What kind of attitude do you have?

An attitude is how you evaluate people, places and things.   Attitudes are formed through life experiences and show how you feel, think and act.

Depending on the environment you grew up in, the people you surround yourself with and how immersed you are in the media, you may have developed a more positive or a more negative attitude.  When you are in a positive environment, you will tend to be more positive and likely have a positive attitude.  When you are in a negative environment, you will tend to be more negative and likely have a negative attitude.

The good thing is, you don’t have to keep the attitude you have.   If you learn about positive thinking and practice what you learn, you will develop a habit of being positive.

When you meet someone who has a negative attitude, how does it make you feel?  If they are being nasty, mean or picking on you, it certainly won’t make you feel very good.   Negative people can pull down your mood and make you very unhappy.

If you are confronted by someone with a negative attitude, just be thankful that you aren’t that person and give them a smile back.  You DON’T have to let their bad mood get to you.

What kind of attitude do you have?  Are you the positive person that people like to meet or are you the negative person that people try to avoid?

Are you sending out positive vibes?

Everyone wants to have friends, people to enjoy spending time with and share interests.  Some people find it easy to make friends but other people find it difficult.   Why?

It all depends on what kind of vibes you are sending out.   If you have confidence in yourself and show your positive qualities, you will send out a message inviting people to be your friend.  If you don’t have confidence in yourself and show your negative qualities, you will send out a message that turns people away from you.  Sometimes we aren’t even aware that we are sending out a negative message and we wonder why people don’t like us.

If you want people to like you, you have to like yourself.  If you lack confidence, it is important that you learn how to build confidence and develop a positive attitude.   Being positive about yourself and looking at life with a positive perspective will tell people that you will be a valuable friend.

People who find it easy to make friends are sending out positive vibes.  They have the following characteristics:

• outgoing and friendly
• caring and empathetic
• helpful and cooperative
• happy, wear a smile
• don’t complain or criticize
• good listener
• honest and open
• confident
• respect others

People who find it difficult to make friends are sending out negative vibes.  They have some or all of the following characteristics:

• shy, timid, unfriendly
• uncaring
• miserable
• rarely smile
• complain or criticize
• don’t listen
• boast about themselves
• lack confidence
• lack respect
• aggressive, controlling
• hard to get along with

If you want to have friends, you have to be a friend.  Think about what kind of vibes you are sending out to people.  Do you attract people or send them away?

It took me a long time to realize that I was sending out negative messages.  Being shy, having a fear of speaking to people and not liking myself was stopping me from having many friends.  My vibes were screaming, “Go away, I hate myself so you won’t want to be my friend”.  Of course I did attract occasional friends who had fears and insecurities and all this did was keep us all focused on our problems and we didn’t change.   When we live in our problems, we tend to attract people with the same problems and this doesn’t benefit us in any way.

Visit my website at www.imconfident.com and click on the bookstore page for more information on the Caterpillar to Butterfly Self-esteem workbook.  Or you can order directly by following the links:

• Order a hard copy http://www.lulu.com/shop/brenda-silveira/caterpillar-to-butterfly-self-esteem-workbook/paperback/product-21135317.html
• Download a PDF or e-book for I-pad  http://www.lulu.com/shop/brenda-silveira/caterpillar-to-butterfly-self-esteem-e-workbook/ebook/product-20956660.html

If you are struggling with esteem issues and want to start sending out positive vibes, get started today on your journey.  It’s a new year and it can be a successful year!!

Treat others as you want them to treat you

We all want people to like us and treat us with kindness and respect.   No matter what age we are, being liked and having friends is important and it makes us feel good about ourselves.

Society makes us believe that we have to make drastic changes in the way we look or have flashy, expensive stuff to be popular but what we really need to do is change our attitude and behaviour.

If we want to have friends, we need to treat other people the way that we want them to treat us.  Of course, there will always be people who don’t like us no matter what we do because of personality conflicts, but most people are attracted to a genuinely ‘nice’ person.

Here are some things you can do to increase your chances of being liked:

• be genuine and sincere
• have a positive attitude
• be confident
• show respect
• be kind and caring
• listen more than you talk
• be a fun and interesting person
• be reliable
• don’t gossip or spread rumours

If you want to have friends, you have to be a friend!

two things define you.

