CONTENTS
"Attitude" - Trite?
Attitude - The poem
Defined
Identifying the need to change an attitude
Changing the attitude
The form for changing an attitude
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"ATTITUDE" - TRITE?
It sounds trite. We've heard it over and over again.
Life is as good as your attitude.
It's not the circumstances that determine the quality of your life, but your attitude.
Well, it's all true, but the key is how to implement it, how to understand it, how to see how its components actually work.
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ATTITUDE
By Charles Swindoll
The longer I live,
the more I realize
the impact of attitude on life.
Attitude, to me, is more important than facts.
It is more important than the past,
than education, than money, than circumstances,
than failures, than successes, than what people
say or think or do.
It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill.
It will make or break a company, a church, a home.
The remarkable thing is we have choice every day
regarding the attitude we will embrace
for the day.
We cannot change our past…
We cannot change the fact that people
will act in a certain way.
We cannot change the inevitable.
The only thing we can do is play on the
one string we have,
and that is our attitude.
I am convinced that life is 10% what happens
to me and 90% how I react to it.
And so it is with you.
We are in charge of our attitudes.
[See the diagram of life components in Stories.]
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DEFINED
"An attitude is a hypothetical construct that represents an individual's degree of like or dislike for an item. Attitudes are generally positive or negative views of a person, place, thing, or event." Wikipedia
Comment: An attitude is constructed in the mind and not "out there" in reality. It is not reality, it is not a thing, and it is not fixed, since it was made up in the first place.
"A complex mental state involving beliefs and feelings and values and dispositions to act in certain ways [and view positively or negatively something]; "he had the attitude that work was fun." Wordnetweb.princeton,edu/perl/webwn
Comment, clarifications: It consists of a complex of many components, so therefore to correct an attitude or to construct an attitude you have to construct the components and put them together. You cannot simply say "I'll be positive", for conflicting beliefs will neutralize the positive viewpoint one wants to attain.
A value is a belief, a disposition is a viewpoint (which is a series of beliefs put together), plus there are many other beliefs affecting one's viewpoint.
The "feelings" referred to as a part of the above definition are always the result of a thought (belief) about something. And the "feeling" can be experienced as positive/pleasant or negative/unpleasant.
IDENTIFYING THE NEED TO CHANGE AN ATTITUDE
Since an attitude is a viewpoint that reflects beliefs and ways of perception, the probable need to change an attitude can be determined by either of two things:
1. That the desired result is not obtained; that an undesirable outcome occurs.
2. One feels "negative", displeased; has an unpleasant feeling.
That is the same test for a dysfunctional belief. The only difference here is that an attitude (a viewpoint) often consists of a number of beliefs. Therefore, we need to correct those beliefs in the set that are incorrect.
CHANGING THE ATTITUDE
So, it is logical to look at each of the component beliefs to determine if it is true. And if it is not, then you can choose to change it. Simple. (Changing Beliefs.)
The only difference here would be that you would want to express the desirability of changing it. You would list the expected benefits and then declare that you would like to change it. But you can't just focus on the "bad" attitude, you need to set a clear goal and description of what the desired attitude is.
You could add to it, the traditional tool of determining what your life or an area of your life would look like if you had the new attitude. How would you feel? How would you act? How would other people respond, probably? What effect would it have on the ease effortwise? And so on.
THE FORM FOR CHANGING AN ATTITUDE
Your format would look something like this:
ATTITUDE REFORMATION WORKSHEET
My desired attitude is:
The benefits of having that attitude would be:
How my life or the area of ____________ would likely look if I had this attitude:
(how I'd feel, act, be; how others would respond; effect on effort required, etc.)
The attitude that has an undesired effect is: (describe the viewpoint)
The undesired effects are:
I choose to eliminate the undesired attitude and attain the desired attitude.
I am committed to doing whatever it takes to attain that attitude.
My beliefs (and what I say to myself) when in this attitude are: (Just write it out quickly in sentences.)
(Note that this is just a customized form of a common problem solving format, one that can be used in psychology, relationships, life, business, etc. See, and learn, Problem Solving.)
