Your Attitude Is The Difference

Have you ever noticed that the more successful people are, the nicer they seem to be? It's all a matter of attitude. You can tell a great deal about a person just from studying his or her attitude.

People are mean, suspicious and vindictive outwardly only when they are mean, suspicious and vindictive inwardly. The more confident a person is of his or her own value as a person, the better his or her attitude toward others and the world is in general.

Successful people just naturally treat you well; they're smiling, courteous and confident. Being happy with themselves as people, they can reflect it, they have nothing to fear.

It is only the people who are not happy and successful that treat you badly. These are the people who have never really grown up or matured. Something stunted their inner growth, their confidence in themselves, and since they're not happy within themselves and not confident in their own ability and worth as a person, they can only see the world in their own reflection. As a result, their treatment of you is a kind of punishment of themselves.

We can only love others to the extent that we love ourselves. By carefully observing how others treat you, particularly strangers such as store clerks, salespeople, customer service representatives and employees of all kinds, you can make a fairly good evaluation of what these people think of themselves.

People with the best attitude just naturally gravitate toward the top of their field. So, the more successfully a person is, the nicer he or she seems to become. Their good attitudes did not come as a result of their success; their success came to them as a result of their attitudes.

People frequently make the mistake when they meet a successful and person of saying, “I'd be happy, too, if had what he or she's got.”

It's a natural tendency to think his or her attitude is the result of his or her success. But this is not the case, just the reverse is true.

Psychologist and philosopher William James once wrote: “The greatest discovery of my generation is that people can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.”

Each of us attracts the kind of life we, as individuals, represent. That is, before a person can achieve something, he or she must become the kind of person this “something” would naturally belong to. We must first be the person we would like to be before the things that person would have can come to us. This may sound complicated, but it really isn't.

If you know how you think you would act if you had everything you wanted, begin to act that way now, make that kind of attitude a habit, and you'll get the things you want. But the attitude must precede the accomplishment.

Most people have this backwards and, as a result, wonder why they never have any success or happiness in life. If you want to be happy, spend your days acting like a happy person and it will come to you. One day you'll wake up to find you're happy, and you'll never quite know when the acting stopped and the reality began. That's why the saying that people are about as happy as they make their minds up to be is true.

A positive mental attitude is better than mental ability. Your attitude tells the world what you expect from life, and you will receive exactly that, no more, no less.

The Power Of Organization

There are few things that will not benefit from organization, and nothing bolsters self-confidence like the knowledge that you understand the job that needs to be done and have it organized in a sensible, logical fashion.

Some people are list makers, others use daily planners, pocket calendars, personal computers or one of many commercially available systems designed to help get your life organized. There are numerous tools available to you: all you need to furnish are the desire and the discipline.

Make it a practice to stop and think about the task at hand before you jump in and begin flailing away at it. If you take time to think about a job at the beginning you will complete it far more efficiently. Organization is a great time saver and allows you to focus on larger issues rather than struggling to complete routine tasks.

If you make personal organization a critical component of your success philosophy, you will be more confident which will enable you to achieve more. Being organized also relieves stress. If you write down your goals and have a plan for achieving them, you don't have to keep worrying about them and fearing that you might forget something.

The engine that drives organization is personal discipline. It is the willpower, the determination, the strength of character that compels you to stay with the job until it is finished.

There is no easy way to develop personal discipline. It is the result of forcing yourself to do the right thing, to take the initiative to accomplish something when you'd much rather be doing something else. Personal discipline is developed one act and one day at a time until it becomes a habit to listen to your inner voice when it tells you to get going and taking positive action instead of procrastinating.

Personal discipline allows you to ignore the criticism of others and to stop blaming your heritage, your environment, bad luck or other people for your situation. It allows you to recognize that you have had problems (like everyone else), but that you can and will overcome them.

In all the world, you are the only person who is ultimately responsible for your successes and your failures and your happiness.

Creating Your Own Future

The future never just happens; it was created. This is true for all civilizations, businesses and individuals. The success you achieve with your life will be the success you create.

In today's complex and competitive society, continued learning, good relationships and desire are the stuff from which jobs and careers are made.

Gone are the days when you could “finish” your education. Now, you are personally responsible for becoming more skillful and more qualified to compete in a world where change is the order of the day.

No job is immune from this trend. In 2004 the Harvard School of Business studied 900 managers from various industries and found that 20 percent believed they lacked the skills to meet the expectations of their bosses. Another 75 percent said they would be behind in skills within five years.

The first step in creating your own future is to conduct an objective analysis of your capabilities. Take a look at past performance reviews to see where you might need work. Ask those who you work for, your peers and your boss how you can improve.

Consider a lateral move to gain valuable experience and new skills. With promotion opportunities limited by crowded management ranks and continuous downsizing by corporations, a lateral move within the company is often the best option. It can help prepare you for the time when an opportunity arises.

Guarding business relationships is another step toward creating your future. Being honest and fair with others will make you a trusted and valuable associate, and help you maintain positive relationships with others.

Do what you say you will do when you promise to do it, regardless. When others learn they can always depend on you, soon you will discover that you are destined for bigger and better things.

Maintain good relationships with coworkers. Always maintain a pleasant, positive attitude and support other's ideas, when appropriate. When you support others, they will do the same for you. Show an interest in people and their families, and they will be more likely to consider you a warm cooperative person.

Let your bosses know that you are serious about your job and ask specifically what they expect from you that you can deliver.

Demonstrate your desire in everything you do. Show by your actions that the standards you set for yourself are higher than those set by your company. Put in the extra time to do the project well and complete it on time. Perform quality work because you are a quality person, not because someone else demands it from you.

Show desire in your appearance, as well. The way you dress and groom yourself says a great deal about your desire. Dress as though you were already in your boss's job.

Do the things that are necessary to prepare for success so that when the time comes to reach for your brass ring, you are ready for the challenge.

Living Your Dream Every Day

Have you set “limits” on what you wish to achieve this year? How about the next five years? If you have, you may find that you have become what I call an SLS, a sporadic limit setting. The time to get rid of this destructive habit is now!

The way you let go of this unproductive type of “planning” is to allow yourself to dream, to envision what you want even before you get there! I have seen incredible things occur when people dream.

To take the idea a step further, when you dream BIG enough, the odds of getting to it do not matter. In other words, the passion and power of your need for that dream, whether it is social, emotional or financial, will propel you past self-imposed limits and will allow you to creatively deal with obstacles that you will inevitably encounter along the way.

Many people give up on their dreams because fear and doubt set in and they permanently root themselves in the mindset of the potential dreamer. Used properly, however fear can be a driving force and many times is necessary to achieve the big dream. Fear is a dream killer only if you allow it to debilitate your energy level and focus.

Fear can be a positive change driver if you move ahead step by step with fear. Fear only tells you that you are not sure of what lies ahead. If you move ahead with small actions or initiatives, the fear seems to find its own exit or dissipate.

Action conquers fear.

Fear can move you out of your comfort zone and allow you to discover the greatness within you, something that cannot occur while you are in your comfort zone or as some refer to it as the “dead zone.”

When you renew your commitment to identify what you need to make your life the masterpiece it deserves to be, to take the rust off your dreams, you begin to move out of the dead zone. You also lose what I call the “losers limp.”

There is no cure for a loser's limp except dreaming the big dream and preserving every day in your actions to make your dream happen. When you do, you will cast aside your limp and walk with greatness and satisfaction.

How do you know if your dream is big enough? Ask yourself the question: “What would I attempt to do or what challenges would I take on if I absolutely knew and was guaranteed that I could not fail?” That's your dream.