Teaching Positive Attitude

Excerpt from “Bridging the Skills Gap: Teaching the

Missing Basics to Today’s Young Talent” by Bruce
Tulgan (Wiley, September 2015).
By
Bruce Tulgan

Positive attitude: Conveying optimism, generosity, support, and enthusiasm

in one’s expressions, gestures, words, and tone.

There is no doubt, employee attitudes affect productivity, quality, and

morale; collegiality, cooperation, and cohesion; employee development;
and retention, as well as turnover. Good employee attitudes drive positive
results. Bad employee attitudes put a drag on results. That’s a fact proven
by study after study, including our own.

Do today’s young workers need a generation-wide attitude adjustment?

Perhaps they’ve all been conditioned by social media to err on the side of
over-sharing. Maybe so, but even if you could get inside their heads, you
shouldn’t try. It is not your job to be your employees’ therapist. What you
must do instead is focus on the external behavior: What they can do, for
sure, is learn to keep their negative feelings “to themselves” and “smile on
the outside” more at work.

Do not make the three most common mistakes most managers make when
dealing with “bad attitudes”:

1. Treating attitude as a personal issue, an “internal” state of mind that

is off limits
2. Treating attitude as unchangeable (“that’s just who I am”) matter of
personality
3. Talking about attitude in vague terms or indirectly
As long as you think of attitude as a personal, internal matter, it is going to
remain intangible and you will remain out of your depth. Feelings are on the
inside. Observable behavior is on the outside. That observable behavior
can be seen, heard, and felt. No matter how intrinsic the source may be, it
is only the external behavior that can be and must be managed. As a
leader, dealing with attitude becomes a whole lot easier if you treat it head
on, directly, as just another matter of performance management. Here’s my
best advice:

• Make great attitude an explicit and regularly discussed performance

requirement for everyone.
• Make it about external behaviors, which employees can modify as
necessary.
• Define the behaviors of great attitude: expressions, words, tone, and
gestures. Describe the behaviors. Require them. Teach them. Reward
people for displaying them proudly. Hold people accountable when
they don’t.

Make Them Aware/Make Them Care

This is the message I recommend managers deliver when they are trying to
convince their young employees to really care about developing good
attitude:

“This is why you should care about demonstrating a positive attitude at

work: Attitude may be hard to define and describe—great, good, bad, or
average. But it is very, very important. At every level, leaders and managers
rate “attitude” as one of the most important factors in employee
performance. Attitude can be the difference between success and failure
for our business. Attitude can be the difference between success and
failure for any employee.

Even so, many leaders and managers fail to talk about the power of attitude:
Many believe that attitude is a personal issue, and so it is off limits. Many
believe that attitude is just “who a person is” and can’t be changed, so they
don’t try. Many believe attitude is vague, so they wouldn’t know where to
begin. Those beliefs are all wrong, and that approach is a big mistake.

Here’s the good news: Attitude is not a vague internal matter that is
unchangeable. Like anything else, displaying a positive attitude is a skill set
that can be learned and mastered. Attitude is simply too important to leave
off the table. So we are going to talk about it. We are going to focus on
external behaviors. The bottom line is simple: Good attitudes are required.
Not on the inside. What you feel on the inside is your business, 100
percent. But on the outside, positive words, tones, and gestures are
required and expected. Here’s some more good news: Research shows
that if you make an effort to display positive words, tones, and gestures on
the outside, it has a positive effect on your internal brain chemistry, and it
makes you feel better on the inside.

Here’s the bottom line: If you learn to display a positive attitude at work,
regardless of what you are feeling inside, then you will have learned one of
the most important broad transferable skills you could ever learn. You will
be valued for your positive attitude in any role in any organization anywhere
any time. And that is a skill that will never become obsolete.

Can You Fix Bad Attitudes?

Everybody has bad days or bad moments. In our career seminars, we do an

exercise—NOT to help a person find out whether or not he or she has a
bad attitude. The purpose is to help each person figure out for him or
herself: When you do have bad days or bad moments, what kind of bad
attitude behavior are you most likely to display? Armed with that
information, the person should be better prepared to avoid that behavior
and take corrective action more swiftly when it does happen.

