Many Personal development teachers talk about the importance of attitude in everything we do. This is not simply a popular thing to say. It’s the truth.
Your attitude day to day affects everything you do and everyone around you.
Leadership Expert John Maxwell says in his book “Thinking for a Change” that your attitude is: The librarian of your past, the speaker of your present, and the prophet of your future.
In reflection on this statement the basic truths of this are that your attitude is a function of your past life experiences, a determinant in your current actions and an indicator of what will happen in the future, based on your current actions.
An example of how this might play out would be: Five years ago you started a business and you didn’t succeed. For this example the reasons are irrelevant. The bottom line is that it didn’t work out the way you had hoped. Today you are entertaining a new business idea. You’re skeptical that it will work out because of your prior experience. Therefore, you either don’t move forward with the idea, which automatically means there is no future gain, or you cautiously begin.
The problem with the cautious beginning is that you do not truly expect that it’ll work out (hence the caution).
Most businesses involve a full commitment in order to succeed, and there will always be difficult times. By taking the cautious approach you have increased the odds that you will not succeed, because your competition is not playing cautiously, they’re putting everything they have into it.
Since you’re only making a half-hearted effort, at some point your business runs out of money, or it becomes too hard (based on the expectation of failure) to keep going. You close up shop, and chalk it up to things just not working out well for you.
The reality of things is that we tend to get in life, what we expect to get. Your attitude has a great influence on what your expectations are. So as part of your daily life, work on having the right attitude.