Attitude is everything

Well perhaps not everything, but it is a lot.

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Recently I have needed to change my attitude towards a certain situation and it has made a huge difference. Just approaching the same situation from a different angle has radically altered the ensuing interactions and personal comfort levels.

It turned out to actually not be that difficult to accomplish.

I was a matter of stepping back taking a long hard dispassionate look at things and trying to re-approach the situation from a different perspective. But looking at the situation with new eyes and devising a more palatable approach, that wasn't so markedly different from the original, has made a huge impact.

Is seems so easy for us to adopt an adversarial stance in some of our interactions, especially when stakes are high. When we are in adversarial mode its easy to adopt a negative outlook, take a dim view and find fault.

None of these is productive.

By negotiating with ourselves and finding a way to lower the stakes internally it becomes easier to adopt a more unified and cooperative stance rather than an adversarial stance.

When we are in fault finding mode we have actually decide that whatever the other person does has no merit. We nit-pick at the smallest and stupidest of perceived discrepancies. Essentially we wish to make the person over in our own image and likeness. We may never end up vocalizing it but essentially in our thoughts we wish to force the other party to be more like us by internally bashing and bludgeoning their every act in our minds.

This hurts us.

As it festers it may hurt them but ultimately we heap coals upon or own heads and the damage to ourselves is by far the greatest. Friction and frustrations increase.

By mentally lowering the stakes we become less invested in the outcome being exactly as we envisage and leave room for others views, visions and inputs to the shape the end result. We immediately start to slip into a more accommodating, accepting and cooperative gear.

Its great!