So we take them through a series of questions to see what kinds of bad

attitude behavior to which they are most susceptible:
 • Do you sometimes behave like a “Porcupine”? Porcupines send the
message: “Get away from me!”
• Do you sometimes behave like an “Entangler”? Entanglers want
everybody else to be involved in their issues. They want to be
noticed, observed, listened to, and engaged—even if those issues are
not the concern of the person in question.
• Do you sometimes behave like a “Debater”? Debaters always have
an argument to make, regardless of whether it is a good argument or
not.
• Do you sometimes behave like a “Complainer”? Complainers point
out the negative symptoms of a situation without offering a solution
based on the root cause.
• Do you sometimes behave like a “Blamer”? Blamers are like
complainers, pointing out negative symptoms, but blamers point the
finger at a specific individual.
• Do you sometimes behave like a “Stink Bomb Thrower”? Stink bomb
throwers make sarcastic (or worse) remarks, curse under their breath
(or aloud), or even make loud gestures such as slamming or yelling.

Of course, even if you have bad moments or bad days, most people also
have plenty of good attitude, too. Everybody does. In our career seminars,
we do another exercise—NOT to help a person find out whether he or she
has a good attitude. The purpose is to help people figure out for themselves
when they are at their best, what kinds of good attitude behaviors do they
most often display? Armed with that information, the person can try to
leverage that strength with more purpose and consistency. Not only that,
but the person may become aware of other “good attitude” behaviors he or
she would like to add to his or her repertoire!

So we take people through a series of questions to see what kinds of good

attitude behavior to which they are most susceptible:
 • When you are at your best, are you approachable, welcoming, and
professional?
• When you are at your best, do you communicate in a highly
purposeful manner—brief, straightforward, and efficient?
• When you are at your best, do you choose your arguments carefully,
and make your arguments based on clear evidence, rather than
assertions of opinion?
• When you are at your best, are you a troubleshooter, focusing on the
steps you can take yourself to make things better?
• When you are at your best, do you go out of your way to make
positive, optimistic, generous comments? Speak in positive tones?
Make positive gestures and expressions?

When you can make “attitude”—good and bad—less vague and more
about specific observable behaviors, it helps people become more aware
and more purposeful about mitigating their negative behaviors and
accentuating their positive behaviors. Make it explicit, talk about it, focus on
it, and watch the attitudes get better.

Excerpt from “Bridging the Skills Gap: Teaching the Missing Basics to
Today’s Young Talent” by Bruce Tulgan (Wiley, September 2015). For
more information, visit http://www.amazon.com/Bridging-Soft-Skills-Gap-
Missing/dp/1118725646

Based in New Haven, CT, Bruce Tulgan is a leading expert on young

people in the workplace. He is an advisor to business leaders all over the
world, the author or coauthor of numerous books, including the classic,
“Managing Generation X” (1995); best-seller “It’s Okay to Be the Boss”
(2007); “Not Everyone Gets a Trophy’ (2009); “The 27 Challenges
Managers Face” (2014); and Bridging the Skills Gap (2015). Since founding
management training firm RainmakerThinking in 1993, he has been a
sought-after keynote speaker and seminar leader.
It is probably not a surprise to you that positivity is, inherently, at the center
of positive psychology.
Positivity doesn’t always refer to simply smiling and looking cheerful,
however—positivity is more about one’s overall perspective on life and their
tendency to focus on all that is good in life.
In this piece, we’ll cover the basics of positivity within positive psychology,
identify some of the many benefits of approaching life from a positive point
of view, and explore some tips and techniques for cultivating a positive
mindset.
This piece is a long one, so settle in and get comfortable.

