Perspectives on Mental Attitude focuses on what you think about your life.

What does mental mean?

The adjective "mental" describes anything having to do with the mind, just as "physical" has to do with the body. Mental has to do with the intellect, the mind, or the brain (Vocabulary.com).

What does attitude mean?

An attitude is somewhere between a belief, a stance, a mood, and a pose. If you've got an attitude about something, it can be hard to change it because you think you're right (Vocabulary.com).

What's the Problem?

Google’s definition of attitude reveals the essential problem with mental attitude.  An attitude is:

A settled way of thinking or feeling about someone or something, typically one that is reflected in a person's behavior.

Consider also this definition of attitude by BusinessDictionary

A predisposition or a tendency to respond positively or negatively towards a certain idea, object, person, or situation. Attitude influences an individual's choice of action, and responses to challenges, incentives, and rewards (together called stimuli).

We all know someone who has “an attitude” toward just about everything. People with “attitudes” often have stubborn tendencies to hold on to their own beliefs,  no matter how illogical, because changing their beliefs would require changing their attitudes about ideas, objects, people, actions, and challenges.

The Life-Changing Question

How would you describe your usual mental attitude about your life? Does your mental attitude help you live the life you want? Or does your mental attitude prevent you from success and happiness?

It's worth pondering the words of Thomas Jefferson: "Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude."

In other words, each of us can choose our own pathways through life. One pathway takes us on a negative pathway. The other pathway takes us on a positive pathway. The significant difference is not always the result of the pathway itself. Rather, the life-changing difference is that each of us can change our attitude.     

Consider this article on Forbes by Travis Bradberry: “Why Attitude Is More Important Than IQ,”

Psychologist Carol Dweck has spent her entire career studying attitude and performance, and her latest study shows that your attitude is a better predictor of your success than your IQ.

Dweck found that people's core attitudes fall into one of two categories: a fixed mindset or a growth mindset.

With a fixed mindset, you believe you are who you are and you cannot change. This creates problems when you're challenged because anything that appears to be more than you can handle is bound to make you feel hopeless and overwhelmed.

People with a growth mindset believe that they can improve with effort. They outperform those with a fixed mindset, even when they have a lower IQ, because they embrace challenges, treating them as opportunities to learn something new.”

Continue reading Bradberry's article about the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset (Forbes).

The life-changing question is: Are you are willing to change your perspectives on life by being willing to change your mental attitude about your life?

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