Be Positive Always

‘There is a basic law that like attracts like. Negative thinking definitely attracts negative results. Conversely, if a person habitually thinks optimistically and hopefully, his positive thinking sets in motion creative forces – and like success instead of eluding him flows towards him.’
– Norman Vincent Peale

Thinking positively and staying positive is one factor that, to a large extent, determines the magnitude of success you will achieve in life. ‘As a man thinketh in his heart, so he is.’ The Bible.

Many researches and studies have shown that what you think about most of the time actually comes to be; for you. Most great achievers usually find a conducive time in their schedule to think about what and how they want their lives to look like. They do this on a constant basis and make sure what they really want is what they think about. This is going the extra mile.

Under- achievers on the other hand think negatively about everything. They too think on a constant basis but very unfortunately about the things they don’t want or like and so they end up with what they spend their time thinking about. The ability to stay and think positively no matter the circumstance; whether negative or disappointing is as a result of one virtue: ATTITUDE.

Having the right attitude alone can spring you from a low life to a life of meaning and value in every respect. Someone said that, ‘attitude is everything.’ Zig Ziglar said, ‘your attitude determines your altitude.’ Attitude determines your success and also your failure. It determines the kind of friends your will have and even the state of your health.

Once a reporter was sent to a stone cutter to interview three different men doing exactly the same job – hammering stones. Asking about how they liked their job, the first one answers, “I really hate it. I barely make the money to survive. I am doing the same stupid thing over and over. My back hurts, I am getting old, and I absolutely see no sense in what I am doing.” The second man responds to the same question, saying, “It’s not bad, I have a decent house and a nice car. I love my family; however, I am not fulfilled with what I am doing.” The third man replies, “I love my job. I am absolutely thrilled and I appreciate everyday I can be here. I think my work is wonderful as all these stones I am hammering will later be part of the material to build a wonderful cathedral. A place where many people can worship God and a place where many people will find the strength to overcome struggles and difficulties in their lives. I cannot imagine doing something different – I feel happy every moment.” Remember – all these people are doing the same exact work. It is only their attitude that makes a completely different person out of them. Not only are these people all different, they each will be affecting the other people around them by their attitudes. Attitude, like enthusiasm, is contagious. A great attitude will naturally spread to the people around and will also attract people of like attitude to come around it. Birds of the same feather flock together, eh?

A great many people do not realize this and so pick up, develop and nurture attitudes that are self- limiting and self- demeaning. Attitudes that hinder their progress by acting as stumbling blocks in their paths. Such people do not go through any endeavour in life without experiencing unnecessary failures and disappointments that would have easily been avoided. They never walk through any path of life without coming out limping with injuries sustained from collision with these obstacles.

A number of factors determine our attitudes as humans but three stand out of the pack. They are environment, education and experience. The environment influences our attitude a lot because we interact with it daily whether consciously and unconsciously. This is because it is made up of things you must relate with on a daily basis. They are the home, school, work place, religious places, and the media and so on.

In formal education across the world today, hardly can you find a school- based curriculum that includes a course work on attitude. Schools over the centuries of just have been passing information to students without taking time to impart the most pertinent part of knowledge and wisdom which is attitude.

Somehow, because of the experiences we have with certain people and circumstances we tend to act in a definite way. Someone who had been disappointed in business once just may develop a failure mentality about that business and of course his attitude towards it completely negative. This usually results in focusing on the past. If you focus on your past so much that it affects your present, then you are less qualified for the future. I always say if you look well, you will always find a positive from every negative situation. The problem remains, we do not look well. Those that find are always the open- minded positive people.

You need to be positive at all time. You need to always go out and seek for good things. Always be up and all out looking for positive in people and situations around you and never for the wrong and negative. That is the way to train your mind. This is normally the way great achievers, successful and happy people live. On the other hand, under- achievers look for negative in people and situations.

Whenever you think positively about the things you want, the way you want your life to be, you are acting like a fortune- teller to your own life. When you confidently expect good things to happen to you, they are sure to. Conversely if you are so consumed with thinking something bad will happen, you won’t be disappointed one bit as they are sure to.

This is true about money too. They universe is rich enough to make provision for every body only some people due to their attitude of either abundance or scarcity end up with that which they choose. People become wealthy because they believe positively that they have the ability to become wealthy, and that they will be truly wealthy. Due to this believe they begin to act in line with it. They engage their thinking faculties and come up with ways of going about it. On the other hand, people are poor because they have not yet decided to be rich. Naturally, they do not go seeking for ways to be rich. Some have even the belief system that not every body is supposed to be rich. They will argue that if all were rich, who will be the labourers, the drycleaners etc. how right they are because people with such mentality are bound to be poor and so remain labourers and cleaner to those that have decided, consciously to be rich.

Having said all, it is important to be positive always because there are a lot of benefits attached to it and none attached to being negative. Some of the rewards of having a positive attitude include

– It makes you feel good about your person and every situation around you.
– You will get to motivate and inspire those around you. Attitude, like enthusiasm is contagious.
– It helps you to see life as a beautiful journey worth embarking on.
– It gives you the energy and courage to want to move on no matter the obstacle.
– It improves the quality of your output at work and at home.
– It helps reduces stress.