Importance of a Positive Attitude at Work | How to Develop?

Adopting a positive attitude is easier said than done. We see tons of motivational videos and books, many people on social media trying to create a positive mindset in the viewers’ minds. Still, one of the toughest tasks is to create a positive mindset and have a positive attitude in the workplace since it is obviously important to have a job to earn and survive these days, but finding a job is a tough task. Once we have done it, it’s really hard to adjust and let it go. However, because of the growing population and limited job opportunities available, once we bag a job, there is no other option but to adjust. But since we spend a big proportion of our days at the workplace, and the people in our surroundings will not change for practically some years, it is important to learn not to whine or crib since sometimes it can be difficult to get used to and adjust with the different personalities of the colleagues around. The article below explains the importance of a positive attitude at work, why it is important, and how to adapt to it.

IMPORTANCE OF POSITIVE ATTITUDE AT WORK AND HOW TO DEVELOP IT

In order to stay productive in the workplace and have a constructive mindset and a pleasant attitude, one has to maintain the positivity in their own head, avoid absorbing the negative energy of whiners and complainers around us, and learn to adjust and adapt to the different personalities that we come across. We should also have a solution-oriented approach instead of focusing just on the problems.

Why positive attitude is important in the workplace?

As said earlier, the workplace is just like our second home. We have people around us that we have to adjust with, and we spend a significant amount of our day in that place. We share a lot of things with our colleagues, including each other’s energies. It is important not to be affected by workplace colleagues after a certain extent since then. Then, it starts affecting our own mental health and work capacity. Following are the reasons why a positive attitude is important at work:

  1. No Added Stress or Irritation: Removing extra sources of stress inducers, the ones that are in our control.
    • If one thinks negatively of everyone, criticizing their personality factors, one will remain stuck, and experience added stress and irritation. 
    • The more the person thinks negatively of others, the more we deteriorate our own mental health. 
    • Thinking positively about everybody, giving them a benefit-of-doubt, helps us to not only think positively of others but feel positive ourselves too.

  2. Increased Productivity: The solution to a Healthier and Happier Life.
    • Less time spent gossiping, thinking critically of others, and more time spent in focusing on achieving the daily tasks and goals, on increasing our work experience.
    •  It also lets us associate the workplace with a more positive attitude, thereby motivating the person to report on time and focus on their own objectives. 

  3. Gaining Respect: In the eyes of others and ourselves, leading to increased self-esteem and confidence.
    • People who gossip or talk about others behind their back, once exposed, lose all the respect among their coworkers and colleagues. 
    • Nobody likes people who snitch or talk negatively about others. It makes others not talk to them or do good to them because if one focuses only on other’s negatives, then they might even talk negatively about people who do good to them, and that is, of course, full of distaste.
    •  If one keeps to themselves, doesn’t focus on others’ negatives but rather positives realize that even though all of us have flaws, criticizing or bad-mouthing is not the solution, then that person will always be respected in whatever circle they interact with.

  4. Good Interpersonal Relations: Getting Along with Co-workers and spends a huge amount of time with them.
    • As explained in the previous point, a person who talks positively of the people and surroundings around them gains respect and is also pleasant to spend time with. 
    • A person who does the opposite not only creates a negative aura around them, but people also do not like their energy and interacting with them because it is exhausting to absorb such energy.

  5. Increased Authenticity and Trust Factor: This makes a person seem more reliable and one who can keep a secret.
    • People entrust more in people who tend to keep to themselves and gossip and not focus on the critical points or flaws of others. 
    • A person who criticizes will inevitably make everyone around them feel bad for themselves, and people tend to move away from places like that. 
    • Not only can people share a secret or two with a person who doesn’t do much gossip and is genuinely good with behavior, but also they can entrust you with any information that not many people know of. 
    • Your good conduct of behavior will help others think of you as a trustworthy person and help create stronger bonds with people around and in the corporation as a whole. 
    • The boss or the head can also entrust you with critical and confidential information, and being a trusted candidate in the eye of your boss only does you good, needless to say.

  6. Quick and Efficient Problem-Solving: Adapting to situations quickly and putting out distresses and barriers to a growth-oriented lifestyle.
    • When one focuses only on the negatives, one will remain stuck in the problems they are facing and will just find more and more problems to think of and get stuck in. 
    • If one will always find criticism in their struggles, one will never be able to get out of them altogether. 
    • However, if one does not focus on the problem but is focused on finding the solution, one will never face any barrier for long, will adjust and adapt quickly to their surroundings, and will never face any anchors holding them down, thereby not stopping the flow of work and always moving forwards at a decent pace.

