The people you associate with – whether on the job or socially – can have a motivating or a demotivating effect on you. Some folks see life in a positive light and are natural motivators. If a positive person asks you how you’re doing and you say, “Not well at all. I’ve had this cold for a week now,” their response is something like, “I’m so sorry. I bet you’ll be good as new and feeling better in no time!” A negative, demotivating person may respond by saying, “I know what you mean. A cold like that can sure ruin your week. If you’re like me, it’ll probably take you a whole month to get over it!”

You associate with some people not by choice but simply by circumstance. You can’t choose your coworkers, for example; sometimes you have to do the best you can to work with and get along with them congenially. However, you don’t have to associate with demotivating people at breaks, meals, or after-work social events. Find ways to remain cordial, but don’t spend too much time with those people.

Instead, surround yourself with people who make you feel better about yourself, people who notice what’s right and good instead of what’s wrong and bad. Everyone has said on some occasion, “I just feel inspired; I feel better about myself and my future when I’m around so and-so.” In other words, choose to associate with people you want to be more like.

Change the ones you want to change.  Take charge of your attitudes.  Put yourself back in control.  The least that could happen is that you would get a little more of your real self back again.  Discover the jewels and gems that are part of your own mind.  Seek out and find the rich reserve of the “attitudes” within you which have been waiting to step out and live again.

Start talking to yourself the right way.  Little changes in attitudes can make big changes in life.  Your attitudes affect all of the important things around you.  They affect how you feel about yourself.  They affect your work, your friends, and your loved ones.  When your attitudes get better, so does life. I f you would like to make a change or two, fixing an attitude and making life a little better isn’t a bad place to start.

It is our programming that sets up our beliefs, and the chain reaction begins. In logical progression, what we believe determines our attitudes, affects our feelings, directs our behavior, and determines our success or failure:

1. Programming creates beliefs.
2. Beliefs create attitudes.
3. Attitudes create feelings.
4. Feelings determine actions.
5. Actions create results.

That’s how the brain works. If you want to manage yourself in a better way, and change your results, you can do so at any time you choose. Start with the first step.  Change your programming.