Lose the attitude...and get a new one!

One of the biggest determining factors in our level of happiness is attitude. Attitude affects a lot of what we do, decisions we make, how we feel, and how others feel about us. Do you know someone who is a "Negative Nancy", someone who seems to have a negative opinion or complaint about everything? Hopefully it's not you, but we all can be overly negative at times. A negative attitude sometimes starts out innocently enough, but over time it can mushroom into being a person's predominant way of thinking.

Attitude is comprised of our thoughts and opinions, which are influenced by the people around us, our life situation, the media, and our view of the world and society. We have different attitudes about different things, but some people tend to have an overall "positive attitude" or a "negative attitude."

How do positive people stay so positive? How did they get that way to begin with? Some of it is personality, but a lot of it is learned and developed. Some people have to work at it, to consciously think about it every day. Changing your attitude requires changing how you look and think about things.  It is not easy to change some thought patterns, but it is not impossible. Losing the negative attitude and becoming a more positive person might be just what you need to improve your mood, make it easier to relax, and better capable of handling stress.