Developing a Positive Attitude Benefits of a Positive Attitude
Developing a positive attitude is learning how to think habitually in productive ways. The benefits of a positive attitude are numerous. Let us see how it can help you.
Let us look at the power and the benefits of positive thinking in relation to achievement and see how it can enable you to reach your goals.
Your attitude reflects how you relate to everything else. The critical fact about everything else is that it is impermanent.
Nothing abides.
The philosopher Heraclitus said: "Everything flows . . . The sun is new each day." Everything is new each day. This is neither good nor bad, it's just the way it is.
Developing a Positive Attitude 1
Fundamental choice
You can choose to accept impermanence or fight it. This choice determines your fundamental attitude about the world. Since fighting reality is fruitless and usually painful, it's wise to focus on developing a positive attitude and decide to go with the flow.
Because everything flows, it's useful to think of reality as being like a river of flowing water. The water is constantly in flux, constantly changing.
If you accept change and decide to enjoy what's best about it, you'll soon begin enjoying the benefits of positive thinking. On the other hand, if you constantly resist change, you'll never begin enjoying the benefits.
Since none of us has the power to prevent change, why not work on developing a positive attitude that embraces change? Instead of trying to stay stuck, which is impossible, why not work on developing a better way of thinking?
We human beings we become attached to our familiar ways of thinking. We find the comfortable. When we find that they happen to be useful for certain purposes, we get further stuck to them.
There is a continuum of attachment. The people who are the most attached to their concepts are "fanatics," and the people who are the least attached to their concepts are (genuine) "philosophers."
Most people are in between these extremes; most of us are somewhere along the continuum. We are mixtures, neither pure fanatics nor pure philosophers.
What's the critical difference? A pure fanatic is never willing to question (examine) his or her concepts, whereas a pure philosopher is always willing to question his or her concepts.
Only philosophers, not fanatics, enjoy the benefits of positive thinking.
Fanatics are stuck, whereas philosophers are always recreating themselves. Philosophers are always examining and re-examining. Ultimately, fanatics are fearful, which is a negative attitude; they are afraid of change.
Developing a Positive Attitude 2
Understanding self and others
Please ask yourself: "Do I have a positive attitude or a negative attitude? Do I resist change or do I embrace it?"
If you resist change, please think again. What you are doing is deliberately trying to remain stuck. Given that reality is impermanence, resistance to change is a negative attitude rather than a positive one.
Until you engage in the power of positive thinking and focus on developing a positive attitude, you are condemning yourself unnecessarily to persistent dissatisfaction.
Changing negative attitudes will help you to let go of habits that aren't serving you well and to replace them with habits that will serve you better. If you are not living a joyful life, might this not be the reason why? If so, we encourage you to do whatever it takes to embrace change. Since change is going to continue to happen anyway, why not make the most of it?
Realize, too, that everyone has this fundamental choice. Others are often stuck, and they don't realize there's a better way of living. The best way of helping them isn't telling them what they are doing wrong--it's showing them how to live better.
Developing a Positive Attitude 3
Meditation will develop positive thinking
One of the best methods for developing a positive attitude is meditation. If you don't already practice daily, please begin by seeing the meditation section of our website:
If you do already practice daily meditation, excellent! Perhaps you might increase the intensity and duration of your daily practice.
What's this got to do with achieving natural weight loss? Gaining weight is the result of imbalance. If you will cure the imbalances in your life, you will automatically achieve and sustain lasting natural weight loss and improved health.
Imbalances are caused by egoistic attachments. Since meditation dissolves egoistic attachments, meditation restores balance.
Once your balance is restored, your body will naturally find and maintain its optimum weight.
Reviewing and, if necessary, revising your fundamental attitude is a critical step in maintaining that progress.
Benefits of Positive Thinking
Benefits of mental and physical balance
If you are out of balance, if you are stuck, it has taken you many years to get that way. Please, then, don't be impatient in reversing that process. In other words, please don't get stuck on becoming instantly balanced, either!
The idea is to work at it daily, to stretch yourself a bit every day. That's all. In the fullness of time, you'll be able to recover your balance. It's an illusion that there are quick, easy fixes for our important problems.
As you begin to use the relevant spiritual, psychological, and physical ideas that are relevant to your particular situation, your situation will begin to improve.
You'll notice the improvements and start to cherish the benefits of positive thinking, which will further fuel your determination.
For example, suppose that you used to run several miles several times weekly. You felt good and you kept your weight down. However, as you aged, you discovered that your body began to break down, that you were unable to sustain all that running.
What happened? Things changed. What should you do? Change, too.
Instead of giving up, try something else, for example, substitute a walking program for the running program. What worked yesterday may not work today, and what works today may not work tomorrow. Keep testing procedures to ensure that they are still working.
If you had a negative attitude, you'd think, "I'm too old to exercise anymore." That's an attitude that will not benefit you physically. If you had a positive attitude, you'd think, "Well, my body is telling me not to run. I'd better listen to it and do something else." That's that way to keep exercising until your dotage.
sidebar quotation from Tim Wilson: "We don't realize how quickly we will adapt to a pleasurable event and make it the backdrop of our lives. When any event occurs to us, we make it ordinary. And through becoming ordinary, we lose our pleasure."
Many people find that their attitudes seem naturally to deteriorate unless they deliberately work on them.
This is why working on your attitude should be part of your morning routine: by deliberately reminding yourself of what you are grateful for, you'll be developing a positive attitude of gratitude.
Ask Zig Ziglar's question: Have you ever seen a single grateful, unhappy person?
Life is a grand adventure. Enjoy it! Savoring the present moment may be the most important of the many benefits of positive thinking. Learning how to do that is a critical lesson fostered by meditation. Learning how to let go is also a critical lesson that is fostered by meditation.
For more on the benefits of positive thinking, see the following section of our website:
