A positive mental attitude is an absolutely indispensable prerequisite for success. Your attitude determines how well you do and how far you go in life. Speaker and writer, Earl Nightingale called attitude “The Magic Word” and said it is the most important word in the English language.

Most people know that you need to have a positive mental attitude to achieve any measure of happiness and success, but what is it? A positive mental attitude is how you respond to adversity and difficulty. The only way you can tell what type of attitude you have is how you react when things go wrong.

Your attitude is determined by your expectations. If you expect things to go well you’ll generally have a positive mental attitude. If you believe that wonderful and positive things will happen to you during the day, you have a positive and optimistic attitude.

The Law of Cause and Effect is one of the most important of all the universal laws. This law says that for every effect in our lives, there is a specific cause. We have the ability to control the causes and change the effects to anything we want. Our thoughts are the primary causes of the conditions or effects in our lives, and if you want things to be different in the future you have to change your thinking in the present.

What makes this law so universal for every part of your life is that if there is an effect in your life such as ill health, poverty, problems in your relationships, that you don’t like, you can trace it back and find out the cause of the effect, and then by changing the cause you can remove the effect. Doing this will give you a different effect in the future.

Your mind is like a garden, whatever you plant, it will return back to you. If you plant negative thoughts and continuously feed and nourish those thoughts then that is what will grow in you life. On the other hand if you constantly think positive and optimistic thoughts, then your life will be positive and optimistic. You cannot plant one type of thought in you mind and expect a different result to grow.

The Law of Sowing and Reaping says that whatever you sow in life, you will reap. You have to put in before you can get out. You have to give before you can receive. You have to pay the price before you can enjoy the reward. The thoughts you sow in your mind today, you will reap in your experiences in the future. This is a very powerful law that you cannot escape. So, if you want to reap something different in the future you had better start sowing the seeds now.

One of the most important differences between successful people and unsuccessful people is the way they think. Successful people think and talk about the things they want. They talk about achieving their goals, good health, happiness, and prosperity, while unsuccessful people spend most of their time thinking and talking about the things that they don’t want. They constantly complain, worry, and talk about their problems. In both cases people get what they want.

Having a positive mental attitude is not a silly or happy approach to life. No one wants to be around someone like that. A person with a positive mental attitude is someone who has a positive and constructive approach to the invariable ups and downs that occur in everyday life. It is the ability to keep your mind on the things you want in life and off the things that you don’t want.

Developing a positive mental attitude requires mental fitness is much like physical fitness, it requires effort to achieve it but once you’ve achieved it, mental fitness makes you capable of achieving and doing more things that will give success and happiness.

One of the ways to achieve mental fitness is by changing the way you look at problems. Problems are consistent and constant for all of us. They are like waves large and small that keep coming every day. The way you look at your problems will in large part determine your attitude.

Napoleon Hill, author of the classic book Think and Grow Rich, said that within every setback or difficulty there lies the seed of an equal or greater benefit or advantage. This may seem hard to comprehend but your biggest difficulties are sent to as gift to teach you a valuable lesson. Looking for the valuable lesson in every difficulty forces you to dig deeply into your mental resources and creatively find a solution to the problem.

You need to confront each problem you face as an opportunity to learn from it. You need to learn to look for the good or the valuable lesson in every difficulty you face, because if you’re constantly looking for the good in every difficulty you cannot be thinking about something bad or negative at the same time.

If you are looking for and thinking about the good or valuable lesson in every difficulty you mind becomes alive. You are filled with possibilities and creativity about how to solve the problem. When you allow yourself to become negative, anxious, and worried your mind becomes more pessimistic. You go into a survival mode and your ability to be positive and think creatively diminishes greatly.

Future thinking is another powerful technique that will help you to build a positive mental attitude. You need to give all of your thinking to the future because the past is gone. You cannot change the past. It does you no good to worry about things that have already happened and cannot be changed. Needless feelings of remorse and regret will do more to undermine a positive mental attitude than any other external factor.

It’s important to think about your future and the goals you want to achieve. The future is naturally positive and uplifting. If you want to develop a positive mental attitude you have to let go of the past and focus on the future and the things you want. Another reason that you should give all your thoughts to the future is because that is where you’re going to be spending the rest of your life.

Most people simply react to the events and circumstances around them. For example, many people have the attitude that if someone is nice to them then they’ll be nice in return. If someone is unkind or disrespectful to them then they’ll be the same way in return.

You have to put in before you can get out. Remember, it is the Law of Sowing and Reaping not the Law of Reaping and Sowing. Your attitude is a reflection of the type of person you are on the inside and the world you live in. For example, if you want people to be friendly, courteous, and respectful to you, then you have to be those things to other people first.

Every person shapes their own life by his or her attitude. Your environment is a mirror of your attitude and expectations and the only way you can ever bring about change in your life is to develop a positive mental attitude. It’s important to understand that your attitude affects you much more than it affects other people.

Bad habits are hard to break and new ones are hard to form. So developing a positive mental attitude will take time. Start tomorrow morning by expecting the best in everything that happens to you during the day and treat every person you come in contact with the way you expect to be treated. Treat everyone with genuine, kindness, courtesy, and respect and that is what will be reflected back to you.

Copyright©2006 by Joe Love and JLM & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.

Joe Love draws on his 25 years of experience helping both individuals and companies build their businesses, increase profits, and achieve total success. He is the founder and CEO of JLM & Associates, a consulting and training organization, specializing in personal and business development. Through his seminars and lectures, Joe Love addresses thousands of men and women each year, including the executives and staffs of many businesses around the world, on the subjects of leadership, achievement, goals, strategic business planning, and marketing.

Reach Joe at: joe@jlmandassociates.com

Related Items

A Bio Feedback Adventure Game For Enhanced Brain Function