Chapter 6
Choosing the Right Attitude
In This Chapter
Taking responsibility for your feelings and attitude
Understanding the effect of your attitude on listeners
Connecting effectively with other people
Everyone has a ‘guiding attitude’, which is a way of looking at life that drives your behaviour and determines your way of thinking and feeling. Whether your general attitude is positive, negative or ambivalent, your evaluation of people, objects, events and activities impacts on other people’s attitudes towards you. As a result, your attitude determines how successful you are in both your professional and personal lives.
According to the twentieth-century Swiss psychologist, Carl Jung, your personality is set at birth. Your attitudes, on the other hand, are the results of direct encounters or observations and can change depending on your experiences. So although attitudes can have a powerful influence on your behaviour, they aren’t set in stone, and certain influences that cause you to have one attitude may, at another time, bring about a change in your outlook. For example, to resolve conflicting inner attitudes about a political issue, you may choose to adhere to one attitude ...
