Attitudes and Value
Attitude above everything else determines the success or failure of our endeavors. You can take some people and no matter what kind of problems they face, they will see it as a challenge and come out smiling. Other people moan and groan about the most minor of things and see many things in life through a negative filter. If you look for the negative, it’s easy to find. Finding the positive is sometimes the real challenge.

My mother recently went through a very serious illness and was in critical intensive care for weeks. Every day I stepped out of that depressing hospital and it helped me to focus on the simple good things in life; the trees and the sun and the blue sky! She recovered, but everyone who has been through a similar experience knows that it puts everything else into perspective in life, especially that annoying colleague or boss! It’s simply not worth getting upset with some things.

If you allow other people to get to you, you are empowering them to have control over your life. Do you really want to give power and influence to people who you might not been very fond of!

Genes Vs Upbringing
So what makes some people more successful in dealing with a lot of challenges simultaneously, to be constantly positive and come out smiling, while other people face the tiniest of small problems and immediately feel intimidated and collapse?

This is the eternal argument; is it genes or upbringing? I would say it is a bit of both. Inevitably there are people who are born leaders and will always find it easier in leadership situations, to inspire and motivate their people to follow their direction. However, some of us are not born natural leaders and we have to fight hard to develop those skills, to be able to be successful. The critical experiences we go through to develop and grow help shapes us, and creates what we are today.

I feel personally that I had a somewhat challenging education (I worked my way through “A” Levels and University earning my fees). Yes I am glad that I had to earn everything myself, because it shaped my resolution and gave me a lot of confidence to build and succeed. I learnt better how to pick myself up. I know I can do it and whenever I have to, I strive to achieve something more and stretch myself.

Critical Success Factor for Success
Self-Esteem and your internal self-picture determines how high you will reach and whether you will be successful. This of course is determined by genes but also by your early upbringing. By the time your parents and family, the early schooling and friends have all finished, you have the makings of a self-image.
If you believe that you can reach high goals (and your belief is based on reality and not illusion) then you will attempt to reach those high goals. So self-belief and self-confidence determine your success!

Values of Life
Your early family upbringing and the surrounding environment/society will have also helped shape your values by which you live. So if the values (which I predominantly learnt from my mother) and reflected in behaviors:
- A sense of fairness
- To be responsible for our actions
- Always offer more than you receive
- Work ethic (work hard)
- Be open and direct in your communication

I still live my life and take decisions by these guidelines although sometimes I recognize that they do not help me.

Practical Suggestions for Improving our Attitude

1. Put it into Prospective:
If you are facing a current problem (or challenge – it’s a much better word) and it’s beginning to have an effect on our performance then one good technique is as follows:
Imagine the timeline of your life. (Of course we don’t know when we will move on to the next life but take the average, in Cyprus is around 79 for men and 80 for women). Draw a line representing those 80 years and then mark where you are along that line. Now consider the issue that you are currently facing and put it into perspective of your whole life (80 years of living). How serious is it now?

2. What values do I live by?
Try to become more aware of values by which you live and take decisions by. What were your family values? Do you ever assume that people have the same values that you do? Become more aware, why you take certain decisions.
Exercise – The Values by which I live
2.1

2.2

2.3

3. What do I need to change in my Attitude
A good process to become more aware of how you can improve yourself and become more effective is as follows:
3.1 In which areas of my life has it helped me?
Attitude/Value Which area of my life has it helped?

1. _______________ 1. ________________________________________

2. _______________ 2. ________________________________________

3. _______________ 3. ________________________________________

3.2 Which areas of my life could I extend these to help me even more?

1. ____________________________________________________________________________

2. ____________________________________________________________________________

3. ____________________________________________________________________________

3.3 What do I need to improve?

A beautiful quote that I often apply to myself or our business is the following:
“Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results”. So therefore:

__________________

Obviously we are just touching the surface of this subject. Attitude is deeply ingrained in us and it is the most difficult thing to achieve an improvement. Only you yourself can be motivated to improve your attitude. Nobody else can do that for you. How motivated are you to improve yourself and achieve more success?