We all have our ways of looking at life; some of us are positive while others are negative. But that doesn’t mean we have no control; instead, we need to adjust our attitudes to live happier lives.
Having a good attitude means you are willing to learn from your mistakes, take on challenges as they come and always put your best self forward. When we are young, we may not enjoy doing what we are supposed to do, so others may judge us as having a bad attitude, but that doesn’t mean they are right.
The attitude you bring to any situation plays a significant role in how that situation will turn out. If you come into something with a bad attitude, you can only expect bad results. But if you work towards a positive attitude, you will find that you can get more out of the things you do.
If you are curious about what having a good attitude is all about, keep reading as we will discuss it in detail.
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What is having a good attitude all about?
When I was much younger than I am today and had a part-time job or had to do chores with my dad, I was always in a bad mood about it. When my dad would see this, he would say, “what’s with the attitude?” At the time, in my mind, there were better things I could have been doing, so I was not excited about the chores he wanted help with.
When we are younger, our priorities are very different from our parents or other authority figures. Adults often have goals and plans that they want us to be a part of, but we might want to sleep in or hang out with our friends instead.
As we get older, we might start to realize that life is all about doing things we don’t want to do.
But luckily, if we do the things we don’t want to do first, we can spend more time doing what we want to do later. This is a lesson my daughter is slowly learning when it comes to studying for school.
But it isn’t only young people who can have a bad attitude; even some adults have them. I know cause I’ve interacted with a lot of them. People might not grow out of these sorts of personality traits because that is who they are, it is their personality, and they won’t change it. But if you are reading this, you likely aren’t one of those people who aren’t willing to change; instead, your goal is to get better at everything you do.
As I mentioned above, sometimes in life, we need to do things we don’t want to do, but as we mature, we learn to accept that that is how life works. With this realization, we understand that the things we don’t like doing often lead to the things we want to do. For example, you might not like getting up early to go to work, but you do like hanging out with your friends after work or go to a restaurant on the weekend.
Often having a good attitude is about realizing how the system works and learning to deal with it.
As we have discussed in the past, struggles lead to success, so while things might be difficult now, they could be leading to better things in the future. However, when things are going bad, you want to try and keep a good attitude because if you don’t, it will only make things more difficult.
Much of life comes down to how we look at the situations we find ourselves in. We can go through life thinking everything is difficult and painful, which is how it will be. But on the other hand, we can realize that life is full of challenges, accept that and then make the most out of the situations we find ourselves in.
What matters most is how you look at things, good or bad; your attitude has a huge effect.
Examples of having a good attitude
Last week we moved into a new house, so we had a lot of stuff that needed moving, which was far too much for my wife and me alone. So I reached out to a friend, and he said sure right away and asked which day. The day before, I asked him to come early, and he showed up on time. He was a great help and made a world of difference for us. He joked about it being hard work, but he didn’t complain and had a great attitude about it.
At my mom’s house, where we were living before, a neighbour is a handyman. Once he heard that we had bought a house, he offered to help as much as possible. During the week we were painting the house, he stopped by and changed the locks for us, which was a huge help that allowed me to sleep at night. He enjoys doing these sorts of tasks, and it shows, which is a huge help for everyone.
In a past life, I was a developer, though I wasn’t that great. One day, my manager asked me to look into something called accessibility. At the time, I had no idea what he was talking about, but I dug in and learned as much as I could.
Instead of taking his suggestion as an insult or looking down at the challenge, I embraced it, and now it is my full-time job, and people would say I’m an expert.
I have tried out many different business ideas in the past, some have worked out while others have failed, but I have kept at it. There are various ways of looking at this; you could say it has been a waste of time or working towards something better.
While I’ve not found my winning ticket just yet, it feels like I am getting closer, and the past failures have been learning experiences leading to better opportunities today.
Having a good attitude puts you in a position where you can learn from your mistakes and get better at what you are doing. It also enables you to get through the tough times and feel better about things when they go wrong.
Everything won’t always work out, but having a good attitude can undoubtedly help you get through challenging circumstances.
So do you have a good attitude?
You are the only one who knows what kind of attitude you have, but that doesn’t mean that other people might not pick up on what is going on. I know for sure that I used to have a bad attitude about almost everything. A big part of that was being young and not knowing what I wanted out of life. Another reason was a lack of maturity, which I’ve gained a lot of in the last few years since having a child.
But when it comes to how we deal with situations in our life, we must have a good attitude.
If we always focus on the bad, we will have bad experiences, or instead, we will miss out on good experiences because we see them in a negative light.
Again, we come back to the point that it is absolutely up to us in how we see things. So do we want the good or the bad?
For myself, I have found that sorting out what I wanted in life had a significant impact on my ability to get what I wanted. It is easier to have a good attitude because I know that everything I am doing is getting me closer to where I want to be.
So the question for you is, do you have a good attitude? How do you look at your life and the situations you find yourself in? Are you putting your best foot forward and working towards what you want? Or are you looking at everything in the worst possible light and making life more difficult for yourself?
If you have a bad attitude, you need to realize that and work towards a more positive one cause that will make a massive difference in your life.
If you are curious about why it is important to have a positive attitude, you will enjoy my article on the topic. Similarly, if you have difficulty maintaining a positive attitude, check out this article with 12 tips from a happiness expert.