What’s With The Attitude?

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Your attitudes dictate what you think about, which drives what you say and how you behave and ultimately shapes who you become.

Working on one’s attitude appears to be an ‘old school’ concept.?

I’m of the vintage where my parents would say things like "Watch Your Attitude", whenever I was misbehaving or being a smart alec!? When they were really cross at me or any of my eight siblings, you would be sent to your room.?

Your punishment was solitude. You could only return and reunite with the family when you Changed Your Attitude!?

Wouldn’t you love to do that with certain people at your workplace? “You are banished until you return with a great attitude!”

Here’s a Thought Experiment…

Do some people in your life wish that upon you?? Where they are desperately hoping that you would go away, work on your attitude and return with a renewed positive optimistic outlook on life.?

My belief is that we all should regularly stop and recalibrate our attitudes. Not only to stay relevant but to proactively work on our self-talk and the stories that we tell ourselves. I describe this as becoming a Pragmatic Optimist.?

Learned Optimism?

Martin Seligman, renowned psychologist and one of the founding figures of the positive psychology movement, discovered that optimism can be learned and indeed cultivated, just like any other skill. ?

When we focus on fostering our strengths and flourishing attitudes, this has a profound positive impact on our well-being and resilience. ?

Interestingly, Seligman has acknowledged that his own natural disposition was more pessimistic. He openly shared his personal journey in shifting from a pessimistic mindset, to a more optimistic one.

If Martin Seligman can do it, then so can we!?

Attitudes are not inherited. They are learnt and therefore can be changed. But only if we are prepared to do the work, proactively and mindfully.

We are not talking about ‘delusional optimism’ or superficial ‘toxic positivity’ here. We are talking about the power of consciously working on positive thinking and enjoying the benefits of adopting what Seligman calls, an Optimistic Explanatory Style. ?

Here’s how Seligman explains the power of selecting your Explanatory Style which are the narratives that we construct to explain and make sense of life's challenging events.?

• Optimistic Explanatory StyleWhen you work on having an optimistic explanatory style, challenging events appear to be Temporary, Specific and caused by External Factors. This is associated with maintaining a great attitude.?
• Pessimistic Explanatory Style Conversely, defaulting to a pessimistic explanatory style, leads us to view challenging events as Permanent, Pervasive and Personal, often resulting in catastrophising the situation and displaying a negative attitude.?

Choosing to adopt a positive attitude by consciously working on our explanatory style can be a true game-changer. Let's examine a challenging workplace scenario, showcasing two very different outcomes based on the stories that we tell ourselves.

Workplace Scenario?

Your boss is highly upset with you about your poor progress on a critical project for which you are responsible. Although she is usually positive and supportive, her disappointment is justified in this situation. However, her abruptness was excessive, rude and out of character.

Same Scenario - Two Different Stories

Optimistic Explanatory Style says:

• "Projects are my strength, and I usually achieve great results. I need to turn this setback around and get my project back on track. Besides, I know my boss is under a lot of pressure right now."

Pessimistic Explanatory Style says:

• “This feedback has completely ruined the whole project, I just can’t do anything right in this place, this always happens to me!”

In the optimistic version, there is a proactive approach to the situation - recognising strengths and attributing the boss's behaviour to external pressures.?

In contrast, the pessimistic version displays a defeated mindset - generalising this one event as total failure and assuming personal incompetence.?

The way we interpret events shapes our response and ultimately, the outcome and who we become as a person. In essence, we have two story options:?

1. I have agency. My story is that I am free to make a choice to be positive, professional and proactive.?
2. I am powerless. My story is that bad stuff keeps happening to me and things are hopeless. So I become negative, unprofessional and reactive.?

Learned Helplessness?

When we adopt a pessimistic explanatory style, we subject ourselves to what is called Learned Helplessness. This is where people come to believe that that their actions and efforts are futile. They have little or no control over their circumstances.? As a result, learned helplessness manifests as passive behaviour, where individuals feel utterly powerless.

In this helpless state when faced with challenges, we tend to seek fault and become fixated on problems. We stop trying to find solutions or take proactive steps to improve our circumstances because our narrative convinces us that we are incapable of effecting change.

Tragically, this then leads to disengagement and deep cynicism. A toxic cocktail in any workplace!?

Reclaim Your Stories ?

Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

- Viktor Frankl

As we can clearly see, the narratives that we construct help us interpret and make sense of the world around us. The great news is that we possess the ability to transform our attitudes and outcomes, by reclaiming and reshaping our stories.

This is especially important when negative stuff happens. Rather than catastrophising events, we can reclaim the outcome by redesigning the story that we tell ourselves, by using an Optimistic Explanatory Style.?

Viktor Frankl the renowned Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, best known for his classic book ‘Man's Search for Meaning’, famously said that the last of the human freedoms is ‘to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances’. ?

Within this space between stimulus and response lies the story that we tell ourselves. It gives us the power to choose our attitude and shape our responses, even in the most challenging circumstances.

Respond or React - It’s a Choice?

Despite many of our best efforts, no one is immune from suffering. Adversity, grief and experiencing life’s many challenges, setbacks and difficult experiences is an inevitable aspect of the human condition. So, it is our attitude that will determine whether we respond or react to these life events.?

Responding and not reacting is where the transformation begins. We need to work on reframing and Owning Our Stories, while adopting a healthy optimist attitude.?

Stop trying to ‘Prove Yourself’ and simply work on having a great attitude of ‘Improving Yourself’. ?

This approach creates a better and healthier world to live, work and play in.

Optimism is invaluable for the meaningful life. With a firm belief in a positive future, you can throw yourself into the service of that which is larger than you are.?

- Martin Seligman?

Richard Dore - CEO Proteus Leadership