Do you want to know how to improve your attitude?
If you do, then you are not alone.
Attitude determines how you see things and how you behave.
Your attitude towards different things and people can be a hindrance to your happiness, growth, and success.
Hence, you have to check yourself.
If you have reflected and see that your attitude is not good, then you need to improve it.
As usual, we are here to help out.
We will begin by looking closely and understanding what attitude is…
What is Attitude? – How to Improve Attitude
An attitude is the set of beliefs, emotions, and behaviors a person has and exhibits towards a particular person, object, event, or thing.
It is your evaluation or appraisal of things in a given way.
In other words, it is the way you judge things and act upon them.
When we say ‘act’ we mean the way you behave.
Hence, your attitude has a strong influence on your behavior.
Your evaluation can be negative or positive, or in some cases uncertain.
This is why people exhibit negative, positive, and indifferent behaviors.
Attitude can be implicit or explicit.
When an attitude is explicit a person is conscious and aware of it and how it influences their behaviors.
Meanwhile, when it is implicit, one is not conscious of it, but it still affects their behaviors.
Attitudes are often gotten from upbringing or experience.
For example, a person can hate porridge because in the past they got sick after eating porridge.
Attitudes can endure.
However, attitudes can improve or change when you work on them.
All you need to do is to change the way you see things.
Components of Attitude – How to Improve Attitude
As we earlier said, your evaluation of something can be negative, positive, or uncertain.
When your evaluation of a thing, person, or issue is uncertain your feeling toward it will be mixed.
For example, if your evaluation of a situation is uncertain, you might not be against it but you might not support it.
We also said that your attitude is a combination of your belief, thoughts, emotion, and the behavior exhibited.
Your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors come from different places.
We call them components.
In other words, your attitude is made up of these different components.
These components are sometimes known as the ABC or CAB of attitude.
Let us briefly see them
Cognitive Component – How to Improve Attitude
Cognitive is a term used to describe those activities performed by the brain such as remembering and reasoning.
Hence, when we talk about the cognitive component of attitude, we mean beliefs and thoughts towards issues, people, or things.
Your brain is where your thoughts are formed, and it is from your thoughts and thinking habit that your beliefs are formed.
This in turn forms your judgment or evaluation of something.
In other words, what you think and believe in is a part of what makes up your attitude.
Affective Component
Your thoughts and beliefs are not the only things that make up your attitude.
Emotions that you feel also influence how you evaluate something or someone.
For example, if you like someone, your attitude towards them will be positive.
Hence, you will exhibit positive behaviors.
So, when we talk about affective component of attitude we mean how you feel towards something or someone.
Behavioral Component – How to Improve Attitude
Your cognitive and affective component works together to create your behavioral component.
In other words, what you believe, think, and feel influences and determines your behavior.
Hence, the behavioral component is how your attitudes influence your behaviors.
Formation of Attitude – How to Improve Attitude
Different factors influence your thought, beliefs, feelings, and form an attitude.
Let us look closely at some of these factors to understand the formation of attitude better
Experience
Your attitudes can be formed directly from what you experienced.
It can also be formed from things you observed.
In other words, you might have seen something happen to someone, and then formed an attitude or something might have happened to you, and an attitude was formed.
For example, let’s assume you experienced your friend’s business falling apart because they did not build trust with their customers.
This could make you develop an attitude to treat and build trust with customers in your business.
Let’s also assume that your business experienced a setback because you treated your customers wrongly.
In the future, you could form a positive attitude that promotes good treatment of customers.
So, your attitude can be formed from things your personally experienced and things you witness someone experience.
Learning – How to Improve Attitude
Your attitude can be formed from things you learn
For example, if you learn that self-discipline will help you to achieve success, a positive attitude towards being disciplined can be developed.
You can learn in different ways.
In other words, you do not need to be in a classroom to learn.
You can learn while surfing the internet, reading a book, or even seeing a commercial.
So, do not be surprised when you form a positive, negative, or uncertain attitude after watching a commercial.
Social Factors
The social norms and roles of a society you grew up in, or stay in can influence your attitude.
