Sierra Leoneans the Price of Negative Attitude: How can we combat it?
A Negative Attitude Affects Every Aspect of Your Life
Maintaining a negative attitude can cripple the person you are meant to be. A self-defeating negative attitude will have a negative impact on every aspect of your life and if you allow it to it can alter your physical and mental well-being. I will be the first to agree that things go wrong in life at times but ultimately we each choose how we react to troublesome events.
Negative Attitude Impacts Health
Maintaining a negative attitude drains the energy right out of you. Negative attitude can shorten your life. When you become angry, upset or frustrated, you let negative emotions overtake you. What happens to the human immune system when people have negative attitudes? You can actually weaken your immune system with negativity. There have been studies that show how people with negative attitudes are more susceptible to getting sick compared to those with a positive outlook on life.
Chronic stress from negative attitudes and feelings of helplessness upsets the body’s hormone balance and depletes the brain chemicals required for feelings of happiness. New scientific understandings have identified the pathways through which human emotions, such as hope and fear; impact the body’s immune systems and overall vitality.
People with negative attitudes are not as healthy as people who have positive attitudes. People who have positive attitudes also have fewer bad habits. While a positive attitude does not prevent or cure all health conditions or diseases, it does play an instrumental role in disease prevention and treatment. A person who sees everything in a negative light will have a harder time getting over an ailment than a person with a positive attitude.
A positive or negative attitude not only determines what we will do with the choices that we are presented with, it also determines how we feel – from a physical standpoint. A positive person may wake up with some pain, and tell themselves that the sooner they start moving around and getting on with their day, the sooner the pain will go away or subside. A negative person will decide that their pain is too great to even get out of bed. They cannot function, and if they do function, they are going to do it in pain. The negative person will carry their pain and discomfort with them all day. The positive person actually will – at the very least – notice that the pain has diminished a great deal, if it hasn’t subsided altogether.
Negativity’s Negative Affect on Relationships
When you have a negative attitude it does not just affect you, it affects everyone around you and over time this will take its toll on all your personal relationships.
A negative attitude is self-destructive it will only hinder the process of maintaining good relationships. You will find yourself blaming others for your problems. You will make your rut even deeper by complaining all the time. You will actually be stricken with physical and mental stress. There is nothing good at all that comes from staying in that state of mind.
It harms others. Your negative mood affects people around you. You should never make others feel bad because by doing so you are contributing not only to your own misery, but also to the unhappiness of others. Attitude problems can plague even the best of relationships. A negative attitude has the power to ruin conversations, frustrate partners and friends or even end a relationship for good.
Keep Your Own Negative Thoughts and Behaviors in Check
If you do nothing else but focus on managing your own negative thoughts and behavior, you will come a long way towards remaining positive. A negative attitude is contagious, but a positive attitude is infectious as well. Hang out with positive people that encourage you to be your best self.
Defeating a Negative Attitude for Good
Nobody wants to live with a negative attitude and nobody has to. You do not have to live another day in misery. Positive thinking can work and it is something you can put to use starting this very moment.
When you have a negative attitude just think to yourself that you have the power to change how you feel. Focus hard on some positive aspects of your life and keep your mind focused until it just naturally takes over on its own. Repeat positive affirmations, visualize positive situations, give it a try it is definitely better then feeling totally miserable.
If you take this approach towards life you empower yourself to control your destiny and with this type of personal power you can defeat a negative attitude. Spending time writing in or reading from personal journals can help you from falling prey to those negative thoughts that try to creep into your consciousness.
Everyday Negative Behavior at Work
A negative attitude drains you of your energy, which causes you to lose focus and motivation. It strips you of your ability to achieve professional success in your life.
Of course, maintaining an upbeat attitude for 30 minutes or an hour during an interview is far easier than fighting off grumpiness every day. Habitual negativity is a problem because it can quickly become your trademark and overshadow any accomplishments. And in a tough job market, when workers are feeling stressed and employers consider trimming back head count, you do not want to be remembered for being the local sourpuss. You could lose your job.
“In this recession, people have to do more with less — that’s just a fact.” Milligan says. “If you’re the employee that complains about clients or the workload or the commute or the manager — and you seek out opportunities to talk about your misery — this will definitely pose a problem with your employer and co-workers.” It is damaging to your position.
Verbally complaining is not the only problematic negative behavior at work. “The non-verbal will always prevail if we are trying to mask negativity. For example, the employee makes a comment that sounds OK but the facial expressions and/or body language makes it clear that she or he isn’t on board,” Cooke explains. Non-verbal cues can give your bad attitude away
In your quest to compensate for a lack of enthusiasm, you do not need to become the resident cheerleader, either. Your boss will probably sense insincerity if she tells you to report at 7 a.m. tomorrow for a meeting and you react with a cheer of approval. Instead, learn to say, “Sure,” without emitting a long sigh as you walk away.
Remember that not every aspect of a job will be fun and exciting. And sometimes you will want to roll your eyes when the boss is not looking, but make it an exception, not a habit. After all, you don’t want to be that person.
Regardless of What You May Believe…Maintaining A Negative Attitude Is A Matter of Choice!
If you allow pessimism to go on for too long it will negatively affect many areas of your life and it becomes a vicious cycle of negativity.
If you choose to allow certain events or circumstances in life to dictate your mood-you are giving away your personal power to what triggered your negative attitude.
We all have the ability to defeat negative thinking but the only way that you will ever win that battle is if you arm yourself with some specific skills to take back control of your life.
Let’s face it, there are going to be those days when it seems as though nothing is going your way. The worst thing you could do is to allow those things that go wrong define you as a person.
Practice it often
This is an easy habit to forge and once you do it will change your life in ways you can only imagine. It does not matter how bad the day before may have been because the fact is that day is gone and that is the beauty of life, every day we get a brand new day and it is up to us to make the best of every new day of our life.
You have to tell yourself that the past is the past and regardless of how good or bad it may have been you cannot change it, all you can do is to focus on the day that is right in front of you and you have control over how that day turns out. Learn to focus on the here and now and do all you can to make the most of what you have.
Nothing good can ever come from having a negative attitude; it will lead you down a long and lonely dark path.
These simple acts can pull you out of that negative attitude and can salvage your day. Make a habit of this and people will begin to notice a change in you… You will begin to notice a change in yourself.
How to Build a Positive Attitude
| Positive attitude keeps us in positive state of mind. It is easier to dust off past failures and get back to the present with such an attitude. |
A person with negative attitude often plays blame game and never accepts responsibilities. This restricts life and success at work will be limited too. Fewer friends, lesser enjoyment and limited relationships become the part of life of a person with such a fatalistic and erratic attitude.
Good news is that one can cultivate a few traits to develop a positive attitude.
Traits to build a positive attitude:
Focus on Positive aspect
We always look for faults and forget to see positive vibes. If we condition our mind to read positive things, we are bound to have positive personality. Remember, in goldmines, people focus on Gold and not on dirt and dust that comes out while digging. If you focus on negative, you spread negative messages and create environment conducive to negative results.
Avoid procrastination
Cultivate the habit of living in the present and doing it now. A completed task is fulfilling and energizing and an incomplete task drains energy. Most of us have the habit of dragging and postponing things, consequently we always find ourselves in planning and analyzing mode and actual action never takes place.
Focus on virtues
Focus on knowledge and wisdom and not on grades. Educating the mind and not developing moral create menace in the society. Wealth without character and conscience is a waste. If you are not trustworthy, you have no credibility. Trust is a capital, once lost very difficult to regain.
Commonsense
Apart from 5 god gifted senses, we have a sixth sense – commonsense, that we develop over the time. It is the sense that enables us to take right decision at the right time. If you lack commonsense, it is useless how strong your other senses are. I have seen many walking encyclopedia and living failure simply for lack commonsense.
High Self-Esteem
Self-Esteem is the way we feel about ourselves. Self-Esteem is the feeling of gratification that has nothing to do with success and winning. When you do something for others, you feel good; you are at you best and your self-esteem gets a big boost. No matter how rich or poor you are, a person with high self-esteem definitely touches high goals in life.
Avoid negative influences
We are born achievers and winners. It is the negative influences and environment that conditions our mind to be a loser. We all are impressionable to varying degree and thus required stay in the company of well-motivated people.
Learn to like the task
Never hate your work, perform with utmost passion, result is guaranteed. When I asked a mother that how she could manage to take care 3 demanding kids. She said that it was a job she loved.
Practice having positive thoughts and behavior daily
Just as you feed your body with food every day, treat you mind with positive thoughts every day. Our mind is most receptive in the morning. Repeating healthy thoughts in the morning conditions your mind to be positive and ultimately becomes your habit. Success and positive thoughts go hand in hand.
Maj. Rtd. Mathew S. Kamara
Houston, Texas
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