Positive Mental Attitude has been touched upon since the concept of free will, but the concept was first developed and introduced in 1937 by Napoleon Hill in the book Think and Grow Rich. The book never actually uses the term, but develops the importance of positive thinking as a principle to success. He, along with W. Clement Stone, later wrote Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude which defines positive mental attitude as "The right mental attitude... comprised of the 'plus' characteristics symbolized by such words as faith, integrity, hope, optimism, courage, initiative, generosity, tolerance, tact, kindliness and good common sense."
Positive mental attitude (PMA) is the philosophy that having an optimistic disposition in every situation in one's life attracts positive changes and increases achievement. It employs a state of mind that continues to seek, find and execute ways to win, or find a desirable outcome, regardless of the circumstances. It opposes negativity, defeatism and hopelessness.
A positive mental attitude is developed by constant reinforcement of one’s goals, positive values and beliefs. Optimism and hope are vital to the development of PMA. One technique for positive reinforcement is with the use of "self-talk" such as the quote, “I feel happy. I feel healthy. I feel terrific.” A variety of other techniques have been created over the years such as motivational posters, daily devotionals, accountability partners, and cause wristbands. Learning to control one’s emotions is a key part to developing and maintaining PMA so as to expel the negative thoughts and feelings that could influence your actions and behavior.
Read more about Positive Mental Attitude: Psychology and PMA, Self-talk and PMA, Health and PMA, Religion and PMA, Controversy
Famous quotes containing the words positive, mental and/or attitude:
“Blessed be the inventor of photography! I set him above even the inventor of chloroform! It has given more positive pleasure to poor suffering humanity than anything else that has “cast up” in my time or is like to—this art by which even the “poor” can possess themselves of tolerable likenesses of their absent dear ones. And mustn’t it be acting favourably on the morality of the country?”
—Jane Welsh Carlyle (1801–1866)
“The vast results obtained by Science are won by no mystical faculties, by no mental processes other than those which are practiced by every one of us, in the humblest and meanest affairs of life. A detective policeman discovers a burglar from the marks made by his shoe, by a mental process identical with that by which Cuvier restored the extinct animals of Montmartre from fragments of their bones.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“There is the guilt all soldiers feel for having broken the taboo against killing, a guilt as old as war itself. Add to this the soldier’s sense of shame for having fought in actions that resulted, indirectly or directly, in the deaths of civilians. Then pile on top of that an attitude of social opprobrium, an attitude that made the fighting man feel personally morally responsible for the war, and you get your proverbial walking time bomb.”
—Philip Caputo (b. 1941)