Achieving Personal Goals

2. Attitudes

Research has proven over and over that how we view our world also has a clear and unmistakable impact on the results we get. It’s sets the stage for self-fulfilling prophecies when we start out saying “this will never work, I don’t even know why we should try” as opposed to “somehow, someway, I am sure I can find a way to conquer this with enough time and the right approach, coaching or support”. Having an attitude of “I just want to avoid getting the blame” at work will seriously jeopardize your likelihood to try to create a new process or product which may be a source of real accomplishment.

Our attitude consists of what we believe about a situation or event. It can impact our willingness to act and to do so with persistence and determination, as opposed to trepidation and reserve.

“The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes of mind.” – Williams James (1842-1910)

So simply put, my suggestion is to make an effort over an extended period of time to develop a positive, optimistic, confident attitude and see if that doesn’t have an impact on your results.

3. Beliefs

I mentioned beliefs above in the context of how they affect our attitude, but beliefs actually shape the definition of who we are, such as what we believe about ourselves. Smart, dumb, attractive, ugly, worthy, helpless, empowered or useless, what we believe about these and dozens of other things about ourselves affect the decisions we make every day. In addition, what we believe about our opportunities (“you can’t make money in this economy!”) or our potential (“I have tremendous determination and stamina”) ultimately shape the decisions and actions we take.

I wouldn’t presume to try to tell anyone which of their beliefs are correct and which may be flawed, but I will suggest 3 things:

1. You can improve your ability to affect your beliefs when you become clear what they are right now. In other words, start paying attention to what you believe about different circumstances, events or opportunities
2. By paying attention to what we’re thinking through out the day, we can come to some occasionally surprising realizations about our beliefs.
3. Repetition is a great place to start in changing flawed, unproductive, self-defeating beliefs with productive, healthy, reaffirming ones