What is a Positive Mindset and Attitude? A Definition

You probably have an idea of what a positive mindset or positive attitude is
already, but it’s always helpful to start with a definition.
This definition from Remez Sasson (n.d.) is a good general description:
“Positive thinking is a mental and emotional attitude that focuses on the
bright side of life and expects positive results.”
Another, more comprehensive definition comes from Kendra Cherry at
Very Well Mind (2017B):
“[P]ositive thinking actually means approaching life’s challenges with a
positive outlook. It does not necessarily mean avoiding or ignoring the bad
things; instead, it involves making the most of the potentially bad situations,
trying to see the best in other people, and viewing yourself and your
abilities in a positive light.”
We can extrapolate from these definitions and come up with a good
description of a positive mindset as the tendency to focus on the bright
side, expect positive results, and approach challenges with a positive
outlook.
Having a positive mindset means making positive thinking a habit,
continually searching for the silver lining and making the best out of any
situation you find yourself in.
Characteristics and Traits of a Positive Mindset: 6 Examples
So, now we know what a positive mindset is, we can dive into the next
important question: What does it look like?
There are many traits and characteristics associated with a positive
mindset, including:
• Optimism: a willingness to make an effort and take a chance instead
of assuming your efforts won’t pay off.
• Acceptance: acknowledging that things don’t always turn out how
you want them to, but learning from your mistakes.
• Resilience: bouncing back from adversity, disappointment, and failure
instead of giving up.
• Gratitude: actively, continuously appreciating the good things in your
life (Blank, 2017).
• Consciousness/Mindfulness: dedicating the mind to conscious
awareness and enhancing the ability to focus.
• Integrity: the trait of being honorable, righteous, and straightforward,
instead of deceitful and self-serving (Power of Positivity, n.d.).
Not only are these characteristics of a positive mindset, but they may also
work in the other direction—actively adopting optimism, acceptance,
resilience, gratitude, mindfulness, and integrity in your life will help you
develop and maintain a positive mindset.
A List of Positive Attitudes
If you found the list above still too vague, there are many more specific
examples of a positive attitude in action.
For example, positive attitudes can include:
• It is looking adversity in the eye… and laughing.
• Getting what you get, and not pitching a fit.
• Enjoying the unexpected, even when it’s not what you wanted
originally.
• Motivating those around you with a positive word.
• Using the power of a smile to reverse the tone of a situation.
• Being friendly to those you don’t know.
• It’s getting back up when you fall down. (No matter how many times
you fall down.)
• Being a source of energy that lifts those around you.
 • Understanding that relationships are more important than material
things.
• Being happy even when you have little.
• Having a good time even when you are losing.
• Being happy for someone else’s success.
• Having a positive future vision, no matter how bad your current
circumstances.
• Smiling.
• Paying a compliment, even to a total stranger.
• Tell someone you know that they did a great job. (And mean it.)
• Making someone’s day. (Not just a child’s… adult’s like to have their
day be special, too!)
• It’s not complaining no matter how unfair things appear to be. (It is a
waste of time… instead, do something!)
• Not letting other people’s negativity bring you down.
• Giving more than you expect to get in return.
• Being true to yourself… always (Jarrow, 2012).
Why is a Positive Attitude Considered the Key to Success?

