General Interest
HOW TO CREATE A GOOD ATTITUDE
By Craig Lock

"You are today what you thought about yesterday
You will be tomorrow what you think about today,
Every attitude is positive or negative,
It doesn't matter what happens to you,
It is how you take it that matters."

"In the game of life you can be up one moment and down
the next. The reason is not luck as in snakes and ladders,
but the attitudes you choose consciously or unconsciously."

Your attitude will determine your entire outlook on life and
how you see the world- happy or sad, positive or negative.
You can choose to see it through rose-coloured spectacles
(the eternal optimist who is out of touch with reality). You
can also see everything as dark clouds (the absolute pes-
simist), or choose to see that every dark cloud has a silver
lining, which is a good attitude to have. Well it's true anyway!

I am the eternal optimist, out of touch, some say. Some
people pick up the doom and gloom portrayed by news-
papers and the media and transfer it to their own daily
living. Attitude clouds verything that happens to you and
how you react to situations, crises, etc.

Your attitude is your perception of an event- it is your reality.
You may perceive a certain situation to be a disaster, while
another person may see it differently, as a positive oppor-
tunity for trying something new: e.g.. on redundancy or job
loss or loss of a relationship.

As we have seen, one's attitude is closely related to your
self-image and it is probably the most critical factor in deter-
mining how successful or how happy you will be in life. The
inner attitude you have about yourself will determine your
level of success far more than the skills and training you
have ever received.


1. YOUR ATTITUDE DETERMINES YOUR DESTINY

Personally, due to a traumatic event some years ago, my
self-image was severely knocked, which impacted on my
attitude for quite a length of time. This was passed onto
my wife, who suffered a severe emotional crisis. Our neg-
ative attitudes, together with extraneous circumstances,
made life very difficult and stressful, leading to misjudge-
ments, personal trauma and an inability to make decisions.

However, entirely on our own, we have lifted ourselves
and bit by bit, regained our normal positive attitudes,
which has enabled us to achieve wonders and a happy life-
style.


2. THE FACTORY OF THE MIND

Your thoughts become your beliefs, and your thoughts
determine whether "good" (positive), or "bad" (negative)
messages are sent from the brain to the rest of your
body. There is a complex relationship between the mind
and the body. Physical disorders are caused by your state
of mind. What you think can literally make you sick or healthy.
The attitude you hold about yourself can give rise to feel-
ings of joy, despair, anger, rage, etc. and can even cause
heart disease, asthma, and ulcers known as psychosomatic
illnesses).

The attitude you hold about yourself also affects your relation-
ships with other people. After a divorce, when a person's
confidence is at a low level and they may feel a failure, they
are more likely to die of certain medical disorders (because
their mental powers of resistance and self-esteem are low).

"The greatest discovery of my generation is that human be-
ings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind."
American psychologist, William James

Positive thoughts produce positive results, and negative
thoughts produce negative results. We should try to under-
stand how our thoughts arise and are influenced; they come
into the brain from what we hear, what we see, what we
read and what we say to ourselves.

We get our thoughts/attitudes from the media, those with
whom we mix and through self-talk. Negative people are
the product of a negative environment. Self-talk is what
we say to ourselves all day long. A number of sportsmen
use this technique to stay positive. Sports psychologists
also use it.
(See my book on sports psychology called 'The Winning
Mind'). Plug,plug !

Some people, on learning that they have cancer, have
been known to go into shock and die. There have also been
cases of people whom, expected to die far sooner by their
doctors, have willed themselves to stay alive for an event
like the birth of a grandchild. Australian aborigines can
subconsciously will themselves to die when the bones point
to them (known as voodoo). Or is it a hoodoo perhaps!

Optimism and pessimism are learned attitudinal behaviours
and they can be relearned. We need to constantly monitor
our inner navigational system, our attitudes to make our
own course corrections. Negative thinking cripples the mind,
like polio cripples the body. The cure is positive thinking- a
positive outlook for opportunities does wonders for one's
attitude. Many discoveries or luck come by chance. SEREN-
DIPITY is the faculty of making happy and unexpected dis-
coveries by accident. Do try anything!

WHAT IS your outlook on life - happy or sad? Remember
what you believe in normally happens. In other words,
"YOU GET WHAT YOU EXPECT". This is known as self-fulfil-
ling prophecies, so top golfers expect to hole their putts
and are surprised when they don't.

Be ENTHUSIASTIC - walk, talk and act enthusiastically and
you will find that it is contagious and that people will be at-
tracted to you.


SUMMARY

1. Attitudes are more important than facts.

2. How you take it is more important than what happens.

3. Attitude acts as a selective filter affecting perception :
we choose to see the best or worst in any situation.

AS WE THINK, SO SHALL WE BECOME

We are not as we think we are, but as we think- the quality
of our thinking is more important than what we think about.
How we think is our strangest secret.

