Attitude Influence or be Influenced

I was visiting with a client today and we entered into a conversation about attitude. For most people, attitudes happen by accident. We just don’t think about them, but they occur as the result of things that we think about over and over again. When lots of bad things happen, we tend to have negative attitudes. When lots of good things happen, we tend to have positive attitudes. Let’s take it one step further. Just like other things that we do over and over to form a habit, habits occur with our thinking. When we are around negative people we can be influenced by their negativity. It seems to be human nature to look for the bad in a situation. That might be because we are conditioned to think that way. Many times we’ll see a group gathered in the break room gossiping about something bad that has happened to themselves or a coworker. Or when someone makes a mistake, the word spreads like wildfire. When these types of incidents occur, we have a choice. We can choose to influence or be influenced. We can choose to be influenced by the negativity or we can choose to influence the negative person to be more positive. Wouldn’t it be great if everyone that came in contact with a negative person would make the choice to help that negative person become more positive or at least make the choice to keep themselves positive rather than be influenced to be negative.

OK, we all have bad days. We can’t be Pollyanna all the time. There are times when we want to wallow in our self pity. Well, let me ask you, “How’s that working for you when you have that pity party?” It really doesn’t get us anywhere does it? We need to remember that yes, we will have down times, but they will get better. If we didn’t have the low times, we wouldn’t appreciate the good times. Think of the low times in your life when you didn’t know how you were going to deal with a situation. Eventually that down time was followed by a wonderful event or time. When you have a down time, think of the good times that will follow. They will. Just be patient, look for them, and be prepared to receive them through your actions.

Strategic Planning 101

Tonight when I got home, my two little grandaughters were here. They are two and four. The four year old wanted to know about my day and what I did. I told her what I did during my day and she picked up on strategic planning. She wanted to know what strategic planning was. I explained that it was important that an organization make maximum use of their resources. Why? So they don’t waste them. What are resources? Things like people and money and inventory. What is strategic planning? Well, planning is done so a company knows what they are doing. I got a puzzled look. I then explained that tonight her sister and she were going to go to visit a friend and have dinner and watch a movie. They had a plan. Without that plan, I may have given her dinner and when she was at her friend’s house she wouldn’t be hungry. With the plan, she would be prepared for the evening and the fun. That made sense to her. It also makes sense that if a company doesn’t have a plan, they are more apt to “eat” whatever resources are in front of them, regardless of where those resources should be going.

THIS IS MY FIRST ATTEMPT AT BLOGGING. Blogging is one of those things that I've been wanting to do for a long time. It is also one of those things that could wait until tomorrow. There have been many tomorrows that turned into weeks and then months and probably is now getting close to a year. Has that ever happened to you? I don't mean blogging necessarily, I mean anything. Something important yet not urgent. It is those types of tasks that if we don't set a deadline or target date to get accomplished, can end up on the back burner. The key is to set that target date and do a small action. We know from physics that a body in motion tends to stay in motion and a body at rest tends to stay at rest. Find a small action that will get you moving. You may need to a small action every day just to get moving. Find that small action, it may be the most important even if it is the least important if it gets you moving.

I started this blog tonight because today I put it on my "must do" list. Everyday I look at tasks that I absolutely positively have to complete before I go to bed at night. That makes me continue to make forward progress. I'll say more about that later. For now, I can say that I made my first blog entry. I am happy with that.