Now we know a little bit more about what a positive mindset looks like, we
can turn to one of the biggest questions of all: What’s the deal with having a
positive attitude?
What is it about having a positive mindset that is so important, so impactful,
so life-changing?
Well, the traits and characteristics listed above give us a hint; if you comb
through the literature, you’ll see a plethora of benefits linked to optimism,
resilience, and mindfulness.
You’ll see that awareness and integrity are linked to better quality of life,
and acceptance and gratitude can take you from the “okay life” to the
“good life.”
The Importance of Developing the Right Thoughts
Developing a truly positive mindset and gaining these benefits is a function
of the thoughts you cultivate.
Don’t worry—this piece isn’t about the kind of positive thinking that is all
positive, all the time. We don’t claim that just “thinking happy thoughts” will
bring you all the success you desire in life, and we certainly don’t believe
that optimism is warranted in every situation, every minute of the day.
Developing the right thoughts is not about being constantly happy or
cheerful, and it’s not about ignoring anything negative or unpleasant in your
life. It’s about incorporating both the positive and negative into your
perspective and choosing to still be generally optimistic.
It’s about acknowledging that you will not always be happy and learning to
accept bad moods and difficult emotions when they come.
Above all, it’s about increasing your control over your own attitude in the
face of whatever comes your way. You cannot control your mood, and you
cannot always control the thoughts that pop into your head, but you can
choose how you handle them.
When you choose to give in to the negativity, pessimism, and doom-and-
gloom view of the world, you are not only submitting to a loss of control and
potentially wallowing in unhappiness—you are missing out on an important
opportunity for growth and development.
According to positive psychologist Barbara Fredrickson, negative thinking,
and negative emotions have their place: they allow you to sharpen your
focus on dangers, threats, and vulnerabilities. This is vital for survival,
although perhaps not as much as it was for our ancestors.
On the other hand, positive thinking and positive emotions “broaden and
build” our resources and skills, and open us up to possibilities (Fredrickson,
2004).
Building a positive framework for your thoughts is not about being bubbly
and annoyingly cheerful, but making an investment in yourself and your
future. It’s okay to feel down or think pessimistically sometimes, but
choosing to respond with optimism, resilience, and gratitude will benefit you
far more in the long run.
The Outcomes of a Positive Attitude
Aside from enhancing your skills and personal resources, there are many
other benefits of cultivating a positive mindset, including better overall
health, better ability to cope with stress, and greater well-being (Cherry,
2017A).
According to the experts at the Mayo Clinic, positive thinking can increase
your lifespan, reduce rates of depression and levels of distress, give you
greater resistance to the common cold, improve your overall psychological
and physical well-being, improve your cardiovascular health and protect
you from cardiovascular disease, and help you build coping skills to keep
you afloat during challenging times (2017).
You’ve probably heard of all these generic benefits before, so we’ll get
more specific and explore the benefits of a positive mindset in several
different contexts:
• The workplace
• Leadership
• Dealing with disability (for both those with a disability and those
around them)
• Nursing and healthcare
• Recovery from cancer
10 Benefits of a Positive Mental Attitude in the Workplace
No construct better captures the essence of a positive attitude in the
workplace quite like psychological capital (or PsyCap for short). This
multicomponent construct is made up of four psychological resources:
4. Hope
5. Efficacy
6. Resilience
7. Optimism
PsyCap was first conceptualized as “positive psychological capital” by
renowned management and leadership researchers Luthans and Youssef in
2004. The concept quickly took off among positive organizational
psychologists, and by 2011 there were already hundreds of citations of
PsyCap in the literature.
The first meta-analysis of all the research on PsyCap was conducted in
2011, and it outlined some of the many benefits of PsyCap in the
workplace:
 • PsyCap was positively related to job satisfaction, organizational
commitment, and psychological well-being.
• PsyCap was also positively related to organizational citizenship
(desirable employee behaviors) and multiple measures of
performance (self-rated, supervisor evaluations, and objective
measures).
