“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”
—Maya Angelou
We ask students at SuperCamp and in our Quantum Learning for Students programs if they’ve ever tried something new and were convinced they wouldn’t be able to do it right? Then we ask them if they’ve ever been challenged, knew that somehow they were going to be successful, and found that the challenge was fun?
Henry Ford once said “Whether you believe you can or whether you believe you can’t, either way you’re right.” He definitely understood the value of having the right attitude. Attitude can be the deciding factor between failure and success, between boredom and fun, between staying in one place and moving forward.
Attitude comes into play in every area of our lives, including school. Students may enter some classes excited to be there, and enjoying the teacher and the subject. Maybe they enter other classes “knowing” that the class will be boring, and guess what? The class is boring. Many students spend half their days at school wishing they were somewhere else, doing something else. How successful do you think they will be with that attitude? If we simply change our attitude, it’s amazing the transformation that comes with a positive attitude.
So how does a student build a winning attitude? The first step in moving toward a positive attitude relates to tossing out any old, negative ideas we might have. And the next step is to constantly remind ourselves and totally believe in the positive outlook we create to replace them.
It’s totally possible to transform an attitude of school is boring to learning is awesome! At SuperCamp we suggest that students consider where they might have an attitude problem that’s holding them back and find a positive phrase similar to learning is awesome that works for them. Their attitude problem might be along the lines of I can’t do this, which can be transformed to I know I can do this! Once students have identified an attitude problem, we encourage them to repeat their affirmative phrase to themselves when they’re in class (or wherever they encounter the negative attitude) as well as to create a couple of colorful reminder posters to put in their home study area and in their notebook—or wherever they’ll see them frequently.
Although we’ve simplified the approach to changing our attitude, it’s not something that we can achieve overnight. It’s a process and we need to be vigilant in curbing those negative thoughts and affirming the positive thoughts. The process, though, is well worth the effort—a positive attitude makes a big difference in our lives.