Ten Signs of a Destructive Attitude

 “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he…” Proverbs 23:7

A bad attitude can destroy any chance of success or happiness. If you want to live a happier, healthier, and successful life, you must rid yourself of a destructive attitude. Your mind can be your worst enemy or your best friend and it is up to you to determine which.Epictetus rightly said,“People are not disturbed by things, but by the way they view them” and that “It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”

Do you have a destructive attitude? Check out these ten signs of a destructive attitude, which are not original with me. I’m sure you already know about them, but if they happen to describe you, what are you doing to rid yourself of these pernicious ailments.

1. Close Mindedness: I list close mindedness first because if you don’t deal with this one first, you will pay no attention the other 9. A person who thinks they already know everything is not interested in anything else. I must admit that I was one of those when I was young. When I started college, I thought I already knew everything. I thought I was very smart. You know what? When I finished college I realized how little I knew and how ignorant I was. The most important thing college was to me is it created in me a curious mind. It was the beginning of my education, not the finish. It truly was a commencement. I commenced to really learn about life. A lack of curiosity can rob you of ever learning what life is all about. Become curious rather than having a know-it-all approach to life; open your mind to learning and become more than you have ever been. Don’t be incongruent to the reality of what you know in reference to what there is to know. Your life can never be what you would like for it to be until you open up to all there is out there to learn. It’s nearly impossible to have a successful, meaningful, happy life with a closed mind.
2. Self-Pity: Andy Williams’ song “Lonely Street” goes like this: “Where is this place called lonely street? I have a sad, sad tale to tell. I need a place to go and weep.” Pretty song but a sad way to live. Feeling sorry for yourself will not help you to find the answers to the problems you face, nor will it help you live a better life. Everyone has their own sad story to tell, and they don’t want to hear yours. You can be so caught up in self-pity until it keeps you from taking any action towards improving your situation.
3. Neglect: Jim Rohn correctly said, “A week of neglect can cost you a year of repair.” What happens if you neglect taking care of your finances? It can get you into a real financial crisis that might be difficult to climb out of. Also, what if you neglect your physical health? The outcome could be sickness and death. It behooves us to pay close attention to the important issue in our life. If we fail to do so, the result could be a disaster.
4. Doubt: Doubt is perhaps the most destructive attitude of all. Self-doubt heads the list of doubts and causes the most damage. Self-doubt cripples you. It convinces you that you don’t have the talent, the intelligence or expertise to reach your goals. Not believing in yourself will stop you in your tracks before you even get started. Before anything else you must realize your self-worth. Otherwise success will evade you.
5. Indifference: God said of one of the churches mentioned in Revelation: “Since you are neither hot nor cold, I will spew you out of my mouth.” Luke warm to God was sickening. Indifference is neither hot nor cold; it is an attitude of not caring. You have no direction in life or a definite destination. It is better to take a wrong direction than none at all; at least you will eventually see that you are headed in the wrong direction and turn around. Indifference is a life of mediocrity; you are trapped in a stale and unproductive lifestyle. Someone said, “Step out of the crowd of average people. Enter that game and change the values on the scoreboard.” Pick a direction in your life and give it all you have. You have within you the power to move mountains.
6. Indecision: The problem with indecisiveness is that it keeps you in exactly the same position, and you are unable to ever move forward. Not being able to make up your mind as to which direction in life you want to go immobilizes you and stops you in your tracks. According to statistics, a person is confronted with 35,000 decisions each day. Many of these, of course, are made for us by the body’s functions. However, it is those decisions which determine our future, which left undone renders our life stale and unproductive. If you ever desire to be a leader, you have to be able to make decisions. If a life of adventure is what you desire, you must learn to make timely decisions and make them quickly. It is true that you will not always make the right decision. That is okay because the wrong decisions will give you better perspective for making right decisions in the future.
7. Over Cautious: A nurse attendant who assisted people at the end of their life said, the greatest regret that people had was that they were afraid to take a risk and do the things they really wanted to do. This is the timid approach to life. You’re afraid to take any sort of risk whatsoever. In your mind you think but “What if I try and fail?” or “What if it doesn’t work?” The fallacy in this kind of thinking is failing to consider the rewards. Would you like spending your time sitting in a corner with a bag over your head because it is a safe place, or would you rather experience the excitement of living even if it did include risks. All of life is risky. So risky in fact that no one is going to get out alive. Are you going to fear the risk of living and live a life filled with regret? Join the game of life instead of sitting in a corner with a sack over your hear or standing on the sidelines and watching the winners in life play the game.
8. Worry: Worry is like living in a globe of doom. It has a detrimental impact on your health and mental state. 95% of those things we worry about never happen anyway! Well, said someone, what about the 5% that does happen. Okay, go ahead and worry about the 5% if you are insistent. That at least will reduce your worrying by 95%. Does worry solve anything? No! But is does contribute to increasing levels of anxiety. It is time you make a firm vow to give it up once and for all. Eradicate it completely from your life. I know from experience that it is not easy to eliminate, but I also know that the benefits are immeasurable and liberating. Don’t expect your vow to quit worrying to remove difficulty, challenges, and obstacles from life. However, it strengthens your ability to face and solve them.
9. Pessimism: To a pessimist, the glass is always half empty. You always look for the negative rather than the positive. What a sorry and ugly way to lead your life. I listen to music on YouTube occasionally. Did you ever notice that a beautiful song, done to perfection, may get millions of thumbs up but also a few thumbs down? Some spend their whole life looking for the negative in things rather that showing their appreciation for all the good things that are handed to them on a platter, which results in them being absolutely miserable. Epictetus said, “It’s the way you think things are that affect the quality of your life, not the way things actually are.” What is your perception on life? If you think it stinks, you are missing the sweet aroma. It is high time you change the way you view things; in return it will change the direction of your life. Train your mind to eliminate negative thoughts and replace them with the positive. If you insist otherwise, your negative thinking habits will lead you down a path of miserable, poor existence.
10.  Complaining, condemning and criticizing: Dale Carnegie said in his book on human relations to stop condemning, complaining and criticizing. Relationships are near impossible to build if you are constantly doing those three things.Whether you call itwhining, crying, moaning, groaning, it all is all a negative, crippling way of life. If you insist on this way of living, your chances of ever having higher form of existence is zero percent. These three things kill every good thing in your life. Complainers especially, complain about everything from the weather, job, people, partners, kids, and anything else they can think of. Stop it and do yourself a big favor and also those around you. Instead of complaining, condemning and criticizing, decide to change those things you can and forget the rest.

There you have it “Ten Signs of a Destructive Attitude.” What you do about it is up to you. Elizabeth Gilbert has it right: “There is so much about my fate that I cannot control, but other things do fall under the jurisdiction…I can choose how I’m going to regard unfortunate circumstances in my life-whether I will see them as curses or opportunities. I can choose my words and the tone of voice in which I speak to others. And most of all I can choose my thoughts.” You also can choose!