Five Tips for Improving Your Attitude

Are you happy with your boss, your income, your career progression to date, your opportunities for advancement, your choice of profession, your industry’s outlook and your employer’s culture? If so, then you probably don’t need to read this. If you are not happy with any of these, however, I want to help you. Consider this….
Most of us have been encouraged to get a good education and become knowledgeable in our professions. Many have spent thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of hours earning credentials and gaining professional expertise. While these (may) have been good investments in your career and your future, how much of that time did you invest in thoughtfully developing and improving your attitude? If your answer is “Not much”, then please keep reading!
I suggest in the first chapter of my career book that “Attitude is important in landing a job, keeping a job, and being proactively prepared to change jobs.” Beyond this, I also believe your attitude is an important contributor to having a satisfying career and happy life. If you would like more career satisfaction and happiness, then it will definitely be worth your time to try one or more of these five tips for improving your attitude:
1. Select a point in time during your work day and monitor your thoughts for ten to twenty minutes. Categorize each thought you have as positive or negative. Avoid cheating by labeling thoughts as neutral. Keep score and see how you do. Make a game out of rephrasing your negative thoughts into positive ones.
2. With your physician’s agreement, start a consistent exercise program that is appropriate for your current health condition. Get your endorphins flowing! They naturally make you feel better and that contributes to a more positive disposition.
3. Notice the types of media you consume and consider eliminating as many negative inputs as possible. Examples would be most television news programs, movies that are violent or lack uplifting story lines, and publications that focus on what’s wrong with the world. Reducing negative inputs and replacing them with positive ones is likely to help support a better mood.
4. Pay attention to the people with whom you associate. Are they predominantly happy and positive … or not? Increasing your time spent with positive people and reducing or eliminating the negatives will definitely be beneficial.
5. Last, but certainly not least, seek out a capable life coach or (if you are more serious about this quest) psychologist. My wife is a psychologist and virtually every person I have sent her way in the past eight years has benefitted.
Your attitude is always showing. You project it in every interaction with your boss, your peers, your subordinates, your friends and your family. They may not notice in all cases and they may not tell you even when they notice something that is unflattering. However, you are putting it out there all the time … like CNN or Fox News.
I believe you deserve the best career possible, not just some mundane job that pays the rent and puts food on the table. Don’t you?
You have the power to improve your career results…. and your attitude can be one of your biggest contributors to your success. Try some of my tips this week and let me know what you think.

Five Reasons Your Attitude Is Hurting Your Career

This post is about trying to help you, not about criticizing you. Please consider it in that light.
Your attitude is one of the most important factors in creating your long-term career happiness. As noted in the first chapter of my career book, “Attitude is important in landing a job, keeping a job, and being proactively prepared to change jobs.”
Whether you recognize it or not, your attitude IS affecting your career…. either positively or negatively. In this article, I want to help alert you if it could be retarding your progress or standing in the way of achieving the career results you desire.
If you are happy with your boss, your peers, your subordinates, your income, your job title, your career progression, your opportunity for advancement, your profession, your industry, and your employer’s culture, then the odds are high that your attitude is in good shape. If you are not happy with one or more of these items, however, then one or more of the following “yellow flags” could be worth examining:
1. You have a troll for a boss who makes your workdays unpleasant, possibly because you attracted him/her or because you have stayed in your job when you know you should have left long ago.
2. You have jerks on your team who you don’t enjoy, possibly because you lack the self-confidence to professionally confront them or to refer the situation to someone with the authority to correct the situation.
3. You have a troublesome employee who is disruptive to your team, possibly because you feel you do not have the power to replace him or her.
4. Your income has become stagnant or dropped and this is creating financial stress, possibly because you don’t feel comfortable promoting your value within your employer or to other employers.
5. Your job title makes your position sound less responsible than it is and this creates a perception problem on your resume, possibly because you have not advocated strongly enough to have your title corrected/improved.
Yes, Virginia, I actually have the unmitigated gall to suggest that you have created your current career circumstances through your own personal choices and that those choices are likely to have been influenced by your attitude. Conversely, I want to offer you the genuine possibility that you have the power to improve all of these situations. Not by complaining. Not overnight. Not from terrible to fantastic in one fell swoop. But yes. You have the power to improve them.
How? Please stay tuned. I promise to address this in a few weeks. Until then, consider conducting some internet searches and seek out articles that offer ways to improve your attitude. The rewards could be huge!