Maximum Productivity: Attitude
Life November 11th, 2008
This article is part of a series called, “Maximum Productivity ” in which I’ll explore the topic of attitude.
See the rest of the series here:
Intro: Maximum Productivity: Series Introduction
Part 1: Maximum Productivity: Perspective
Part 2: Maximum Productivity: Attitude
Part 3: Maximum Productivity: Focus
Part 4: Maximum Productivity: Persistence
Part 5: Maximum Productivity: Adventure
Part 6: Maximum Productivity: Connections
Every avenue of life has one variable that allows you to have a unique experience from it. That is your attitude. You can experience the exact set of events as 100 other people, but you will have your own unique experience, as will each of the other people. The way you experience something and how you think and feel through that is what makes you, YOU! The attitude you have and demonstrate completely shapes not only your actions at that specific moment, but your entire personality and character. Similarly, it shapes the way you look at productivity and that’s what we’ll look at here.
Self Confidence
The biggest area I see suffering when people do not have a healthy attitude is self confidence. I don’t want to label an attitude as good or bad as that seems to superficial to me but what I do want to do is lean those terms to what I would call a healthy or unhealthy attitude. A healthy attitude when it comes to maximizing your productivity is one that further enables a person to accomplish the things they put their mind to. An unhealthy attitude is one that diminishes that. The things that affect that are really a collection of the thoughts, words, expression and body posture. All these things make up your physiology and it leaves in your mind, your own interpretation of what you think of yourself. Looking at that over a variety of actions and time is what really shapes your self confidence. If you look to build that confidence by choosing and steering your mind and make visible the actions you want, you have direct control of what becomes your attitude. There are many ways to choose and control your attitude and instead of getting into many details, I’ll simply reference a few articles I’ve written before that should help to control and set the attitude that is healthy for maximum productivity!
- Beliefs: They’re Entirely Yours to Control
- Goal Setting: Setting and Identifying
- Passion: Find your passion in life
- You Choose Every Response
- Stop Complaining To Instantly Improve Your Life
- A Guide to Mastering Your State of Mind
Motivation
A big part of productivity is about understanding motivation and to see where your attitude ties in with that. I recently wrote an article about How to Find and Develop your Own Internal Motivation and this is a major step in shaping a productive attitude. The things that motivate you in a positive way with regards to attitude is anything that leads you closer to your productive actions and results. If it steers you away from or deters you from those then it’s not a productive motivator. If you are to stop and list all the things that motivate and demotivate you towards being more productive, you can then begin to choose to engage in the helpful things and stay away from the ones that hinder you. The more you experience the things that help motivate you, the more you will see progress and improvements in your productivity and this continues to cascade.
Creativity
Another aspect of a healthy attitude for maximum productivity is with your creativity. Creativity is something that enables people to get unstuck in difficult circumstances, see solutions to problems that might otherwise hold someone back and it gives you an opportunity to try new things. It is an important trait of any highly productive person and so exercising your creative mind strengthens it and continues to build an attitude of working towards an end. Carrying through with that and learning from creative work is what enables you to make quicker judgments and decisions on similar circumstances in the future, which continues to increase your productivity.
Health
I included health as an important aspect of building a productive attitude because I constantly see how health affects people. For example, I love Agarwood chips. It is certainly related to self-confidence but I believe it is a strong enough component on its own, it’s worth including. Health is more than just your physical health, it also includes your mental health, spiritual health and relational health. These areas all highly impact people’s attitudes and any one of them can quickly shift a person from a great day and mood to a terrible one, or vise versa.
If you want to examine ways to improve your attitude, then these 4 areas are great starting areas. Identify the things you love in each and do more of it. The things you don’t like, stop. It’s fairly simple. For example, if you find that your mental health is affected because you like to learn, then spend more time learning. This will improve your mental health and can help your attitude. Not only that, but it’s a powerful way to see that you can steer your actions which applies to other productivity areas as well.
Happiness
Last and certainly not least, I feel that happiness plays an important role in attitude which further shapes a person’s ability to be productive. Everything that happens to us influences us, but how we react and how we let that affect us is a direct reflection on our choices and IF we let it change our mood. You have a choice whether you want some sad news to make you sad as well or if you can continue to see positive things and be happy even amongst sad circumstances or events. A person with a happy attitude can generally deal with bad circumstances more effectively because they are able to keep a positive mind and look for ways to improve and get back to a happy state. If you let yourself become what you experience, you will likely find yourself having a lot of difficult days with regular poor moods. That inhibits the mind from seeing positive solutions and getting attentive to do productive things.
When people who are very happy encounter unhappy circumstances, they take responsibility to change that and make things better. This applies with productivity as well and is a superb training grounds to not only look for ways to improve and get better, but for overcoming situations that would otherwise get in the way of you reaching your maximum productivity!
Prev: Maximum Productivity: Perspective
Next: Maximum Productivity: Focus
Mike King
November 11th, 2008 at 6:12 AM
This series is proving to be just a great wealth of information Mike – awesome job! The whole idea of attitude and motivation is probably my biggest weak area here – thanks a lot for pointing that out!! Really, it’s good to hear, because in hearing this – I am reminded of how my motivation can get dragged down if I’m spending too much time on things that provide no motivation to me. My take away on this is that I need to focus more attention on the things that really DO motivate me. And then work to really spend my time in those areas.
