Everyone has moments of negativity, but these are a few ideas to change your attitude, or start working on a poor attitude quickly.
1. Find something easy on your to do list and get it done.
Give yourself a sense of accomplishment. This also has the added benefit of briefly changing your focus. Nothing that can be accomplished that quickly on your to do list? Then get started on something. Maybe you can’t write an entire paper in 30 seconds, but you can come up with a great title, topic or opening line.
2. Compliment someone.
Nothing changes a negative attitude as quickly as trying to make someone else smile. The key here is to be sincere. Compliment someone’s hard work, sense of style or thoughtfulness. No one around but yourself? Send an email, text or pick up the phone. This is the age of technology - run with it.
3. Make a phone call you’ve been avoiding.
Don’t limit yourself to the phone. Email is another option. Of course, this may take longer than thirty seconds, but make the commitment that once the phone starts ringing, you won’t hang up. Then, within thirty seconds, you’ve commited to getting something unpleasent done, and trust me, afterwards you’ll feel better. And it’s not going to get any easier the longer you avoid it.
4. Tell a good joke. Or come up with a clever facebook status. Or wave to a small child.
This goes along with the compliment idea. Take the focus off of yourself for a while and try to change someone else’s attitude. A little change of focus goes a long way.
5. Take 5 good, deep breaths.
Bad attitudes are often accompanied by a lot of muscle tension. Deep breaths give you a chance to pause and release the tension that is building. Thirty seconds of relaxation can go a long way.
6. Ask yourself what the goal of your current activity is.
If the bad attitude is caused by your current activity, ask yourself why you started doing this in the first place and what you hope to accomplish. Maybe you’re not thrilled about your job, but if your goal is to put food on the table then remind yourself that you are, in fact, working towards a goal. If you’re currently wandering the internet and avoiding dealing with something, recognize that. Figuring out what goal you’re currently working towards isthe first step towards figuring out if it is 1. worthwhile and 2. you are going about it in a positive manner.
7. Do five pushups.
And if you can’t do five pushups, do a 10 jumping jacks. Anything to get your blood ciculating. A little physical activity is one of the best things to shake off a bad attitude. And if thirty seconds leads to continued activity, all the better, but at least get started.
8. Come up with five ways that things could be worse.
Things could always be worse. With 6 billion people in the world, there is always someone that has it worse than you. So when the woe-is-me attitude starts getting you down, thinks of five ways that life could be worse, and then spend another thirty seconds being greatful that none of those scenarios are true.
9. Recognize that it’s hard to have a positive attitude 100% of the time and cut yourself some slack.
Everyone has days where it’s hard to shake off the negativity. If it’s caused by beating yourself about your current state, then give yourself a break. Tell yourself that it’s okay to feel like this and then give yourself a time frame for getting over it. Maybe things will look better after work, or after a good night sleep. Figure it out. Give yourself a deadline.
10. Take the first tiny step towards your goal.
Thirty seconds isn’t a lot of time, but it is enough time to register a domain name. Or brainstorm business ideas. Or order one of the books you’ve been meaning to read. There are a lot of tiny steps that can get you on your way. Figure one out and do it.