To be successful, you have to give yourself permission to succeed. All you need is a swift kick in the attitude.
People are unhappy. Ask most people how they are doing, and you’re likely to be fire-hosed with an earth-moving stream filled with hostile criticisms, scathing condemnations, and anger-laced complaints.
What I’ve discovered is that we are continuously inundated with tremendous opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations. The gale-force winds of negative attitudes and limiting thoughts that are engulfing our lives presents some serious mind-blowing opportunities for massive success.
The key to seizing the opportunities is to simply develop and sustain a positive mindset.
Based on extensive research and 20+ years coaching others to achieve peak performance, here are 11 habits I’ve uncovered that highly successful people use on a daily basis to develop a positive mindset.
1. Expect Good Outcomes
Joel Osteen says a good attitude doesn’t automatically happen. He recommends waking up every day and declaring victory. That’s good advice because the most successful people start every single day expecting it to be a good day with positive outcomes.
2. Focus on Solutions
Life is about solving problems efficiently. The super-simple secret is this – successful people are masters at asking solution-focused questions. They constantly ask “what” and “how” questions. They also avoid “why” because “why” is a problem-focused question.
3. Eliminate Limiting Beliefs and Language that Creates Limits
People with a positive mindset avoid using words that establish and reinforce limits. Remove these words from your vocabulary:
- Can’t
- Won’t
- Don’t
- But
4. Laugh and Smile Often
No matter the circumstances, a person with a positive mindset always finds a way to use appropriate humor to release the tension in the moment. They also smile a lot because it is contagious and when you smile, it’s the fastest way to connect with people. As John Maxwell proves in his best-selling book Everyone Communicates Few Connect, when you can connect with people, you instantly become a big fish in a very small pond.
5. Be Action Oriented
Stop talking about what is wrong and making excuses because those are habits of problem-focused people. The highly-successful focus on talking about potential solutions and taking action because taking action creates motion, and motion changes things.
6. Forgive and Move On
Dwelling on bad experiences keep them alive. Forgive those who treated you wrong. Why? Because they were part of your mental workout to make you strong. Remember, no relationship is a waste of time. The wrong ones teach you the lessons that prepare you for the right ones. Forgive them and move on.
7. Be Grateful Not Regretful
Most people focus on what they have to do, which is a regretful mindset. Successful people shift their thinking to the affirmative. They reframe everything in terms of being the things they are blessed to do. That’s a grateful mindset, and an easy way to build a grateful mindset is to write down 5 things you are grateful for on a daily basis.
8. Avoid the 3Cs of Dysfunction
Unsuccessful people habitually complain, criticize, and condemn others to demonize them while amplifying differences. The highly successful people with positive mindsets don’t do that. They openly appreciate differences and continuously find ways to enable others to make contributions that improve any situation.
9. Control Your Emotions
It’s amazing how quickly people can come unplugged and descend into anger-filled, highly irrational behavior. It’s easy to rise above the fray. Simply stay calm and remain solution-focused even if it means you only ask solution-focused questions to yourself. It’s the mental question-and-answer process that enables you to stay in control.
10. Avoid Toxic People
Attitudes are contagious. In fact, the concept emotional contagion refers to the human tendency for two people to emotionally converge. In layman’s terms, it means we automatically and unconsciously begin to mimic the people we are communicating with. So yes, good and bad attitudes are contagious, therefore avoid those who have a toxic attitude.
11. Focus on Abundance Not Scarcity
This is more of an outcome of the limiting language and beliefs because those lead to a life of lack. A positive mindset that has a foundation of positive expectancy enables us to actually see things in abundance. And that is why envisioning what success looks like and declaring it every day is such a powerful tactic for enabling towering achievements.
Research Proves the Benefit of a Positive Mindset in the Workplace
So what’s the benefit of developing a positive mindset you ask? In a study of 20,000 new hires, nearly 50% failed within 18 months. Here’s the mind-blowing statistic from the research. 89% of the time new hires failed, it was for attitudinal reasons, not lack of skill.
The evidence is clear. Those who have a positive attitude and positive expectancy will always vastly outperform those who don’t.
The Next Step for Developing Your Positive Mindset
As a peak performance coach who has dedicated his life to helping people attain maximum personal growth and success, if you give me a month, I’ll show you how to stop living within your limitations and start living beyond your imagination.
Don’t wait. Start living a better life by enrolling in my 4 week online life coaching program. You’ll be better for it. I guarantee it.
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