Attitude Adjustment Hour

What is 'attitude'? The dictionary defines it as 'posture of the body; settled behaviour as showing opinion'. The thesaurus uses these words 'stance, type, kind, pattern, frame of mind, mood.' So that clarifies it doesn't it?! Ha, ha.

It seems to me that attitude refers to the way we perceive things in life. What we filter all our information through; the 'glasses' through which we look at the world. The way we taint, colour or tint what we see, hear and consequently feel. And it's a choice - we can choose the glasses we want.

When we feel 'up' or positive, our posture reflects how we feel - upright and ready to face what comes, or slouched with our eyes looking down when we are negative or 'depressed'. We are not sure if mood follows posture or posture follows mood - so until we are sure, if you feel down, make an effort to stand tall and look up and I bet it improves your mood.

People who have a 'good' attitude take responsibility for themselves and for what happens to them, and they are usually fun to be around. They can turn situations around and see the positive side; they view mistakes as learning; they choose to avoid people that drag them down; they are optimistic and expect good things to happen to them; they see the best in others.

'Poor' attitude people blame others for their circumstances and are stress or 'depression carriers'! They will turn the best situation into one that is negative, and see mistakes as massive failures and as proof that life is miserable. These are the people who worry if they have nothing to worry about! They hang about other negative people and if you are feeling good they will try to point out why you should not! They expect the worst - and usually get it! Avoid them - at all costs.

We used to hear about people's attitude problems, now we just hear that someone has ' an attitude' - which means they have an attitude problem! So the concept of an attitude adjustment period is great! What if we set aside a period of time each day to review our current attitude, the way we are viewing the world, and change it if we need to do so.

For example, at the end of the day, do you arrive home tense and in 'hurry mode'? If you don't think you do, you probably do! Ask your partner and children (who are brutally honest!) if your fuse is short when you come home, or if you are irritable, or if your behaviour is any different from holiday behaviour. This should give you valuable information about how much you unwind on the way home - and whether you need to adjust your attitude.

I wonder if it might be a good exercise to have a few attitude adjustment moments during the day. Perhaps on the way to work or anywhere, become conscious of what you are thinking about work and your day. Do you have a positive or negative attitude at that moment? Are you feeling enthusiastic or bored? And what sort of attitude or thinking could you choose instead?
Before those cynics out there in the real world cry 'not more of this positive psychobabble!', let me add - people who are positive in their outlook have better health, live longer, recover from disease more quickly, are more popular and suffer less stress. But other than that, being negative is just fine!

On reflection, it's pretty easy to change your attitude to the weather. When I lived in an apartment with no garden, I used to hate rain. I would curse it and become irritable. The second I bought a house with a garden, I'd wake up to find it's raining and think 'hooray! I don't have to water today'. So we can change our attitudes very quickly! If we want to. Perhaps at lunchtime, you could spend a few minutes listening to yourself and the quality of your thoughts. How is your attitude?

One of the huge problems with having a negative, defeatist or victim mentality (another word for attitude) is that it somehow radiates out of your body and other people pick up on it. This shows up in meetings and corporate settings as much as in the home setting.

Be careful, you may infect your children with the 'negative attitude' virus which may affect their whole lives. You are certainly gifting your child a 'filter' - sort of like a pair of glasses that can be rose coloured or black. And everything the child sees through your eyes will be coloured the way you see it; and that's the way they learn to view the world.

Even though some people might feel we have no control over what we are thinking, we do! The first step is to become aware of what we are thinking at any time. What are we saying to ourselves? When we wish to change the text in a computer document we can delete and retype or just type over. Similarly with our minds, we can 'type over' the thoughts we would like to replace with preferred language. Then there is your attitude to yourself. Do you like yourself? What about your body image? Do you need an attitude adjustment on your image or perception of yourself?

Why not try an attitude adjustment hour once a week, and then have 'attitude adjustment minutes' throughout every day. Stop, listen to your thoughts and images, replace them with more appropriate ones where necessary and then look for the difference in your life.