The Power of Positive Attitude

Most of the religions in the world teach that when you get up in the morning, you say your morning prayers, thanking God for giving us the opportunity to start another day.  This is the time when we seek blessings from the Almighty also. It is said that at this time in the morning if you give a strong suggestion to yourself that it is going to be a good day for you, it will be a good day. And if you are unsure, apprehensive and suggest yourself that it is going to be a bad day, then it actually becomes a miserable day for you irrespective of whether you religiously say your prayers or not.

You got to be positive about the day ahead of you. You got to be positive about the world around you. So start the day on a positive note. They say that the world around you is just your reflection. If you are good and polite, the world around you becomes polite and decent. And if you demonstrate a behaviour that is manipulative, wicked and dishonest, the world around you also seems the same way to you. So we got to demonstrate the positive attitude, all the time and every time.

Think positive about the environment. Think positive about the people, about your friends and about your family members. If at all you have to be judgemental about anyone, let it be yourself and not others.

In the words of Zig Ziglar, ‘It is your Attitude and not Aptitude that determines your Altitude’. For a moment it may seem a bit strange. After all, we keep studying various subjects in schools and colleges like Physics, Chemistry, Economics or Mathematics or Biology etc. And there is a maddening competition to get higher grades.  Yes, it is true that the subject/domain knowledge is important to succeed wherever you go and whatever you do. But think of a situation where three MBA qualified girls with almost same grades and equally smart and good looking go for an interview in a big company and they need to hire just one of them. The interview board has just 15 to 20 minutes for each of the candidates. From their resumes, all the three look equally good. Now within this short period, it is very difficult to judge the actual capabilities of a person. Who will finally get selected according to you? The one, who is able to demonstrate her positive attitude during that brief interaction, the one who is able to prove that she is a ‘Go-getter’ and full of positivity.

Attitude is the first step towards achieving Excellence. And Excellence is nothing but doing ordinary things in the most extra ordinary way so that everyone who sees the results says ‘Wow!’, no matter how simple a job it may be. There are just four simple steps to achieve Excellence:

Attitude >>>  Knowledge >>> Skills >>>  Habit

If you have the attitude, you will be able to acquire the knowledge to accomplish any job in an excellent manner. But knowledge alone is not good enough. You got to acquire the necessary skills to do the job. Do you know that most of the electronics engineers will not be able to repair a simple telephone or a TV at home. The reason is that they have been taught about all the electronic chips, integrated circuits, electronic circuitry etc, but they never acquired the skills to repair these electronics gadgets. So acquiring skills in your profession is very important. And once you keep doing a job again and again, after sometime it becomes a habit and it becomes your second nature.

Let us say that your mother/wife makes very tasty, excellent stuffed ‘Gobhi Paratha’ (Cauliflower stuffed Bread). She has the Attitude to make good ‘parathas’ for you and all others in the family. She acquired the knowledge long time back about all the ingredients and in what proportions to use them. Then she acquired the skills may be from her mother and then by making them again and again over so many years and now it has become a part of her habit to make good ‘parathas’. I am sure her ‘parathas’ are delicious, excellent every time and each time.

We all can achieve Excellence always by following these four steps: Attitude, Knowledge, Skills and Habit. And this starts with Attitude, and that is the Power of Attitude. I simplify this by saying that let AKSH be your Lakshya (Goal) if you wish to achieve Excellence in Life. Remember that Positive Attitude leads to Positive Thoughts and that will lead you to Positive Actions and that will produce Positive Results.

If you don’t like something, change it.  If you can’t change it, change your attitude.  Don’t complain. The most significant change in a person’s life is a Change of Attitude.