• PsyCap was negatively related to cynicism, turnover intentions, job
stress, and anxiety.
• PsyCap was also negatively related to negative employee deviance
(bad employee behaviors; Avey, Reichard, Luthans, & Mhatre, 2011).
It seems pretty straightforward that positive attitudes like optimism and
resilience lead to positive outcomes for the organization and for the
employees!
Another study by a few of the giants in the field of positive psychology
(Sonja Lyubomirsky, Laura King, and Ed Diener, 2005) investigated the
relationship between happiness and benefits to employees. They showed
that positive attitudes in the workplace also benefit the employee in addition
to the organization:
• Happier employees are more productive than other employees.
• Happy salespeople have higher sales than other salespeople.
• Happy employees are more creative than other employees.
• Happy employees are evaluated more positively by their supervisors.
• Happy employees are less likely to show job withdrawal
(absenteeism, turnover, job burnout, and retaliatory behaviors).
• Happy employees make more money than other employees.
So, a positive attitude can have great benefits for the organization as a
whole and for all of its employees.
It turns out that a positive attitude can also result in benefits for leaders and
their followers (as well as spreading positivity throughout the organization).
The Importance of a Positive Mindset for Leadership
As important as a positive mindset is for the rank-and-file, it’s easy to see
why it is vital for those in a position of leadership.
Researchers Hannah, Woolfolk, and Lord (2009) outlined a framework for
positive leadership that rests on the idea that leaders with a positive self-
concept (a positive idea of who they are and a habit of thinking positively
about themselves) are more able to bring the “right stuff” to their
leadership role.
In their theory, a leader with a positive mindset is not only more likely to be
actively engaged and to perform at a high level, he or she is also more able
to influence followers toward a more positive mindset through role
modeling and normative influence.
A study completed around the same time provides support for the
relationship between leader and follower positivity; trust in management
influenced positive PsyCap, which had a big impact on performance for
leaders and followers (Clapp-Smith, Vogegesang, & Avey, 2008).
Further, trust in management was linked to positive leadership and
performance. While trust in management isn’t necessarily indicative of a
positive mindset in both leader and follower, it is certainly a likely outcome
of a generally positive attitude in the workplace.
Forbes writer Victor Lipman (2017) puts findings like these in simpler terms:
“It’s always easier to follow someone with a positive outlook.”
In other words, positive attitudes in a leader will draw followers and
encourage motivation and engagement in subordinates. Lipman also notes
that having a positive outlook and being resilient is vital in leadership
positions because there is a lot of stress involved in managing and leading
others.
Leaders must always be “on” and spend much of their time “performing” as
a strong, confident leader and perhaps even a public face. This role is a
tiring one, and being optimistic and resilient will help leaders stay sane and
healthy in challenging contexts.
The Promotion of Positive Attitudes Towards Disability
Having a positive attitude is also a boon for those educating, interacting
with, and caring for a disabled student, loved one, or patient.
A positive attitude toward disability facilitates disabled students’ education
and helps them assimilate into postsecondary education (Rao, 2004).
This makes it even more troubling to learn that, according to a 2012 study
on UK primary schools, only 38% of them had a Disability Equality Scheme
in place and only 30% had included a plan to “promote positive attitudes
towards disabled people” (Beckett & Buckner). Further, 76% of schools
reported that their staff had not received any training in the promotion of
positive attitudes towards students with disabilities.
With so many resources available for promoting positive attitudes toward
disability, there is ample opportunity to rectify this lack; for example,
research by The Children’s Society in the UK identified several ways to
promote positivity:
• An inclusive ethos within the school.
• Staff teams who are knowledgeable, skilled, and committed.
• Better training, guidance, and support for teachers, including
Disability Equality training and ongoing INSET for all staff.
• High levels of awareness across the whole school community.
• Disability equality teaching being part of a wider strategy and
included across the curriculum and not just within subjects such as
PSHE, Citizenship and Religious education.
• A designated member of staff to coordinate teaching across the
