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Improving Attitudes

Reducing Stress You Cause for Yourself

Attitude is fundamental to long term stress management. Where your attitude is negative or hostile, you will create problems out of opportunities and cause stress by alienating and irritating other people. Where you have a positive attitude, you can maintain a sense of perspective and draw the positive elements out of each situation. You will find that people will be more helpful and cooperative as they find you a pleasure to work with.

This next series of articles discusses the attitudes that will help you to maintain perspective, stay in control and get the best out of other people.

Keeping things in Perspective

When you are under stress it is very easy to lose perspective. Problems that are relatively minor can take on an apparent size that makes them seem difficult and intimidating. Naturally this feeds your feeling of stress, which makes your problems feel worse, which feeds your feeling of stress....

If you take a positive approach to life, trying to find a good side to every situation, then you will find that you are much less prone to stress. You will worry less, sleep better and enjoy life more. You will probably also find that you do better as people enjoy working with you more.

An important part of this is learning to view mistakes as learning experiences - if you have learned something from a mistake, then the mistake has a positive value.

When you face what seems to be a huge and overwhelming problem, ask yourself the following questions:

• Is this really a problem at all?
  If you view it in a different way, is it actually an opportunity to do something well? If it really is a difficult problem, then most other people will probably fail at it or give up. If you can deal with the situation, then this will be a major triumph for you. If you take the problem on, then what will you learn from it, whatever the outcome?

• Is this a problem that anyone else has or has had?
  If it is, find out how they deal with it or just talk to them to share the problem - they may be glad to talk. If you are facing a problem at work, talk to older or more experienced colleagues whom you trust. He or she will probably have seen the problem before, and may be able to help to put it in perspective.

• Can you break it down?
  With a little thought you can usually reduce seemingly huge and impossible problems to a number of smaller, more manageable problems or tasks.

• If you are facing a lot of problems, can you prioritize them?
  This helps you to work out the order in which you should approach tasks, and helps you to distinguish between important jobs and jobs that can be deferred. A good way of doing this is to use a Prioritized To Do List.

• Does it really matter anyway?
  If everything goes wrong, will it really matter anyway? If it does, will it matter in six months or a year? Bear in mind that you will probably have plenty of opportunities to correct any failure, or to shine in other ways if things go wrong. As long as you have done your best, and learn from any mistakes you make, then you cannot do any better.

Being in Control

When you are in control of your life, you can control the level of stress you face. When you are out of control and unable to schedule events, then you cannot prevent stress building on top of stress. You will experience unpleasant peaks and troughs of stress. The feeling of being out of control is unpleasant and stressful in its own right.

Being in control of your life is largely a matter of attitude.

Often the difference between being in control and out of control comes down to making an investment of a little of your free time in planning. An effective method of doing this is to use personal goal setting.

By planning you can anticipate problems in advance. This helps you to work out how to prevent or avoid a problem, or anticipate and exploit the positive elements of a situation.

Some of the most satisfying and enjoyable work you can do is work that you choose to do to meet your own long term goals.

Part of this process of planning and goal setting should include self-improvement goals. If you have identified areas of your personality that you should improve, then you can set goals to do this. This can include work on improving your self-image, being realistic about your faults, thinking positively, learning from mistakes and taking satisfaction from your successes.

Change

Another important attitude is to learn to welcome change - otherwise you will expose yourself to intense stress. You will be aware that we are currently in the middle of a huge information revolution. As this runs its course, its impact on ways of life and society will be at least as great as the Industrial Revolution.

As with the Industrial Revolution, people who resist change will be crushed by it. People who welcome change will be able to exploit the new niches opening up on a constant basis. Success depends on adaptation to, or anticipation of, change.

Attitudes to Other People

Relations with other people can be either very satisfying or very stressful and unpleasant. While a certain amount of this comes down to their personalities, your attitude has a surprisingly large effect on the way that other people respond to you.

It is important when you are trying to improve the quality of relationships that you understand the difference between managing them and exploiting them. When you manage a relationship you are improving it for mutual advantage. When you exploit a relationship you are improving your results at the expense of the other person. If you exploit other people, then you will probably get a reputation for this and suffer in the medium and long term. It will also cultivate an unnecessarily cynical attitude to other people.

The following are important factors in forming harmonious relationships with other people:

• Take a positive approach:
  People enjoy working with and relating to happy, optimistic people. When things are getting difficult, a smile or positive approach to a problem can make the difference between success and failure of a project.

• Project a positive image:
  Take care over personal grooming. Wear good quality, well cared for clothes that project a suitable image. Learn about body language, and learn how to adopt a good, open posture.

• Be assertive:
  When you deal with other people, you should confidently project your right to have your views taken into consideration. This does not mean aggressively insisting on getting your own way, which irritates other people and tramples on their rights. If you are not assertive then you will probably not be noticed, your triumphs will not be given their due weight and your needs will not be given proper attention.

• Pay compliments where they are due:
  If you notice something good about someone, or they have done something well, compliment them. This costs you nothing, and helps to build their confidence. It is obviously important to be sincere - no-one likes an obvious flatterer.

• Try to leave people pleased to have spoken to you:
  This can be an extremely useful maxim, providing that you do not allow other people to exploit you as a result. When you are dealing with well-adjusted human-beings, the more you give, the more you get.

An extremely powerful technique when dealing with other people is to try to understand the way they think. Try to think yourself inside their mind. See life through their eyes, feel what they feel, and understand their background, influences and motivations.

Sometimes things can go wrong. Some people are not intelligent in the way they conduct relationships. Where you face relationship problems, your attitude will often determine the amount of stress you experience:

• If someone is sarcastic and rude to you:
  remember that this is probably caused by a fault in their character. They are probably irritating and offending many other people as well. Examine any comment rationally: if it is unfair, then reject it. If rude comments are fair, then learn from them. Do remember, though that one person's vice may be another person's virtue: what seems stubborn to one person may seem firm-minded to another.
• If someone hurts you:
  do not bear grudges. If you do, you will tend to churn them over in your mind. This will damage your vital positive attitude to life, may cause stress and may interfere with the quality of your sleep. Forgiveness is important in maintaining relationships that are important, providing that the forgiveness is genuine. You may decide, however, not to forget the fact of the hurt - it makes sense to confront, avoid or circumvent people who are unnecessarily hurtful.
• If you are facing a frustrating situation:
  where unnecessary obstacles are put in your way, or people you are dealing with are being indecisive or unhelpful, then using relaxation techniques can be useful. This helps you to remain calm with people.
• If someone is annoying you:
  it is almost always best to remain calm and neutral, if only because you will be able to think and react more clearly and effectively.

Key points:

If you experience a lot of stress from other people, or find that you are out of control in your life, then your attitude may be at fault. You can eliminate a great deal of stress by being positive, by keeping things in perspective, by setting personal goals and by welcoming change.

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