  7. More Opportunities in Line-of-Sight: A Good Focus on Tasks that will help us in the long run.
    • The less a person is involved in gossiping and unproductive activities along the same line, the more the person will stay caught up in these follies and will not be able to focus on growing and developing both as a person and as an employee. 
    • However, if one focuses on developing relations, meeting targets, attending meetings, and having an overall and curiosity with which they interact with their colleagues and not absorb and take the energy back home and drag it to work the next day, one will be more focused, fresh and clear with their goals and actions, thereby opening up more and more opportunities for ourselves and because of the growth-oriented mindset, one will always spot opportunities with a hawk’s eye.

  8. Better Usage of Time: A Path Towards Growth and Development.
    • Of course, it is needless to say that any kind of negativity surrounding ourselves or others is definitely going to drag our time down a wasteful drain. 
    • Gossiping, thinking in circles, focusing only on the problem will only make us go down. 
    • On the other hand, doing a variety of tasks opposite to the ones mentioned beforehand can help us improve in our social life, workplace and overall daily life. 
    • As it has rightly been said, that Time is Money, since the more time you devote to an activity, the better you become at it. 
    • So the more time one spends on such unproductive activities and things that do not really fuel or help our work or positive mindset, the more our time is wasted. One should avoid that.

        
  9. Stronger Will: Adapting a Never-Give-Up attitude which helps us both in and outside of the Workplace.
    • With a positive attitude, one’s willpower surely increases because they realize that every situation is not as bad as they think it is. It is still controllable because there are some good aspects to it. 
    • It is impossible for something to be completely bad or fully good. There are always elements of both in people and situations. 
    • However, our mindset to those things can be completely black or white, despite the things being grey. That is, we can either think completely positively, fully negatively or neutrally about situations. 
    • When one starts seeing the high points even in the lowest of situations, one starts to not give up easily and try and fix the adversities in their life, thereby developing a strong character, which without a doubt, helps us not only in our work life but also overall and not only in the short run but for years to come. 

How to achieve a positive mindset in the workplace?

Now that we know how important a positive attitude is in the workplace and overall in our life, now it is even more important to understand how to achieve the same. One needs to work both internally and externally to adopt an approach. It is not just their own mindset or the company that they surround themselves with. Rather, like every other psychological aspect, a positive attitude is also a combination of one’s own approach internally and the kind of people one surrounds themselves with. Following are some ways one can practice making their environment and their own approach a lot more positive and growth-friendly.  