Social norms are those rules of behaviors that are considered right or appropriate in society.
Furthermore, social roles are what societies expect people to do or act in a particular context or role.
So, let us assume that you live in a society where the females do not typically engage in some occupations.
This can make you form a negative attitude towards females who engage in those occupations within and outside your society.
Observation – How to Improve Attitude
Human attitude can also be formed from observing people they know or around them.
In other words, when you admire or respect someone’s attitude concerning something, there is a chance that you would likely develop their attitude.
For example, kids who spend a lot of time noticing and observing their parent’s attitudes can end up developing and demonstrating similar outlooks.
The same can be said of a protégé who is groomed and trained by a mentor.
Tips on How to Improve Attitude
As we earlier said, attitude can endure but it can be changed or improved.
So, if you have an attitude that you do not appreciate or like, you can work to improve it.
We have prepared some amazing tips you can follow that will help you improve your attitudes.
1. Identify the Attitude that Needs Change
As a person, your attitudes toward different things, events, people, and so on are different.
For instance, you might have a positive attitude towards one person and a negative attitude towards another person.
Hence, you would behave positively and good to the person you have a positive attitude towards, and negatively towards the person, you have a negative attitude towards.
So, when you want to improve your attitude, get to understand and know which attitude you want or need to change.
When you have a better understanding of this, you would be able to set goals that will help you achieve the improvement you are seeking.
Therefore, what you should do is to search within yourself.
That is, perform an honest, in-depth evaluation of yourself.
Once you do this, your path to improvement will be clearer and easier.
2. Know Your Why – How to Improve Attitude
After identifying the attitude or attitudes you would like to improve, you have to get to know your why.
In other words, get to know your reason for wanting improvement on that attitude.
Your reason for wanting improvement is what will motivate you to work till you get that improvement you seek.
If you have no reason for an improvement, you will find it difficult to go through the process and get your desired result.
So, question yourself about your reason for seeking an improvement in your attitude towards that particular person, event, or thing.
Check to know if your decision is externally influenced.
Let us assume, your business partner might have constantly asked you to improve your attitude towards a particular issue.
Maybe you are tired of hearing them ask you to change or improve, so you want to make that improvement for them.
This is good, especially if the attitude is not helping you positively.
However, you need to have personal motivation or zeal to improve that attitude.
This is called internal motivation, and it will help you stay more motivated, excited, and creative through the process and lead to a better result.
3. Self-Reflect and Journal
As we earlier said your attitude towards a person, event, object, and so on is based on your thoughts, beliefs, and feelings.
So, as you work to improve your attitude, you have to do a self-reflection and find out those things that influence your attitude.
In other words, what are you basing your judgment or evaluation on?
Also, as you self-reflect discover what you desire to achieve by adjusting or improving your attitude.
You can get more from your self-reflection when you journal.
This is because a journal can have your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs written out.
As a result, you will find it easier to pinpoint what you base your attitude on.
Some helpful questions that can you can ask yourself when self-reflecting about this matter are:
- What are the emotions that I base my judgment on?
- Is there any reason for feeling this way?
- Have I experienced something that made me develop this belief?
- Is my judgment clouded by negative thoughts?
- What are those things that have influenced my judgment of this person, object, or event?
- Will I be able to achieve my goals better when I improve my attitude?
- Can I alleviate uncomfortable feelings if I improve my attitude?
- Will I feel better, happier, and at peace when I improve this attitude?
You can ask yourself other questions that will get you to understand why you have that attitude, and what you will accomplish when you improve it.
As you engage in self-reflection, do not forget to journal.
4. Imagine How Your Life Can be Positively Affected When You Make Improvements On Your Attitude – How to Improve Attitude
Your imagination can help you see things that are not yet realized.
Hence, they can serve as a great way to keep you committed till you achieve your goals.
Also, it can help you to develop strategies to achieve your goals.
So, as you are working to improve or change your attitude, take time to imagine your life if you succeed.
How will that improvement affect your life?
