PURSUING A POSITIVE OUTCOME: ATTITUDE LEADS TO ACTION

This calculation enables one to predict the outcome of an event in advance of acting on it. Most importantly, it demonstrates the vital importance of our thoughts, feelings, and attitudes.

We have free will to choose where we stand.

In the final analysis, we are what we think, not what we think we are.

In the past, the gap between thought and action was often very long. This was affordable. Today, it takes one-eighth of a second for a signal to travel from one end of the globe to the other.

Competition has become more real than ever. Yet, technology enables it to be invisible, inscrutable, and intangible.

How do we meet the demands of a fuzzy ‘marketspace’?

We need top quality thinking, expression of feelings, and the cultivation of an attitude that is in sync with the electronic agility that defines our daily actions and interactions.

Arithmetic addressing the outcome of human thought and behaviour has been encapsulated in an ‘attitude calculation’ devised by Michele Matt Yanna of Trainers Group Inc.

Adapting her formula to our subject, as depicted on the preceding page, it is easy to see how we become what we think.

Our energies should be directed towards constructive action.

Wishful thinking needs to be superceded by willful doing.

There’s no way we can win the lottery if we don’t buy a ticket.

Luck can be leveraged, like anything else. And if there is a way for us to predict the outcome of our thoughts, feelings, and attitudes, our journeys would receive the illumination to guide us safely through our lives.

We have an infinite capacity for spectacular accomplishments. Yet most of us fail to draw on this reservoir and so ‘don’t realise our potential.’ We can calculate the potential results of the computation between our thoughts, feelings, and attitudes, in the following manner:

· Consider a specific situation that you need to deal with at present.

· Your “perception” about the situation is made up of your “thoughts” and “feelings.”

Assign a value between 1 and 10 to each of these two items. For example, you may give say, 6 to ‘thoughts’ and 3 to ‘feelings.’

· Add these two numbers (values) to each other to obtain a total of 6 + 3 = 9.

· Now multiply the above total by your attitude towards the situation. Assign a value between –10 and +10. Thus, say you score “attitude” with a –5, then the product emerges as:

(Thoughts + Feelings) x Attitude = Outcome

In our example, this works out to: (6+3) x (-5) = -45. This means that the action you are expected to take is pretty negative, and the outcome may not be in your favour. You should perhaps reconsider your options, and possibly defer acting on the situation until the scenario looks considerably better.

An “attitude” score of zero means that you are passive or neutral about the situation. This means that there is a great possibility you will not act on the matter, or that there could be an indifferent outcome from your actions.

Naturally, you would wish for a score as high as possible.

This correlates with the outcome of your actions being proportionately more satisfying and enjoyable.

[Excerpted from the 'Lifescaping' seminar participant's manual. The 'Lifescaping' seminar is conducted by Dilip Mukerjea about four times a year under the auspices of the Singapore Institute of Management. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

Say Keng's personal comments:

Having read what Dilip Mukerjea has introduced in the foregoing write-up, I like to summarise my takeaway with this wonderful quote from the master motivator Zig Ziglar:

"It's your attitude, not your aptitude, that will determine your altitude!"