ATTITUDES– WHAT ARE THEY?

Attitudes, we all have them, but what are they really? Are we talking about beliefs? Could they be values? Do they comprise our identities? Perhaps they are temperaments, and people are born with them, they are genetic. Nor does the dictionary provide much help: “A position of the body or manner of carrying oneself, a state of mind or a feeling, disposition, an orientation, from Latin, faculty.”

From all of this we can conclude that the word attitude is itself a systemic term designing simultaneously a disposition of all of your innate capacities to operate. It is not a static, linear, or merely one component of personality. It involves every aspect of being a person—how you think, feel, intend, speak, act, and relate. And, of course, as you are orienting all of these faculties, or powers, in a certain way, it shows up in physiology and even in your neurology. And when it becomes “the way you carry yourself,” then we can see an attitude in her actions and behaviors or in his talk and gestures.

What is an attitude? It is a multiple meta-level phenomenon. It involves both your primary state and your meta-states. Your attitude begins with your first-level thinking as you represent something, then it is enriched by numerous higher meta-levels of believing, intending, imagining, emoting, etc., and all of that is simultaneously grounded in your body and your movements.

When you think about it, an attitude is a pretty amazing phenomenon. Even though an attitude is pretty stable, it is comprised of variables which we usually consider fluid and changeable. After all, thoughts and feelings come and go all day long as do our intentions and movements, but attitudes endure. If there’s anything truly distinctive about attitudes, it is that they are pretty stable and dependable. What attitude would you like to develop and program into your meta- mind? What attitude have you had enough of and are ready to let it go?

An attitude provides a summary of your style of being who you are and how you move through the world. What’s your style? What style isn’t working for you and which is? An attitude is developed as you choose how you think and feel about something and then you repeat it so often that it becomes an automatic program within you.

Actually, it is the stability of attitudes that often deceive us into thinking that they may be sourced in temperament and/or inherent in neurology. But, of course, they are not. They are learned. Sure, we will differ from each other in our tendencies toward one attitude versus another, optimism versus pessimism for example. Yet because attitudes can and do change, they are not innate.

Have you always had the same attitude toward everything? Have you never changed your attitude toward someone or something?

Certainly the stability of attitudes can mean that you have always sustained a single attitude toward a single thing. That’s possible. It is also possible, in fact, probable that you have completely changed several attitudes. Reflect back on your childhood or teenage years and see how many attitudes you have changed is the process of growing up. Consider things that you once thought were stupid, something you would never do, something you could not even imagine doing and now you do.

A true and deep attitude change will not merely be an old or childhood beliefs that has changed. It will be much deeper. Your very orientation in life has changed. I recall instances in grade school wherein the very idea of getting up in front of the class and speaking struck me as the very last thing I would ever want to do on Planet Earth. A teacher once said, “Why you could grow up and become a public speaker.” I must have been in the fourth or fifth grade. That’s when I seriously began questioning whether she was qualified to be a teacher! And now look at me. My current attitude is, “It’s such a privilege and honor to speak to a group.”

In nearly every aspect of life, what makes the most difference is attitude. Employers are constantly asking for a good or a better attitude from employees. Parents frequently talk to their teens about their attitude. Therapists and coaches not infrequently give feedback regarding a person’s attitude and that the person needs to shape it up and/or change it. Where in your everyday life do you need to super-charge your attitude? What’s your attitude about work, exercise, budgeting, selling, cleaning, or a thousand other things?

Now given the importance of attitude, this series of articles will look at the Neuro-Semantics of an Attitude and how you can opt for and develop the attitudes that will bring out your best and unleash your inmost potentials.