curriculum
• A better understanding of why promoting disability awareness and
equality is important.
• Links with disabled people within the school community and beyond,
as well as links with special schools.
• The availability of good resources.
• Awareness of, and the challenging of, stereotypes.
• A critical approach to the use of ‘disablist’ language which reinforces
discriminatory attitudes and negative stereotypes.
• Promotion of the social model of disability.
• The inclusion of positive and diverse images in all materials used
within the school and undertaking an audit of existing materials and
resources to ensure they promote positive attitudes (More
information on these suggestions can be found here).
A 2009 study also established that formal instruction in disability awareness
combined with hands-on fieldwork experiences with people who have a
disability can have a significant impact on the positive attitudes toward
those with disability (Campbell, Gilmore, & Cuskelly).
The research found that teachers-in-training who participated in a one-
semester course involving direct work with students who had Down
syndrome greatly improved their knowledge of the syndrome as well as
their attitudes toward those with Down syndrome.
All of these findings show that having a positive attitude towards those with
a disability is not only the right thing to work toward, but it also has a
significant positive influence on both those with disability and those around
them.
Unsurprisingly, it’s also important for nurses and other health professionals
to cultivate a positive attitude towards their patients with a disability—
something that nurses sometimes struggle with (Tervo & Palmer, 2004).
Positive Attitude in Nursing and Health Care
On the subject of nursing and healthcare, this is another context where
having a positive mindset (towards oneself and one’s patients—disabled or
otherwise) can have a positive impact.
In fact, having a positive attitude is so important for nursing, expert Jean
Watson describes nursing as the “Caring Science” (2009). Indeed,
positivity and caring are ingrained in the field; just take a look at the five
core nursing values:
8. Human dignity
9. Integrity
10. Autonomy
11. Altruism
12. Social justice (Fahrenwald et al., 2005)
These five values lay the foundation for a caring, positive mindset that is the
hallmark of good nursing practice. Nurses who embrace these core values
and adopt a positive mindset toward themselves, their work, and their
patients can help them find the meaning and fulfillment that likely prompted
them to enter the field in the first place.
Having a positive mindset in health care not only acts as a facilitator of
meaning and purpose in the lives of healthcare professionals but it also:
13. Improves the professional’s performance and helps patients
find healing and maintain a healthy lifestyle.
14. Reduces the frequency of accidents by enhancing focus.
15. Helps the professional build a good reputation and advance in
their career (Swanson, n.d.).
Luckily, there are evidence-backed ways for nurses to implement a more
positive outlook, including:
 • The “Three Good Things” exercise, in which the nursing staff
maintains a “three good things” sheet that gets passed around all the
nurses at the end of their shift; each staff member writes down at
least one good thing that happened that day, and the charge nurse
selects three of these positive things to share with the oncoming-shift
nurses to help them start their day with positivity.
• Increasing social connections with patients by placing a “getting to
know you” board in each patient room; on admission, nurses can
encourage the patient to share something about themselves (not their
illness or hospitalization, but about who you are).
• Encouraging random acts of kindness by nurses—a practice which
has the potential to spread to patients and other healthcare
professionals as well.
• Enhancing gratitude through a staff peer recognition board.
• Practicing loving-kindness meditation at staff meetings.
• Identifying and applying one’s Signature Strengths (Roberts &
Strauss, 2015).
Speaking of the importance of positivity in health care, the benefits can
extend to the patients as well.
Positive Attitude and Cancer Recovery
You’ve probably heard the common phrases and encouragements used
when discussing someone’s cancer diagnosis.
A cancer patient will likely be told at least a few times that “You have to stay
positive!” and “You can fight this if you maintain a positive attitude.”
This idea that being positive will help cancer patients to fight the disease is
a common one, although the literature is a bit iffy on whether this
phenomenon is real (Coyne & Tennen, 2010; O’Baugh, Wilkes, Luke, &
George, 2003).
Although it is unclear whether simply cultivating a positive mindset will help
