Self Help

You need to recognize the vital role that relationships play in success, then take a look at your own relationships and think about how you can make them better. Winning relationships are built primarily on trust, mutual benefit, optimistic and uplifting attitudes, respect, and thoughtful consideration.

And you cannot try to change your relationships with other people who put themselves in the position of being negative. For example, if you have a friend who, regardless of your help and encouragement, chooses to view life as a hopeless problem to be lived, you are well aware of how exhausting this friend’s visits can be. Life is too short to spend your precious time trying to convince a person who wants to live in gloom and doom otherwise. Give lifting that person up your best shot, but don’t hang around long enough for his or her bad attitude to pull you down. Instead, surround yourself with optimistic people.

With optimism as a foundation for winning relationships, concentrate on the following attitudes and you’ll build winning relationships everywhere:

Gratitude: Gratitude comes first because the more you express gratitude for what you have, the more you have to express gratitude for. You’ll never find a happy person who isn’t a grateful person, so gratitude is a marvelous place to start. And grateful people are fun to be around.

Attitude: Psychologists have maintained for generations that attitudes are more important than facts. An attitude with facts (reasons for being optimistic), however, is tremendously rewarding and productive. Attitude is the determining factor in major accomplishments. Fortunately, attitude is something you can control, and in the process, you can build good relationships.

Magnitude: You need to magnify the important things and reduce the magnitude of problems that seem insurmountable. “Don’t make mountains out of molehills” is a wise observation that everyone would do well to observe, because it stabilizes relationships.

Latitude: Latitude is a way of saying that you have the freedom to do virtually anything within the bounds of human decency and law. You have the latitude to be all that you can be and accomplish incredible objectives. Regardless of your ancestry, the circumstances of your youth, and so on, you have the latitude to move from where you are to where you want to be. And when you grant that latitude to others, you cement your relationships.

Multitude: You face a multitude of challenges and opportunities every day, but when you concentrate on the challenges, you blot out life’s opportunities. Just as you can hold a dime close enough to your eye to blot out the sun, when you concentrate on opportunities you blot out the challenges so that you can overcome them. Focusing on opportunities instead of challenges increases your attractiveness as a friend, family member, or business associate.