It is your attitude, not your aptitude, which is the key to your success. Unfortunately, no one is born with a positive attitude. It is a skill that is learned over time that becomes a way of life. Sure, everyone has bad moments and that is way it is vital to CYA (Check Your Attitude) daily. Your attitude is the very soul of who you are. No matter what you’ve been through, no matter how many times you’ve stumbled, you choose your attitude. Here are some techniques that will help you choose a positive attitude and refuse to be affected by negativity.

Be Yourself

To make having a positive attitude a way of life, you first must be yourself. If you are always trying to be someone else, you’re not very good at it and it gets very tiring. To have a positive attitude, be yourself.

Improve Yourself

Read books, articles, magazines that help you understand and adopt the attitude you desire. Watch films or listen to music or CDs that inspire you and encourage you.

Choice

Recognize your choices. Regardless of what has happened to you in the past or what will happen to you in the future, you choose your attitude.

Thoughts

Change your thoughts and you change your attitude. Use positive thoughts to create a new perspective for yourself. Just by changing your thoughts, you can change your attitude and thereby change your behavior.

Words

Listen to yourself. Are your words positive or negative? As goofy as it may sound, try starting each day with positive and upbeat words. Your words become actions. 

People

Find some role models and imitate them. After you do that, be a role model for someone else. Avoid negative people as much as possible. They suck the life out of you.

Goals

If someone else is rowing your boat, it goes where they want it to. Start rowing your own boat. If you don’t have your own goals, you’ll spend your entire life helping others accomplish theirs.

Change

Embrace change. Do things differently and you start thinking differently. Change your actions and your environment. Make your environment reflect the attitude you desire.

Body Language

Picture the body language of a person with a positive attitude. They exude optimism. What does your body language exude?

Solutions

Focus on solutions – not on problems. If you focus on solutions, you cannot wallow in problems, complaining, blaming, or moaning.

Be Assertive

If you don’t like what someone else is doing or saying, tell them. Assert your feelings and beliefs instead of becoming angry, combative or passive.

It is what it is

Figure out which problems you can solve (I need to lose 10 pounds) and which problems are beyond your control (the price of gas). Work on accepting the things you can’t change. Learn to say “It is what it is.”