a patient beat cancer, there’s no doubt that getting support, focusing on a
healthy mental state, and maintaining a positive attitude will help patients
reduce their tension, anxiety, fatigue, and depression, and improve their
overall quality of life (Spiegel et al., 2007).
Cancer Treatment Centers of America expert Katherine Puckett agrees that
positivity can be helpful for patients being treated for cancer, but clarifies
that other emotions are perfectly acceptable as well.
“So often I have heard a loved one say to a cancer patient who is crying,
‘Stop crying. You know you have to be positive’… However, when we make
space for people to express all of their feelings, rather than bottling them up
inside, it is then easier for them to be optimistic. It is okay to allow tears to
flow—these can be a healthy release.” (Katherine Puckett, as reported in
Fischer, 2016).
This indicates that the most important factor regarding positivity in cancer
recovery is that it is authentic. False smiles and superficial cheerfulness will
likely do nothing for the cancer patient, but working on cultivating an
authentically positive mindset and focusing on the activities and techniques
that build well-being can have a significant impact on a cancer patient’s
quality of life and—possibly—their chances of beating cancer.
33 Tips on How to Have & Keep a Positive Mindset in Life and at Work
Do a quick Google search on how to cultivate a more positive mindset, and
you’ll see that there are tons of suggestions out there! We’ve gathered
some of the most popular and most evidence-backed methods here, but
don’t hesitate to search for more if you need them.
Larry Alton (2018) from Success.com lists 7 practical tips to help you get
more positive:
16. Start the day with positive affirmations (scroll down to see
some example affirmations).
17. Focus on the good things, however small they are.
18. Find humor in bad situations.
19. Turn failures into lessons—and learn from them!
20. Transform negative self-talk into positive self-talk.
21. Focus on the present instead of getting mired in the past or
losing your way in the future.
22. Find positive friends, mentors, and co-workers to support and
encourage you.
A successful author, speaker, and coach Brian Tracy (n.d.) echoes some of
these tips and adds a couple more:
23. Remember that it’s your response that determines the outcome
of a situation.
24. Use positive affirmations or phrases to chase off negative
thoughts.
 25. Find inspirational quotes and messages to bolster your
positivity.
26. Decide to be happy by being grateful and assuming the people
around you have the best of intentions.
27. Challenge yourself to maintain a positive attitude when
something goes wrong—show the world how resilient and positive
you are!
For a more specific list of habits and actions you can take to develop a
more positive mindset, try these 10 suggestions from Megan Wycklendt
(2014) of Fulfillment Daily:
• Keep a gratitude journal.
• Reframe your challenges as opportunities for growth.
• Get good at being rejected—it happens to everyone!
• Use positive words to describe your life.
• Replace have with get (e.g., I have to go to work → I get to go to
work).
• Don’t let yourself get dragged down into other people’s complaints.
• Breathe—consciously, purposefully, and mindfully.
• Notice the righteous and good in times of tragedy and violence.
• Have solutions ready when you point out problems.
• Make someone else smile.
Finally, these 11 techniques from Dr. Tchiki Davis (2018) can also help you
adopt a more positive attitude:
• Ask yourself, “Do I think positively?” Take a test or quiz on positivity
to see where you stand.
• Strengthen your memory for positive information by using positive
words more often.
• Strengthen your brain’s ability to work with positive information with
exercises that involve positive words.
• Strengthen your brain’s ability to pay attention to the positive by
routinely redirecting your focus away from the negative to the
positive.
• Condition yourself to experience random moments of positivity (use
classical conditioning on yourself to build positive associations).
• Think positive—but not too much—and think negative when you need
to; sometimes we need to grieve, think about the negative
 consequences, and use negative emotions to motivate and engage
us.
• Practice gratitude (perhaps with a gratitude journal).
• Savor the good moments (stop to “smell the roses” and celebrate the
positive).
• Generate positive emotions by watching funny videos
• Stop minimizing your successes and acknowledge the efforts you put
in.
• Stop all-or-nothing thinking; this cognitive distortion is not in line with
reality since things are very rarely “all good” or “all bad.”
Helping Students to Develop a Positive Attitude Towards Learning and
School

