and start again. It’s in your control.
10 Ways To Improve Your Attitude
1| Affirmations
Positive affirmations are a form of self-coaching. When you do this several times a day you are reprogramming your subconscious. An affirmation should be a short phrase or statement that fuels you. It should supercharge you, power you up, fill you with conviction. It provides your subconscious with a positive response – it’s going to accept what you’re telling it. When you do this properly it triggers positive emotions that will drive your action.
2| Motives
What motivates you? It’s difficult to maintain self-motivation if you don’t know your motives. So, look at your life and consider what causes you to take action. The typical human motives include fear, love, financial gain, self-preservation, and even anger. For appropriate self-motivation, though, you need a positive outlook, enthusiasm, self-belief, and even positive body language.
3| Visualization
Many of the greatest athletes and other highly successful people, like surgeons, use both visualizations and affirmations. One person who wrote extensively about the power of visualization over a positive attitude was Nelson Mandela.
This is what sustained him during his 27 years in prison. He spoke about fantasizing about his eventual freedom and what he would do when he walked out of prison a free man. You can use visualization to develop a winning attitude.
4| Inner Dialogue
To improve your inner dialogue, attitude talk is necessary. This helps you override negative programming. Essentially, you erase the previous programming by replacing it with a positive inner dialogue that navigates you through life. Your inner dialogue, the voice that you listen to all day every day. Pay attention to what you say to yourself.
5| Words Are Powerful
Your words cannot be taken back once they leave your lips. Watch your words. What you say reflects what is in your heart and it’s based on the things you believe about yourself. If you speak disparagingly about the people around you or the circumstances, you’re in, if you are judgmental, then you need to change what’s in your heart. It’s up to you to create a path that leads directly to success.
6| Positive Greetings
How do you respond when someone asks how you are? So so. Just all right. Start by responding positively. Tell people you’re doing super! How are you? Brilliant. Fantastic. Wonderful.
7| Enthusiasm
Enthusiasm and motivation go hand-in-hand. You need enthusiasm for your attitude. It’s like oxygen is necessary for life. Enthusiasm is a burning desire that communications determination, spirit, and commitment. It means driving yourself to action, staying in motion, it’s what empowers you.
8| Spiritual Connection
We all have spiritual needs. You feed your body food to fuel it. You pursue knowledge to feed your mind. What do you do for your spirit? You don’t have to pursue religion to find power and positivity in spirituality. There are several ways to feed your spirit. Find the one that’s right for you and do it! It’s an important start in developing a winning attitude.
9| Lighten Up
How much laughter is in your life? The more you have it, the less stress you experience. This means you will possess more positive energy to kick your winning attitude into action.
10| Exercise
What does exercise have to do with a winning attitude? Everything. It’s one of the best ways to motivate your mind and body. Regular exercise doesn’t just support a healthy body. It helps you build a positive attitude.
The Attitude That You Need For Success
1| Possibility
It’s vital that you believe winning is possible. There are plenty of people who will tell you that it can’t be done. There are always voices, external and internal, that will try to hold you back. However, if you believe that life is full of possibilities, then no obstacle will be too large for you to overcome. You are the only person who can decide what you truly believe.
If you don’t believe you can or will succeed, then you won’t. However, if you do believe it’s possible, you will succeed. The key to all of your achievements is developing a winning attitude. To do this, you have to step away from the victim mentality and take control back. You decide.
2| Self-Reliance
Another aspect of a winning attitude? Self-reliance. It’s the way you think about yourself and your agency. Success won’t be handed to you on a plate. No one owes you success. You may think that just because you earned a particular degree that you deserve the best job. You may have worked hard, but other people have, too.
The point is, what matters is what you do from here on out. You can’t change what has happened in the past, so your mental energy is best spent on right now. If plan a doesn’t pan out, then plan b is necessary, and if that doesn’t work, move on to plan c. There are always going to be factors that attempt to sabotage you. Only you control you. If you get knocked down, then it’s up to you to get back up, dust yourself off, and go again and again.
3| Commitment
The third attitude necessary to develop a winning attitude is commitment. This is grit. That’s what success comes down to. It isn’t your IQ. It isn’t your ability. It’s grit. It’s your determination to persevere. It’s your commitment to keep on keeping on, even when things aren’t going your way. If there’s one guarantee in life, it’s that not everything will go your way. So, your commitment is an important aspect of developing a winning attitude.
