Charles R. Swindoll’s famous quote hit home this time to suit our topic of interest. He said and we quote “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” Initiating and maintaining a positive attitude in the workplace is the key to success not only on an individual level but also on the community level within the work environment.

No doubt, having a positive attitude at work sets the tone of your entire day. It bleeds into everything else that you do. If you don’t start out with a positive outlook, the negativity can take over, and it will affect everything you do from the relationships that you have to the people you’re talking to. Everybody has bad days, but if you at least start off thinking that it’s going to be a great day, then you’re already ahead of the game!

So how can you maintain a positive attitude at work? We’ve got the juicy details in this blog post! So keep on reading!

How To Keep Positive Attitude At Work

1. Take Time to Self Assess and Take Deep Breaths:

Maintaining a positive attitude means reacting with a level head when something upsetting happens and letting it roll off you whenever possible. It’s never a good idea to react out of anger. If something happens to upset you, try to develop a habit of taking a beat before responding:

• If you can, move to a private location like your office or cubicle — or, in dire straits, a bathroom stall — to compose yourself.
• Close your eyes and take at least ten deep breaths. Deep breathing is a quick hack to calm your body. Perhaps repeat a calming mantra, picture your “happy place,” or whatever works for you.
• Then, try to assess the situation with a clinical eye. Can you try to view the event through the eyes of all the participants?

Once you’re calmer, you’ll start to put the event into perspective and develop an appropriate response that won’t be blown out of proportion.

2. Don’t Take Criticism Personally:

If someone criticizes your work, try to remember it probably wasn’t personal. Don’t dwell on it and spiral into bad attitude habits.

Work on listening to what the person is saying rather than jumping straight into defensiveness. Try to put yourself in their shoes and understand where they’re coming from.  Do they have more experience or know-how that makes their critique valid? Is there something you can learn from their different perspectives?

Even if you disagree with the feedback they’ve given you, you can learn from it. Don’t dismiss it. Instead, try to look at it objectively.  Often, well-meaning people try to help, but their feedback comes off as critical or offensive. Try to assume the best intentions in people and look for ways to learn from their critiques and improve your performance. After all, no one’s ever done learning.

Your work always has room to grow — so rather than reacting poorly to criticism and creating a negative cycle, use the feedback you receive as an opportunity to grow professionally.

3. Spend Time With People Who Have a Positive Attitude:

They say you’re a combination of your five closest friends, so it makes sense that your work persona would reflect the colleagues you spend the most time with. This principle can affect you for good or ill. If you want to be a positive person, seek out the most positive people in your life and spend time with them. For the same reason, try to avoid socializing with negative coworkers who spend all their free time complaining about work. Positivity might be contagious, but so is negativity.

4. Be Kind and Help Your Colleagues:

Your coworkers spend at least 40 hours a week with you, so it’s a sound investment to cultivate a positive relationship with them and help each other.  The benefits are twofold: you’ll start to make friends, which will make you look forward to coming to work. You’ll also feel more of a positive social connection at work, making you more involved and motivated to do a good job. Make it your goal to put teamwork first. Let your colleagues know when they’ve done an excellent job, and act happy for them when they succeed.

Keeping up a positive attitude while at work doesn’t go unrewarded. By keeping your frame of mind in a positive space, you are unknowingly benefitting yourself and others. If you have a positive attitude and a positive outlook, you can accomplish anything. If you keep that positive attitude, you can move at a much quicker pace and can believe in the overall vision of where you need to be.