Do You Have the Skill to Rapidly Improve Your Attitude to Deal Effectively with Anything?

Photo by Sirma Krusteva on Unsplash

If you do have that skill, congratulations!  You are Attitudinally Competent.

That means you can rapidly select, adapt or maintain your best attitude for what has happened, is happening or might happen and not be stuck with habitual attitudes.

You have mastered the power of your attitudes.

However, if you want to improve your Attitudinal Competence, or find it difficult to do so, relax because here’s how to do it:

Step One (Embedding the Gratefulness Memory) – Do this right now:

1. Right now, before you encounter any other experience, choose the top five aspects of your life for which you are truly grateful.
2. Assign each aspect to a digit (thumb, fore, middle, ring and little finger) of your dominant hand.
3. Look at each aspect on each digit and ask yourself why you are grateful for that choice.
4. Then close your fist and imagine you’ve powered up the sum of the feelings you got from that exercise. You should now be feeling grateful!
5. Remember them and remember why you are grateful for them.
6. Next time you wish to change your attitude or feelings or thoughts, you’ll use this gratefulness memory.

Step Two – At the time you seek to improve your attitude – thoughts and feelings

1. Stop everything and focus on two or three repeats of this cycle of counting your breathing, like this (called ‘blocked breathing’):
   1. Breathe in to the count of four
   2. Hold to the count of four
   3. Breathe out to the count of four
   4. Hold to the count of four
2. Then turn your focus to remember the gratefulness memory.
3. Now choose your best positive truthful and effective thought regarding the situation you’ve just encountered.
4. Act on that better thought.

Step Three – Reflection – the highest point of learning

1. Reflect on that entire experience and resolve to get even better and quicker at it.
2. Ask yourself ‘If I had that experience again, what would I do differently?’
3. Choose whether you’ll make a note about it, or simply file it in your memory.

Helpful Alternative – you could ask me for my complimentary e-book “How to Change Your Attitude” which has separate exercises for the most common experiences for which you’d wish to improve your attitude, for work and life generally.