  1. Positive Company: Surrounding yourself with a good vibe and energy benefits adapting positivity.
  • It is rightly said that we attract the company the way we are, or that birds of a feather flock together, all of which implies that it is a cycle to attract people similar to the way you are, and then, in turn, we get influenced by the people around us. 
  • It is a two-way road to choose your company and then get influenced by the very same people, thereby also contributing a small proportion of influence on the other members of the group we choose to interact with. 
  • The more we get into gossiping and criticisms, the more we’ll attract a kind of company that focuses only on everyone’s flaws, thereby even making us feel bad about ourselves due to such a negative attitude, and then we keep becoming more and more like that because of the subliminal effects the interaction has on us, thereby subconsciously creating us the same way and then we further negatively influence people without even being aware of the same. 
  • This is why it is important to have good, genuinely kind, and polite behavior so that we attract the same type of people and there is less such snobbish behavior around us, not turning us into an unlikable being. 
  • The drama reduces, the stress lessens, and of course, one stays happier, healthier, and more productive.  
  1. Positive Inputs: The efforts one has to put oneself in order to adopt a positive approach.
  • As mentioned earlier, it is not just external factors that influence our psyche and state of mind, but internal factors play an equally important or rather even slightly more important role than the external ones. 
  • To put it this way, a person cannot change anything about themselves if they keep asking for advice from others and do not do anything to change it themselves, or do not have an appropriate mindset or approach or a will to actually change that thing. 
  • The same way, to a certain extent, one can have toxic people around and still not turn out to be one of them if they have a strong and positive mindset by themselves, only if they let loose of their own will to stay put is when they actually let others or external factors take them over. 
  • But if one person is toxic or negative from within, then they might even influence others around them who are impressionable to turn out like them. 
  • Thus, one should try and put positive inputs into their own mind, by listening to positive songs, podcasts, motivational videos, reading books of the same kind, or listening to others who try and influence them positively, not give in to pressures or stresses and surely not letting them take us over, and if possible change our company. 
  • It is obvious that that last part is slightly tough when you’re working under a corporation since we can’t exactly change the people around us in that case, but an alternative to that would be to try and stay as positive and strong when in that environment, and then, later on, have a separate group of people to hang out with or spend time with, that is, not making office life the only social life one has.
  1. Spending Time Productively: So that one feels powerful, in control, stays away from stress indwells, and in turn stays happy and positive.
  •  As said earlier a lot of times in this article, becoming busy and productive helps us focus on tasks that will fuel our growth and development for a long time. 
  • The time spent gossiping, criticizing, and pondering upon such similar acts, the mental energy being exhausted because of surrounding negativity around us, could all be alternately used for working towards goals that would help one achieve heights of success later in life. 
  • Instead of whining, complaining, and criticizing others, if one focuses on working, maintaining a well-balanced diet, proper sleep schedule, over the years, the efforts will surely add up to improve the overall quality of life of the person. 
  • So one should always focus on tasks that improve a person overall, instead of unproductive and negatively impacting ones, as mentioned in this article. 
  1. Solution-Focusedwell Approach: Focusing on finding the answer and not getting lost in the problem.
  • If one keeps ranting about the problems they are facing, one will automatically develop a problem-focused mindset, which does no good to anyone. 
  • If one wants to develop a positive mindset so that they remain stress-free and even in the most adverse of situations, do not give up, try harder and succeed, one will always have to slowly and steadily train their mind into not seeing the problem or the wrong thing with people, situations or themselves. 
  • Because in such cases, the person tends to sulk and succumb to the stresses that the situation or person induces in them, and then think as to why the solution is nowhere to be found when in reality they do not realize that it is their own mindset that is not allowing them to do so. 
  1. Control on Impulsivity: Avoiding regret by controlling acts and behaviors.
  • Sometimes, we have a little on-and-off conversation with our fellow workers, and we might start feeling irritable or even act out impulsively, which is a highly unprofessional act to do. 
  • A reaction that might come out is being sarcastic or showing passive-aggressive behavior, which could come off as rude and would make the person less likely and could also lead to the person being outcasted by the colleagues. 
  • It is always better to sort and resolve issues and conflicts out politely and patiently so as to not create a negative environment for both ourselves and others.
  1. Journaling or Talking: Any activity that helps one reflect on gratitude.
  • One of the major ways one can maintain a positive thought process in the future is to reflect upon the positive thoughts they had in the near or far past. 
  • Maintaining a journal or discussing daily the good things that happened throughout your day helps you reflect on the fact that not everything bad happens, even on a ‘bad day. 
  • It helps us realize that there are still little things that we have and can afford that we should be happy and grateful for, that many don’t have the resources or opportunities we have, or even on a bad day, one might manage to help someone, and while discussing it or writing it down in their journal, one might reflect back on it and feel positive and contented. 
  1. Team-Building Exercises: Building sportsmanship and a positive work circle.
  • The HR Department of any corporation plays a highly significant role in maintaining a positive work environment. The employees under that department try and organize team-building exercises, meetings, provide incentives to the employees to maintain focus on positivity, and also help normalize counseling so that one can talk about issues that are concerning to them and not let its repercussions be projected on others. 
  • For example: if a person got stuck in traffic and commuted and reported late to the office, but got scolded for the same, they might feel irritable the whole time and even project their anger on their colleagues, none of whom would have any idea where it is coming from. 
  • On the other hand, think of an office environment where it is normal to vent in front of a psychologist or counselor, or there are provisions for similar acts, and so the person might feel relaxed and productive in their remaining day, not to mention not venting on their employees and creating bitter relations with them. 
  • The department can also provide incentives to the employees to reach certain goals, thereby making them work harder, which would benefit them in the long run.  
  • One should always volunteer for such activities and tasks, or even little acts of helping coworkers, in order to maintain a peaceful and positive environment around.

Conclusion

All in all, a positive attitude will remain helpful not only in the workplace but throughout our lives, at all times, in all places, with all people, in all situations. It helps us grow, develop, remain calm and peaceful within our heads, even in adverse situations, and helps us develop a strong character that is not willing to give up. All these characteristics make up for a highly productive lifestyle, which helps in the long run.

A person’s attitude can eventually make or break their mindset, lifestyle, and so their growth. Succumbing to stress is never the answer. Looking for solutions always is. Without a doubt, the first step to adopt a positive approach is to identify the problem areas and make up your mind to make amends and actually treat those areas. As said earlier, our own internal mindset is the most important for wanting us to make it to the other, better, more positive end.   

Importance of a Positive Attitude at Work | How to Develop?

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