If your goal is wealth, but your thinking is poverty-stricken,
your attitude will cancel out the achievement of your goal.
If your goal is health and you choose healthy thoughts, you
will realise your goal. NB: Attitudes beat facts every time.

"We need to be beneficiaries of our attitudes, not victims."
"Our attitude determines our altitude".



END OF PART ONE


* * *


ATTITUDE
PART TWO


WHERE DO OUR ATTITUDES COME FROM?

I believe that heredity (the genes that you inherit) have
some part in forming attitudes. However, most important
in shaping them, is the family environment, especially in
your early childhood: the impressionable years up to the
age of seven. Also critical are your lifetime experiences
and events (whether happy or traumatic) in later years.
What is happening in your life today, yesterday and all
those past years. There are three areas of life in which your
attitudes are formed.

1. A sense of BELONGING which is picked up before birth.
The "vibes" in the womb of the mother (hard to be a father
in this process) will determine whether we are really want-
ed by the mother, and this can determine our degree of
security (or insecurity) in later life.

2. Your sense of WORTH will be determined by your im-
mediate family in your early childhood. They instil in you an
inner sense of well-being and of being loved. The role of
mothers and fathers is critical in the socialization process
for the development of your attitudes. Their expectations
of you play a big part in your life script.

3. Your sense of COMPETENCE will also originate in the
family environment. That is why it is very important to
praise and encourage children. If they are continually repr-
imanded, children will feel that they can't ever do things
right. This then develops into the child thinking, "I am a
person of no worth who is no good at anything." This atti-
tude grows over time and can be re-inforced in the working
environment. Even extremely competent business execu-
tives can feel insecure on a personal level and have difficulty
in personal relationships.

DEVELOPING SUCCESS ATTITUDES

Golda Meier, an earlier Prime Minister of Israel, was once
asked what made Israel such a success against the might
of the united Arab armies. Israel, as you most probably
know, is a small country set in the middle of a desert, with
virtually no natural resources and no wealth. Meier replied,
"All that my country has is the spirit of it's people. If the
people lost their spirit, not even the might of the United
States of America could save us." A right attitude through-
out the country overcame all the odds and insurmountable
difficulties throughout it's turbulent history.

The top salesman for Bell telephones in America is a quadri-
plegic. Although he can only blink his eyes and open his
mouth, his attitude and perseverance have made him num-
ber one. (Stanford University after doing extensive research,
said that all success is 87.5% as a result of your attitudes.
Your skills, abilities and knowledge make up the other 12.5%).

HOW DO I GET THE RIGHT ATTITUDE?

1. Enlist the co-operation of a positive close friend that you
can confide in. Share your personal goals and dreams. Ig-
nore the "knockers" who will try to put you down out of jeal-
ousy (the "tall poppy syndrome" so prevalent here in New
Zealand, but especially Australia).
2. Seek out the right people (successful and enthusiastic
ones who have the right attitude). DON'T NEGLECT YOUR
OLD FRIENDS TO GET IDEAS , but remember, your poten-
tial has nothing to do with your ultimate performance.

3. Select a model to emulate or follow...who you would like
to be like? (Only if you are not happy with the way you are.)

4. Learn from your mistakes. Daley Thompson, the former
great British athlete in the decathlon said..."I will learn more
than any other experience from my failures than my successes."
In his goal setting, Thompson was content to grow slowly, be-
cause slow growth is more solid, and he did it in small steps.

Look beyond your mistakes and savour successful experiences.
Don't feel embarrassed or uncomfortable about your achieve-
ments. Make daily affirmations to yourself that you are doing
well and are on the right track. Reward yourself for minor
achievements, or steps on the road to your bigger goals. Give
yourself credit, no matter how small your achievements,
because mental rewards will boost your motivation. All
rewards must come from within. This conditioning will cult-
ivate a
positive attitude in you. (Just like Pavlov's dogs were con-
ditioned to salivate through association of ideas.) I remem-
ber that from my studies in psychology many many moons
ago.

Look forward to positive outcomes and rehearse them in
your mind, rather than anticipating failure. Don't repeat
bad experiences-our attitude ties us down and limits us,
so that mediocrity becomes our destiny.

5. Make the most of any situation you find yourself in. Try
not to be anxious. Things will work out in the end.

6. Avoid self-pity. Resilient people don't feel sorry for them-
selves too long. The person who wallows in self-pity or bitter
ness spends too much time on introspection and not enough
time plotting a comeback.

7. Be persistent. Winning often means getting up one more
time than you have been knocked down. Persevere and
never give up.