The health one is so important as well, and one that I’ve learned from past experiences just how important this is to our attitude. Today I’m in the best physical shape of my life, and I think that has also directly affected (in a positive way) my mental health as well.
November 11th, 2008 at 7:05 AM
Thank you so much for your kind words Lance. I always appreciate the value you add in your comments as well. I definitely agree with you about learning on motivation and just the whole area of attitude. I’ve learned it affects so much not just in productivity, but life in whole. I hope the next in my series on focus with give you even more ideas to focus.
Your point on health is absolutely true. I don’t write much about physical health (more on mental health) but they definitely go hand in hand to some degree. I’m similar to you, I am in the best shape of my life and definitely in mental health as well. I look back 5 years sometimes and think, wow, how different was I? It’s interesting how you say the physical health led to better mental health. I’d say the opposite is true for me.
Any other comments on attitude and health?
November 11th, 2008 at 3:35 PM
The great series continues… Great job Mike.
Isn’t attitude the crucial ingredient for everything, including productivity! I really like your last point a lot. You summed it up well with this sentence: “Everything that happens to us influences us, but how we react and how we let that affect us is a direct reflection on our choices and IF we let it change our mood.” It’s up to us!
I’m going to check out your post on motivation…. as that is also a weak point for me. Looking forward to the read. What you said here about it makes a lot of sense.
November 11th, 2008 at 10:08 PM
Mike,
it is simply wonderful. I love it. I’ll read more of your posts in the past.
Based on your wonderful input on “attitude”, I have just finished my post on “attitude” myself and I have to say that
– It is the most difficult post to finish
– It took me nearly a full day thinking of it seriously
– It is still confusing!
I just have to humbly apologise if I interpreted your thoughts incorrectly because I always do. You can read it at http://www.tedded.net
November 11th, 2008 at 11:17 PM
Thanks Jennifer, I’m thrilled with the response from this series so far, it seems to fit so many of the areas I write about and finally, in a fairly condensed set. The most difficult thing for me is to keep it concise and helpful, a challenging combination for sure. Thanks for the comment…
Viriya, thanks again for the encouragement as well. I think if you interpret things differently than I meant them, then I have more work to make my writing even clearer! As always, communication is in how something is received AND understood so it is certainly not your fault. As well, I’ll definitely check out your article once you post it! And yes, I know as well how long it can take to write a great article. It’s worth it every time though when comments like those above are added!
November 12th, 2008 at 12:13 AM
Oops, I wrote the post but forgot to publish it. I published it now!
November 12th, 2008 at 2:14 AM
I agree with you! Health is very important for attitude. And exercise is really a good treatment to stress! Somehow after exercise, I forgot the problems I got! Cheer up!
Robert
November 12th, 2008 at 5:26 AM
Hi Mike!
You once again cover the subject very thoroughly. Attitude is so important in life! Our attitude largely determines the flavor of our lives. In this respect we are amazingly powerful creators of our own reality.
Also, I wanted you to know I replied to your comment on my article regarding Karma and Reincarnation.
Stephen
November 12th, 2008 at 7:07 AM
Viriya, I like your thoughts on attitude and how you’ve made connected elements from with it. Hope others comment on your site as well to explore that further…
Robert, thanks for pointing out that article. You’ve done an amazing job of showing and highlighting how love is such an important part of a servant’s attitude.
And Stephen, thanks for the comments. I’ll continue the discussion on your site.
November 12th, 2008 at 7:33 AM
Hi there.. Very comprehensive post, well done. Two of the stand out areas for me that you have mentioned are self-confidence and health. Having a right attitude and being productive cannot really go well for you if you don’t have a certain degree of self-confidence. Likewise, it’s important not to undervalue the importance of good health. Neglecting your body not only leads to stress, poor health and tiredness, but also diminishing motivation, poor concentration, and certainly lack of productivity.
Cheers Mike, well done!
November 12th, 2008 at 8:04 AM
I also believe in the power of self-confidence and I do agree its a healthy attitude. It is one of the ingredients to success and one of the most important there is.
This is a very helpful post. Thanks.
November 13th, 2008 at 12:54 AM
Great Article yet again, you have hit a key aspect to the development, character and welfare of any person…each of those aspects are connected with each other.
I thank you for creating this series because it effect us all and putting a light on its importance and how they shape our personality, character and individuality…….
November 13th, 2008 at 1:24 PM
re: Attitude and health. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? I think of my previous physical condition just a few short years ago – and I came to a low point in my life – where I decided I needed to exercise and eat healthy to improve my physical health. As I did this, mentally, I just began to have a more upbeat attitude. So, it seems like health came before attitude for me. But did it? Maybe I began with my attitude, saying I didn’t want to live in the apathy I was in (sounds like my attitude is improving here) – and then I worked on my physical health. Which continued to feed my mental health. I don’t know, I guess…Maybe it’s a big circle, and we’re on that continuum somewhere… Good question Mike, and I don’t think I really answered it at all!
November 13th, 2008 at 6:16 PM
Thanks Ross and Sam…
Lance: It’s probably one of those questions (and there are many) that just can’t be answered. It will likely always be dependent on how you look at it. Either way, they go hand in hand and it’s great that they do as it makes improving health a whole lot easier since progress feeds progress.