Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right. Those are the words of the great industrialist and car manufacturer Henry Ford. They speak to the power of positive thinking.
Attitude is everything. Ford is saying that if you have faith in yourself, believe in yourself, you will put forth more effort and you will aim higher in the goals you set for yourself and will be more likely to achieve them. On the other hand, if you lack confidence in yourself, you are less likely to put forth a strenuous effort and not as likely to aim as high – and more likely to fail.
Without a positive attitude, you also may miss out on the opportunities that come your way, opportunities that could help you to advance your career. Often, we don’t take advantage of opportunities because fear of failure is holding us back, rather than a lack of skills.
But the good news is that positive thinking is a skill in itself that can be acquired.
Here are three ways to use positive thinking to benefit your job and career:
1. Look at challenges as opportunities rather than obstacles.
We are confronted with challenges all the time at work– new projects to work on, new people to work with, new responsibilities to handle. We need to look at challenges as opportunities to improve, to better ourselves, to help us advance in our careers, to show what we can do.
But we can only view opportunities this way if we have a positive attitude. Keep up a positive dialogue with yourself. Just telling yourself that you can achieve your goals, that you have what it takes, can help to reinforce a positive attitude.
2. Act as if.
This is a strategy that was first explained by the philosopher William James. He said that if you want your life to have meaning, act as if it did, act as if it were important or meaningful. This act in itself, he said, would confer meaning. In the same way, if you want to acquire confidence, act as if you were confident, as if you were sure of yourself, and by acting this way, you are more likely to become confident.
This is also the thinking behind the idea of power poses that has been developed by one organizational expert. A power pose is a way of standing or sitting, a posture that gives the impression of power or confidence. And this expert claims that by adopting a power pose, a person actually feels more powerful and more confident. It is the behavior the instills the belief.
3, Use your failures as learning opportunities
Failure is not something to be afraid of. At some point, most of us are going to fail. It’s just a part of life. The important thing is to learn from the failure, to determine why something went wrong and how we can improve upon it, and then move on.
Looking for your next opportunity?
Whether you are looking for electrician jobs in Seattle, welding jobs in Vancouver, Washington, press brake operator jobs in Seattle, or manufacturing manager jobs anywhere in the Northwest, Opti Staffing can help you in the job search. We have a temp agency in Seattle, a staffing agency in Vancouver, Washington, as well as Portland, Tacoma, and Salem. Give us a call today.