I like this comment. So profound!

There's a Spirit

Two things define you: your patience when you have nothing, and your attitude when you have everything.

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Are you winning?

Most of us like to be a winner especially if it is noticed by other people.  When we win at playing a game or doing something that receives recognition, it makes us feel important and special.

When we are winning, it gives us a feeling of power and control.   This can be a great feeling unless winning becomes a habit and we are not satisfied with ourselves unless we are always the winner.   When we feel like we have to win at everything, winning becomes the most important goal to us even in small things.

Think about these situations:

1. If your husband (or anyone) surprises you with reservations at a restaurant for dinner and you would rather go somewhere else, do you get upset and tell him that he doesn’t care about your feelings and that he should have asked you where you wanted to go?
2. If your wife (or anyone) buys you a birthday gift and you don’t like it, do you tell her that she should know that you don’t like this particular item?
3. If you are taking with a friend about a movie you watched together last year and she mentions an actor that you don’t remember seeing in the movie, do you argue about who the person was?

Do you stay upset until the person gives in or sees it your way?  Do you feel that you have won?

If you have the need to win all the time and have to get in the last word, you may feel you are winning, but in reality you have won nothing.  All you have accomplished is:

• hurting the other person
• maintaining control of the situation
• kept your bad attitude

Look back at the three situations.  How could you have handled these in a different way?  Think about how you would feel if you were the other person.

1. The surprise dinner – If you get upset and make negative remarks, will you have a good evening?   Not likely.  It could be a pleasant evening if you make the other person feel like they  have made you happy.  Most restaurants have choices and you can usually find something you like to eat.   Try something new and enjoy!
2. The birthday gift – It can be hard to find a gift that is suitable for another person.  It is the thought that counts, not the gift itself.  Some people never get gifts at all, so just be thankful someone is thinking about you.  If you get a gift that you don’t particularly want, just thank the person and you can always re-gift it at a later date without the other person even knowing.  Don’t hurt someone’s feelings because you are picky.   Accept gifts with enthusiasm!
3. The actor – We all remember things in a different way.  Some people have a hard time remembering who a person is and does it really matter?  Are you going to put a strain on your relationship because of a name?

It is hard to let things go when you expect to win all the time.   But winning is not everything, especially if we hurt others in the process.  It is far more important to consider everyone’s feelings and act appropriately.

 

 

Life is too short….

Life is too short to spend your precious time trying to convince a person who wants to live in gloom and doom otherwise.  Give lifting that person your best shot, but don’t hang around long enough for his or her bad attitude to pull you down.  Instead, surround yourself with optimistic people.   ~Zig Ziglar

Zig Ziglar was an amazing motivational speaker and author who wrote several books.  He was born in November 1926 and died at the age of 86 in the same month of his birth, November 2012.   As a speaker, he inspired many people with his famous quotes.

His quote about life being too short is one that inspires me and makes me think about my own attitude.  I’ve been the person with that bad attitude that pulls people down and I’ve also been the person who has tried to help people who have that bad attitude.   So I understand how difficult both sides can be.

In the past few years, I’ve taken an honest look inside myself to find out what makes me tick and I’ve found some things that I didn’t want to face.   We all want to blame other people for our unhappiness and feel sorry for ourselves.  We want other people to change and we don’t see that we need to change something in ourselves.  I know now that we can’t change anyone else except ourselves and this is the only way that we can find happiness.   We can’t rely on others to make our happiness; they might be able to provide us with temporary happiness, but it will never last.  We need to find happiness within ourselves.

Zig Ziglar is right.  Life is way too short to spent time trying to change someone else and there are so many people who don’t want to change, they would prefer to stay miserable.  All we can do is try to be a positive influence and if this doesn’t work, then we have to accept that and move on.  If someone has a negative attitude, it will just bring us down and make us miserable too.   We need to surround ourselves with positive people, places and things.  This will help us build confidence and increase our self-esteem.

Always try to be positive and have a good attitude.  It will affect those around you, even the negative people.   Don’t give up on family and friends who have a bad attitude, just distance yourself from them and keep on trying to be a good example to them.    It may take time, but keep smiling and be happy when you are around them.  Happiness can be contagious.