A good friend and colleague of mine and I had a conversation today about the video “InterView – Attitude is everything – Film By Nithesh“.  WARNING: There is NSFW (Not Safe For Work) language in the video.

In the video, an interviewer is looking for a candidate to fill a role. The interesting bit is why the interviewer keeps rejecting candidate after candidate. Watch the video to understand more but, essentially, the hiring manager wants to hire someone with a “good” attitude. I put the word “good” in quotes because he rejects many people who may have been “good” but he didn’t give them a chance as they don’t pass his test. This sparked a good discussion between my friend and I about attitude.

The Attitude

Each one of us approaches challenges, stress, and set-backs differently and some of us use different techniques depending on whether those issues arise in work, family or our personal lives. Some use negative coping strategies and some use more positive ones. What I’d like to introduce some of you to is how to rephrase negative thoughts into more positive ones and to use more-descriptive words to describe our thoughts and feelings.

 

The Tweet

This morning I tweeted a picture of an image that hangs on my wall near my desk at home. It takes negative thoughts and helps convert them into positive thoughts. My tweet reads:

I found this document/image somewhere on the internet years ago (and it is still out there, I’m sure). When I’m feeling discouraged or down or doubting myself or my skills, it helps me work through those feelings. As a parent, a spouse, a mentor, a teacher and a friend, I find that using the more-positive words when talking with others can help turn a negative situation into something, well, more-positive.

The Words

I’ve retyped the table from my tweet and added some content in the table below.

When you think…	Try thinking…
I’m not good at this.	What am I missing? Why am I feeling that I’m not good at this? How can I get better?
I’m awesome at this!	I’m on the right track and understand how to do it! Can I improve my process to get even better?
I give up.	I’ll use some of the strategies I’ve learned to try it another way.
This is too hard.	This may take some time and effort.
I can’t make this any better.	I can always improve, so I’ll keep trying.
I just can’t do [INSERT SOMETHING].	I’m going to train my brain to do [THAT SOMETHING] through practice.
I made a mistake.	Mistakes help me to learn better. If I’m not failing, I’m not learning.
She/he’s so smart. I will never be that smart.	I’m going to figure out how she/he learned the subject matter so well so I can too!
It’s good enough.	Is this my best work? Have I tried my hardest?
Plan A didn’t work.	Good thing the English alphabet has 25 more letters! I’m going to keep trying!