Two Pieces of Attitude Advice for Tuesday

Do You Want to Make $60,000 More? When sticking it to the man becomes sticking it to yourself

Your degree and resume will help you get through the door of a potential job, but your attitude will make or break the deal. Most people aren’t aware of how much their attitudes can cost them until they start looking at life from the point of success.

People are born with bad attitudes, or they develop one over time. Either way, they’ve got to change it (instead of blaming others for their mistakes, missteps and misfortunes) because maintaining negative attitudes can affect many aspects of people’s lives. Those with poor outlooks on life won’t usually advance in their career unless they can “fake it ’til they make it” – but that will only get them so far. Once they realize they haven’t received those raises they were looking forward to, secured those client accounts they thought were guarantees or even feel their jobs are in jeopardy, it’s time for them to take a step back and think about their actions and attitude and stop playing the victim.

Are you getting the job done or coming up with excuses? Let’s take a look at a couple things that can be preventing you from career advancement.

Communication

Body language, facial expressions and tone of voice can factor in to how your peers look at you. If you are expressing forms of negative communication, apathy or defensiveness when requests are made of you, you may think you’re making your boss pay, but it’s actually costing you a lot more.

Think of attitudes in terms of profits. You might be satisfied with the steady 3% salary increase per year, but really, those figures are trivial compared to what you could be making with promotions—bringing, say, a 7-8% pay increase. Based off of a $50K salary, 3% will only get you a $1.5K increase; however, the promotion can get you up to $4K. Over twenty years, your attitude deficit could cause you to miss out on over $60K. In other words, carrying a positive attitude means better business for your company and more earnings for yourself.

Passion

Your energy level and actions will identify if you are motivated and/or enjoy your work. Passion is a driver and determines if your work exists just to make a living or because you actually care about the work you do. Lackadaisical efforts on the job could have your boss wondering if he/she even wants you working there.

“Just as we infer the type of movie we’re seeing—like a thriller, action or love story—from the film’s tone and soundtrack, we perceive the types of people we’re working with—disciplined, hot-headed or slackers—from their attitudes,” said George L. San Jose, president and chief creative officer of The San Jose Group. “Bad attitudes might not necessarily cost people their jobs, but they are the ones most likely to be passed up for promotions or career growth opportunities.”

We believe the more positive and happier you are, the more likely you are to succeed. Control your attitude and it will control your life, but let your attitude get the best of you and you may find yourself caught in a cycle of costly negativity.

Have a story about the consequence of a bad attitude? Please share below.

Cover Photo Source: marekuliasz

[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’] https://wpmaster.sjadv.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Nicole.png [/author_image] [author_info]Nicole Hernandez is the social media manager at SJG. She’s a Chicagoan who graduated from DePaul University with a B.A. in Public Relations & Advertising and minor in Journalism. Nicole is known to her peers as being online all the time –  while on her spare time you can find her taking footage on her phone while she’s rocking out at music festivals. She’s also training to be the new water girl at Chicago Bulls games (in her dreams). [/author_info] [/author]