Winners rarely luck their way into success. Yes, some people are lucky enough to have everything handed to them. They don’t matter. The majority of winners are there because they were committed to success. You make your luck and you do that through hard work, resilience, grit, and commitment.
4| Work
Fourth, it’s hard work. The opportunities you have are endless. It’s never been easier to succeed. That’s thanks to the information and technology that we have at our fingertips. All you need to do is work hard. If you want to be a writer, build a website, become a marketer, get into graphic design – nothing is stopping you. All of the information you need is online. You take that information and you apply hard work and success is just waiting for you.
It’s your choice to make.
5| Growth
Finally, the fifth attitude necessary to develop a winning attitude is growth. Where would we be without a measure of growth? You cannot achieve without first changing. The entire world could change around you, but nothing will change for you if you stay the same.
It won’t change your level of achievement if your family changes, if the government changes or, if your relationship status changes. The only thing that will guarantee a change in your achievements is your personal growth. You can’t change other people, you can’t change external circumstances, you can only change you.
To change you, an attitude of growth is necessary. Learning is a daily opportunity and it should never end. If you don’t believe that, then your attitude needs adjusting. The most successful people never stop learning, they never knock back an opportunity to grow.
A winning mindset is one that requires hard work and it’s something that you have to build over time. Below, you will find habits and hints to fuel a winning attitude.
6| The Talent Trap
Everyone is good at something, but a winning attitude is what will differentiate between achievement and failure. You can’t just rely on your talent. You can use your talent, yes, but the reliance on it is a trap. The most successful people don’t solely rely on talent, they hone their craft, seek out their weaknesses, and work to sharpen them.
7| Grit
We’ve already discussed the importance of grit so; it shouldn’t come as a surprise to you that building your grit is necessary. Grit is a heady combination of perseverance and passion. It’s necessary to achieve long-term goals. It’s your ability to bounce back after a knockdown. A knockdown isn’t a permanent failure, it’s a temporary setback. Remember that.
8| Small Steps Generate Momentum
Every little step you take is building to something greater. You can’t ride a wave until it builds and it’s up to you to build it. Consistent small steps help you reach big goals. Allow yourself to take credit for all of those small gains. Remember, it’s all building to something amazing. After all, you can’t climb Everest in one giant step, you can only put one foot forward and take a single step at a time.
9| Your Vision
What’s your vision? If you want to achieve it, you will have to stay true to it. You can adapt, you can change, you can progress, but you have to remain focused on the vision and your ability to make it happen. How can you do that? Ultimately, it’s important that you remain optimistic even when the odds are against you.
The underlying message you have to send yourself is that at the end of every rainbow, there’s a pot of gold. However, en route to that pot of gold, you will run into trouble. It’s natural and you can’t allow that to deter you. A winning attitude will carry you through it all.
10| Take Action
It’s impossible to visualize your way to a goal. You can’t think yourself to achievement. While those are two important aspects of achievement, you can’t do it without using your winning attitude to take action. Many people spend too much time analyzing to determine their next move. They tend to miss out on chances and opportunities, and they don’t learn from the mistakes they make.
A winning mindset isn’t innate, it’s something that requires development. Whether you like it or not, winning is a big part of life. That doesn’t mean you have to set yourself up in competition with everyone around you. You are in a competition with yourself.
It’s up to you to set the conditions for your success. That’s what makes life challenging, it’s where the excitement lies. Of course, it isn’t as simple as just telling yourself to go and win at all costs. It takes time to build a winning attitude. It requires patience, strategy, and time. Shape your environment to support positivity, focused motivation, and to give yourself the best chance of winning. Before you can do that, you will need to define winning. What does winning mean to you? What does it look like for you?
Your goals are a considerable tool to motivate yourself and remain focused on achieving. What does achievement mean? When you can answer that, you can break it all down into small goals that keep you focused. That is a key feature in developing a winning attitude.
If you aren’t convinced that you are the best, how do you plan to achieve what you want? It might sound arrogant, but you have to believe in yourself. That’s part of developing a winning attitude. Preparation is important because winning isn’t just down to believing that you can win. You have to back up your self-belief with hard work.
There’s a good chance that you will fail more than you succeed. Use your failure as motivation. A winning attitude is infectious, and it all begins with you. No one knows you better than you and the key to developing a winning attitude is to remain positive in the face of every challenge.
