Your Attitude drives your Gratitude

I recently wrote a post about Gratitude here on LinkedIn and in this post I discussed many of the values that gratitude provides. One of the greatest values driven by gratitude is attitude, and vice versa. I'll discuss how the two reinforce one another in today's post.

Attitude is such a fundamental component of our vision and our success or lack of such. Attitude is formed from within and can be influenced in many ways. Simply Psychology says the following about attitude:

• The strength with which an attitude is held is often a good predictor of behavior. The stronger the attitude the more likely it should affect behavior. ... People are generally more knowledgeable about topics that interest them and are likely to hold strong attitudes (positive or negative) as a consequence.

The same article also offers the following:

Attitudes structure can be described in terms of three components.

• Affective component: this involves a person’s feelings / emotions about the attitude object. For example: “I am scared of spiders”.
• Behavioral (or conative) component: the way the attitude we have influences how we act or behave. For example: “I will avoid spiders and scream if I see one”.
• Cognitive component: this involves a person’s belief / knowledge about an attitude object. For example: “I believe spiders are dangerous”.

This model is known as the ABC model of attitudes.

I cannot think of anything we form opinions or beliefs on that is not somehow affected by this structure. Spiritual belief, choices we make in life, just about everything is affected by our attitudes and these three components.

Think about how you view your life and your prospects. Current and prior experiences drive the Affective component and this in turn influences our behaviors and our cognition. Much of this may occur in a less than conscious manner, so we may not even realize how our attitude is affected in any given situation.

Realizing this, we can use it to our advantage to show gratitude, even in situations that at first may seem less than positive. I'll reflect on one from my past.

Over 20 years ago I was being considered for the role of operations manager in a fast-growing manufacturing operation. I was not chosen for the role initially, but about 18 months later I was given the role. After 6 months I quickly realized that the role was not what I wanted to do and it caused me to completely change the direction of my work life. While at first I was not happy with being passed over, I now realize that this episode helped me really understand who I am and what I wanted to contribute to an organization. I am grateful for the experience and it has helped me to better reflect upon how I should express gratitude even when things may not initially seem to be optimal for me. (It also helped me realize that life is not all about me, but that is another story for another time :))

I also firmly believe that Attitude and Gratitude are supported by wisdom. Wisdom is much different than knowledge or data, since wisdom too comes from experience.

Take a moment soon to consider how your attitude can better reflect gratitude. After doing so, take a moment and express that gratitude directly to those who have been involved in the situations you have been through and I think you will see how much of a positive influence this will have on your attitude.

I'll write more about this soon. You can learn more about me and our work by going to our firm website at this link.