Another key to lifelong success is Attitude. Your attitude affects everything in your life. How’s your attitude? Are you one of those people who is always blaming outside forces for your problems? Do you walk around in a negative state of mind most of the time? I think not. People like that would never have opened this subject in the first place. However positive you may be most of the time, there will be days when you just feel negative. While this may be fine for a brief period, prolonging a negative attitude has disastrous consequences. A negative attitude robs your initiative and destroys your discipline.

The “so what” or “who cares” attitude stops you from taking the actions that will help you build the kind of life you want to have for yourself and your family.

What happens

Here’s how a negative attitude robs us of our potential for good. At one of the low points in my own life, I had developed a “who cares, what’s the use” attitude. I felt that I was stuck where I was because of circumstances outside my control and blamed the world for my conditions. I figured I was at the bottom, so why even care? The problem is, as I learned through a lot of emotional pain, that there are always lower bottoms to which we can sink. As my attitude continued to be negative and blaming, my situation worsened.

Only when I was willing to take responsibility for my life, stop blaming and look for what little good remained, was I able to begin to turn this situation around. A negative attitude keeps us stuck by robbing us of the self discipline we need to improve our conditions. If you take a “what’s the use” approach to your circumstances, they will only get worse.

It’s imperative that you turn a negative attitude around and learn to become a positive person.

Gratitude

The fastest and easiest way I know to change from a negative to a positive attitude is to develop an attitude of gratitude. You may even want to keep a gratitude journal, a place where you can build a list of the things you are grateful for in your life. It’s impossible to have gratitude and be in self pity at the same time, and most negative attitudes are rooted in self pitying, “poor me” self talk. You can quickly change a negative attitude to a positive one by becoming grateful.

The simplest way I know to do this is to ask a question like, “What am I grateful for today?” Then, write down whatever comes to mind. It may be all of the blessings you have like good health, a clear mind, a loving family, satisfying work, a comfortable home, friends, pets and so on.

Make a daily habit of counting your blessings and list what you are grateful for in your life. Doing this first thing in the morning will help you feel better immediately and begin your day on a positive note.

On days when you are feeling down, take out your “gratitude journal” and reread it. Doing this simple exercise will make you feel better almost immediately.