How Can I Improve My Attitude?

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I very much agree with motivational speaker Dennis S. Brown’s statement, "The only difference between a good day and a bad day is your attitude.” How we approach our challenges can either bog us down or propel us forward.

For example, if you are about to meet a new person, worries about how they might perceive you might make you act awkwardly. On the other hand, if you consider meeting a new person as a potential start to an exciting new adventure, you will likely interact in an enthusiastic way that would much more likely lead to a successful new relationship.

When my patients apply to college, many worry about whether they will be accepted into the right school and expend a lot of emotional energy in the college application endeavor. Many worry that this would be a very bad outcome if they do not get into their first-choice college.

I explain to my patients that they would be better off recognizing that the universe will take them where they need to go. If they end up going to another college, they can have a terrific experience there as long as they maintain a good attitude and work hard. Thus, while they are not in control of whether they will be accepted at any given institution, they will control how they do at the college they attend.

A good attitude helps approach any life venture. If you achieve a particular goal, you can be happy and build on that success. If you don’t achieve that goal, you can learn something from the experience and build on your newfound knowledge. Either way, you come out ahead. I remind my patients of consumer rights activist Ralph Nader’s quote, “The best teacher is your last mistake.”

For example, during the early part of my career, I chose to work at a research laboratory of a prestigious institution. Within a few months, I realized that while I could function as a decent researcher, I felt much happier delivering direct patient care. As a result, I switched jobs the following year. This was all part of the learning process, which I appreciated. I applied some of the lessons I learned from my research experience throughout my clinical career as a physician.

How Hypnosis Can Help Change Your Attitude

The first key to changing your attitude is the intention to do so. Hypnosis can then give you tools to accomplish the change.

Hypnosis can help change your mood by helping you imagine a calming, inspiring, or comforting scene from your past or a happy outcome to an experience that awaits you. Such imagery helps change feelings, thoughts, and physical sensations by helping to alter your mind’s focus. An improved mood can lead to a better attitude, as most of us experience after a good night’s rest. In fact, learning how to improve your mood can help you sleep better!

A meditative state that can be achieved through mindfulness or hypnosis can bring new thoughts to mind that can help reshape your attitude.

Attitude can also be changed by learning how you developed a particular attitude in the first place and then deciding if you want to change your approach. Hypnosis can help accomplish such an introspective process by facilitating interactions with your subconscious that can give you a fresh perspective regarding your thought processes.

For example, a teenager’s subconscious disclosed recently that he felt bad about being different from his peers ever since his older sister told him that he was “weird.” We discussed that his “weirdness” reflected his ability to think deeply, wisdom, and sensitivity and thus represented desirable personal characteristics that will make him more likely to be successful throughout his life. Thereafter, he felt much better about himself.

When you decide that you want to change your attitude, you can use the hypnotic state to give yourself suggestions regarding what you want your new attitude to be and how you would like it to be manifested.

The use of positive self-talk can be very helpful in this process. For example, rather than thinking I hope I won’t be nervous during my interview tomorrow, a better thought might be, I want to be calm during my interview. The latter statement is more helpful because it encourages your mind to consider how you can achieve a state of calmness and thus make it more likely to occur.

Takeaway

Hypnosis can help you improve your attitude by helping you to identify what underlies an attitude and facilitating its change.

Copyright Ran D. Anbar