To pass along the benefits of developing a positive mindset to students, you

can encourage them to try the techniques listed above.
However, there are some methods for improving students’ attitude towards
learning and school that may be even more effective.
Elliot Seif from the ASCD’s Edge website outlines 13 ways you can help
students cultivate this mindset:
• “Reduce the emphasis on traditional testing as the key assessment
tool, and focus on more “natural” and diverse assessment
approaches such as essays and papers, reflective journals, oral
presentations, and other demonstrations of their learning.
• Create the expectation that effort makes a difference in learning. Help
students understand that when someone works hard, they are more
likely to succeed. Give students more opportunities to put effort into
areas that interest them and that they enjoy.
• Include narratives on report cards that focus on individual strengths
and interests.
• Where possible, instead of or in addition to reading textbooks, find
and have students read and choose books that are interesting to
 them, that opens them up to the world around them, that makes them
think!
• Focus primarily on student strengths and student success. For each
student, consider “the glass as half full” rather than “the glass as half
empty”. Encourage students as much as possible. Understand that
not all students will be strong in all areas and that it is important to
help each student find his or her strengths and interests and to build
on them. Also, see “failure” as an opportunity for student growth.
Make it clear to students that not doing well is a cause for looking
inside yourself to see how you can do something better (and that you
will do the same). Give students more specific feedback, along with
opportunities to redo their work and improve it. Provide mentors and
tutors and other help and support for students who need it.
• Be willing to “slow down the learning process”. Focus learning on
what you think is important. Figure out ways to teach an idea
differently, and work on something for a longer period than you
normally do if your students are not “getting it”. Figure out alternative
ways to teach something if your approach isn’t working.
• Focus a good deal of your teaching on “learning how to learn” skill
development. Read up on how to teach study skills, learning to learn
skills, research skills, inquiry skills. Make sure that your students grow
both in terms of content they learn and the “learning to learn” skills
they need to develop in order to learn well in the future.
• Make “asking questions” central to your teaching and to your
learning environment and school culture. Write course descriptions
around key questions. Use essential questions to focus units, or have
students develop essential questions as the focus for learning. As you
teach, encourage students to ask clarifying and elaborative questions.
Make it clear to students that no question is too small or too silly.
Build open time for students to ask questions on the topics they are
studying. Use “wait time” when you are asking for questions. Teach
students study strategies such as SQ3R[i] that encourage students to
turn statements (such as text headings) into questions.
• Give students more choices and options – in the classroom, by
offering many electives, through multiple extra-curricular options.
Choices/options should give students opportunities to develop and
expand their interests, see connections and relevance in what they
are learning, and expand their talents.
 • Use inquiry strategies, research skill-building activities, interactive
learning and projects as critical parts of teaching. Incorporate more
interest-based projects into your curriculum.
• Where possible, make learning experiences more “authentic”. For
example, consider how learning about the American Revolution might
be tied to a current event happening in the world. Visit the area
surrounding the school to demonstrate how math might be used for
everyday activity. Through surveys, encourage students to provide
feedback on whether they feel that their learning is interesting,
motivating, and relevant and whether they are being encouraged to
develop their talents and interests. Conduct student surveys to
determine what types of school and classroom activities are most
motivating and interesting. Create activities and experiences that
enable students to get outside the school and learn from the outside
world and perform community service.
• Create more ways to integrate learning across the curriculum and
consider ways to redesign the curriculum. Use themes to create
more interdisciplinary units. Connect separate subject areas, such as
by teaching American history and literature in tandem so that history
topics and specific literature that touch on similar time periods or
themes are taught at the same time. When redesigning or renewing
the curriculum, examine whether curriculum materials or programs
have a significant component built around developing curiosity,
motivation, relevance, and interest.
• See yourself as helping students build “pathways to adult success”.
How can your subject, your grade level, your school contribute to
making these pathways smoother? How can you provide students
with a concrete understanding of their future options? Can you take
field trips to different places of business? Colleges and universities?
Bring in speakers?” (Seif, 2013)
However, these techniques are not always within a teacher’s (or parent’s)
realm of control. If you these techniques are too overwhelming or the scope
is out of your control, try these 7 strategies that you will likely have the
power to implement:
28. Be an example. Model a positive, encouraging attitude in all
that you say, do and believe.
29. Create a positive learning space for your student.
 30. Help your student visualize a positive outcome from every
scenario before starting.
31. Eliminate negative verbiage from your students’ dialogue (e.g.,
respond to “I can’t do it” with “Why can’t you do it? What’s holding
you back? How can I help?”).
32. Help your students change negative thinking patterns
(encourage them to replace the negative thoughts with positive
ones).
33. Play the role of your students’ biggest fan (encourage them and
help them develop self-confidence).
34. Incorporate a rewards system to encourage positivity at all
times (Werrell, 2016).
For more tips and suggestions from the Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Development, check out their excellent resource on instilling
positive attitudes and perceptions about learning here