8. Adapt to change and see it as a challenge rather than as
uncertain and frightening.

9. Always keep things in perspective. Because our job is
such a big part of our self image, a career set-back can
make us lose perspective. If you become unemployed,
don't see yourself as a failure, but rather as having options
and an opportunity to pursue a new direction.

and finally,

10. Believe in yourself, but trust in God .

YOUR ATTITUDE DETERMINES YOUR DESTINY
and
YOUR ATTITUDE DETERMINES YOUR ALTITUDE

Realistically analyse your strengths and weaknesses. As a
matter of interest, people generally list more weaknesses
than strengths, especially women (nice things those!). Too
often people discount their accomplishments and focus on
what they haven't been able to do.

Making money in itself is not success, but rather a by-product
of success. Most successful people use the technique of visual-
isation to foresee ideal outcomes. If you can foresee getting
your desires in the mind, then you can get there in the body..
.at least I think so!

"As a man thinketh so is he."
Haven't I got that one in already?

Success or failure is not a matter of luck. The key ingredient
is a winning attitude, together with PERSEVERANCE and
common sense.

Your attitude determines your destiny:

Remember to stick at a task when things don't go right.
"When the going gets tough, the tough get going", as my
dear father used to tell me often. Did it work though with
me? All successful people have true grit and stickability,
as well as natural ability. The winner is often the person
who gets up one more time than they are knocked down.
You will hit attitudes in others who say 'you can't do it'. You
have a choice then: a) To remain convinced that you can do
it. b) Stay with their attitude and quit yours.

All the world's greats would never have been great if they
had listened to the opinion of even their closest friends.
Caruso, the world's greatest tenor, was told his voice sound-
ed like a tin can. Thomas Edison, the inventor of motion
pictures, was advised that no-one would pay to listen to
sound coming from a screen. Edison told Henry Ford to give
up making cars and work for him instead and make millions.
Marie Curie was told to forget about radium. Laurence Olivier
was told by friends to give up acting. Benjamin Franklin was
told to stop fiddling with lightning. People told Johnny
Weismuller (Tarzan) that no-one would ever beat his fifty
swimming records. His 1936 world record was the qualifying
time for the 1972 Olympics! Attitudes of the time said his
records could never be beaten. Now 12 year old girls regular-
ly beat his times.

Christopher Columbus took 14 years to raise funding for his
ships and crew before setting out on his explorations. The
science and culture of the day had said that the world was
flat. However, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain
had faith in Columbus. With that faith and money behind
him, Columbus took just six months to discover the New
World.

In the same way, a "flat-world mind-set" can limit our thinking
and lead to mediocrity. In the same way that you can train
fleas to jump a certain height in a bowl, when you take away
the bowl, they still do not jump higher than the learned
height.

Our mind can tie us down and limit us, so that mediocrity
becomes our destiny. Negative attitudes get cemented in
concrete.

WITH THE RIGHT ATTITUDE YOU CAN BE GREATER
THAN ANYTHING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED TO YOU:

ATTITUDE BEATS FACTS EVERY TIME.

DARE TO BE DIFFERENT

END OF PART TWO

* * *
ATTITUDE
PART THREE


A short exercise:

Talk to your best friend or partner *(I hate that common
New Zealand expression- cheapens the institution of mar-
riage anddenotes immoral living - Yes, sir "Mr goody goody
two shoes") about:
* I far prefer the term 'spouse', which could be an abbrev-
iation for "spastic mouse". Enough about my personal
opinions...

1. The picture you hold of yourself (i.e.. how you see yourself):
Is it positive or negative, are you an introvert, extrovert,
popular?

2. How you see other people seeing you - their perception
of you, or looking glass).
Which brings to mind the following wise words (not mine)...

"I am not what I think I am."
"I am not what you think I am."
"I am what I think you think I am."

Abraham Lincoln grew up in a very difficult environment.
He had less than one year of formal schooling. He experienc-
ed defeat and failure year after year, but is one of the great-
est success stories of all time. In spite of everything, he
had the right attitude to achieve success.

I HOPE THAT YOU DO TOO.

Craig Lock

When faced with a mountain,
I will not quit!
I will keep on striving
until I climb over,
find a pass through,
tunnel underneath
-or simply stay
and turn the mountain
into a gold mine,
with God's help!

Authors Note:

Craig Lock has written extensively on the subject of personal
success, as well as doing much studying in the field of self
help. This extract is from his first published book HANDBOOK
FOR SURVIVAL .

Craig is a writer, who believes in encouraging and helping
others to find their talents and gifts, to strive for and
accomplish their dreams in life, whatever they may be.
He truly believes people can overcome obstacles,
rise to any occasion, and accomplish their "impossible" dream
with enough faith and commitment.

The various books* that I "felt inspired to write" are
available at:
http://www.novelty-gift.com/ebooks.html

* Hard copies and e-books: Fiction and non-fiction,
novels on South Africa, travel, humour, inspiration,
self help and money books

http://www.craiglock.com
and
http://www.elkpublications.com/godzone.htm