Some things you can do to visualize or imagine your life when you make improvements in your attitude are:
- To tap into your imaginative mind, you can sit somewhere comfortable and have your eyes closed
- Then vividly imagine with clear details about how your life would be like when you improve your attitude
- As you are visualizing it, you can chip in a positive affirmation to boost your imagination
Positive affirmations will make you feel like you are already experiencing what you desire.
So, do not hesitate to say them as you imagine yourself living with a better attitude.
5. Get More Information
Sometimes the information you use to build up your judgment about people, objects, or events might be wrong or incomplete.
Hence, when working to improve an attitude, you have to challenge and shift your judgment.
To do this, you would need to look at the information you have and get more information.
Seek out information and facts that will influence and positively challenge your judgment.
To gather information, you will need to speak to people, closely reflect on the things you know already, or make additional research.
For example, your attitude about business partnership might be negative because you got information that made you believe that one partner will lord over the other.
Now, this information is not essentially true.
If you are to make better findings on business partnerships you would discover that a partnership can be good.
It mainly depends on what the partners agreed on, and the way you handle yourself as a partner.
In other words, you would get other information concerning partnerships that will favorably and positively influence your attitude about partnership.
So, ensure that you get more information and recheck the information you based your judgment upon.
6. Believe That Change is Possible – How to Improve Attitude
Some people believe that attitudes come naturally to people and that it makes them who they are.
So, they believe that attitudes cannot be changed.
As a result, they are not able to make changes or improvements in their attitudes.
This should not be you!
So, if you want to change your attitudes for the better then you have to believe that change is possible.
Understand that a negative attitude towards change will stop you from achieving your goal.
There is no point to have started if you do not believe.
This is because your attempt towards improvement will be half heartedly done.
So, believe in yourself, believe that change can happen in your life.
7. Let Them Go
Sometimes we develop the wrong attitude towards things because we hold on to worries and negativity.
Holding on to these things can also cause negative effects on a person’s mental health.
So, rather than hold on to these things, understand that you cannot control everything.
For instance, you cannot control how a person’s business is flourishing more than yours.
However, you have control over how you react to it.
It is when you focus on these worries that negativity feelings and notions start forming.
This will then result in you having a negative attitude towards that person and their business.
You have to avoid this!
Instead of reacting negatively, be happy for them and focus on how to grow your business to the height you want.
Minimize negativity in your life, let go of things you cannot control, and move on to those you can.
This way, that thing, issue, person, or object will not spoil your general view of life.
Check this here to discover why negativity ruins more good ideas than anything else.
8. Identify Your Strengths and Accomplishments – How to Improve Attitude
As you focus on the things you can control, also fix your mind on your accomplishments and strengths.
This will help you to create positive feelings and experiences.
Consequently, they will affect your attitudes for the better.
Also, when you do this it will help you to be strong in the face of adversity and negativity.
9. Engage in Activities You Love or Enjoy
Another thing you can do to help improve your attitude is to engage in things you love.
For example, if you love reading or listening to music, then you should set time to read or listen to music often.
When you engage in activities you enjoy, it will fill you with positivity and happiness.
This way, you would be able to ward off negative thoughts, beliefs, and feelings that build up those negative attitudes you have.
10. Show Gratitude – How to Improve Attitude
Sometimes, those attitudes that weigh you down develop and grow because you allow bitterness to get to you.
So, to improve your attitude, you should make it a habit of being grateful instead of being bitter.
Be thankful for your life and the things and the people in it.
Show gratitude to people when they do something nice or good for you.
Live a more thankful life!
11. Re-frame Negative Experiences and Moments
Think back to those negative experiences or moments you had in the past.
Some of them are what has made you form that attitude you want to improve.
So, critically look at them and see them for what they are.
For example, if you have had failed in business once, your attitude about owning a business again can be negative.
So, look back at that experience and see it as the failure that it is.
Failure does not mean the end.
Therefore, it should not stop you from trying again.
When you see a negative experience for what it was, you would see improvement in your attitude.
Conclusion on How to Improve Attitude
Change is constant.
So, no matter how negative or bad your attitude is know that you can work to improve it.
In this article, we have shared information on how to do so.
Therefore, we hope that you find it helpful.
