‘Through my Eyes’ column: ‘Yes’ is the word

Elizabeth Haller, B&W Staff

I have always tried to maintain a positive outlook on life. I am the type of person who sees a glass as half full instead of half empty. I have come to realize in the past few years that maintaining a positive attitude has a lot to do with how much you will achieve in your future. Even though I have had moments where I really wanted something to happen that didn’t, I still believed that something better was just around the corner.

Now, I am not the type of person who reads what some might call “self-help books,” but while browsing in the bookstore one summer, I stumbled across Bethany Frankel’s “A Place of Yes.” Recognizing her name from “The Real Housewives of New York,” I decided to pick it up and just read the first few pages. As I started to read, I knew that something about this book was different. Instead of offering sappy advice and endless clichés, Frankel applied what she was saying to what some might call “the real world.” In the end, I decided to buy the book, and by reading it learned that having a positive attitude is only a small piece of the pie when it comes to being successful. In fact, Frankel addresses how learning to say the word “no” is just as important as saying “yes.”

Saying “no” means you know your limits. When you have just enough that you can handle, saying “no” means you care about the things you’ve said “yes” to, and you want to succeed. The proper attitude, according to Frankel, is “it will happen because I’ll make it happen,” and that is what I feel is the main key to being successful.

Frankel is not the only one who thinks this. According to Udemy Blog, having a positive attitude at work raises your chances of getting a promotion and meeting the daily goals that your manager might have for you. It might be difficult for people who don’t love their jobs to remain positive, but imagining having a brighter future might, in fact, land you your dream job.

The first step to acquiring a positive attitude, according to the blog, is identifying your negative thoughts. By believing that you can’t do something or don’t want to do something can directly impact the way that you work. Start out by thinking about if the situation was reversed. Think about how you would feel if you really wanted the task you have at hand. Also, believing you can do something instead of saying “I can’t do something” can lead to both harder and smarter work.

Another step is to manage stress levels. As college students, we all have a lot on our plates. Whether due to classes, work, sports, or extracurricular activities, college students have been known to have higher stress levels than the average adult. Stress management is important to try and master now so that, when it comes to job stress, you will know how to manage it. Incorporating daily exercise and maintaining a proper diet are important factors in reducing stress levels in the body.

This next step goes hand-in-hand with managing stress levels. Getting enough sleep is also the key to having a positive attitude. When you don’t get a sufficient amount of sleep, your mood certainly shifts, and it is much harder to maintain a positive attitude. By getting at least seven hours of sleep each night, you are more likely to have a positive attitude when completing your everyday responsibilities.

In order to obtain a successful future, you need to set goals for yourself and work toward them. Setting goals also gives you something to look forward to. Just remember that having short-term goals is just as important as setting long-term ones. Start out by writing down weekly goals, such as looking ahead on course syllabi and reading one extra assignment every week. By writing your goals down on paper and keeping track of which ones you reach, you are more inclined to achieve the ones that you wrote down.

I’m not saying you need to have a positive attitude every single second of the day. Frankly, that’s unrealistic. We are all going to have days where we feel that nothing is going the way we’d planned. That should be your motivation to work harder. If you work toward your goals, you will see that the goals will be achieved, and a positive attitude will follow.

That is how I see having a positive attitude “Through My Eyes.”