[HN Gopher] Your Attitude Determines Your Success
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Your Attitude Determines Your Success
Author : ingve
Score : 36 points
Date : 2021-03-13 20:04 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (muratbuffalo.blogspot.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (muratbuffalo.blogspot.com)
| ilaksh wrote:
| Good point people are making that attitude is not the whole
| story.
|
| But it does seem that many are not aware that perseverance is
| such a large part of anything. Before you get to perseverance
| even, there is the desire to try. A lot of projects are dismissed
| before they are even started as being too difficult or
| impractical.
|
| One tendency that I have, which I assume other people have also,
| is that in certain areas that I am invested in, I am happy to
| keep working on a project despite many small or large setbacks. I
| generally don't consider them to be a big deal. But other areas,
| such as cooking or promotion, I put a minimal amount of effort in
| and find it difficult to find motivation to continue when I have
| a setback or poor result.
|
| Part of it is my expectation for how hard things are. Some things
| that I am not particularly familiar with, I kind of expect to be
| fairly straightforward. But I am starting to think that almost
| every type of task is going to have setbacks and require
| perseverance to get good results. Which is good news, because it
| gives me hope that if I can be persistent when approaching those
| types of problems, I can be just as successful as I am with
| programming (when I don't give up).
| christiansakai wrote:
| I self talk a lot to build confidence in myself. It worked. I now
| have too much confidence.
| revskill wrote:
| Attitude to what ?
|
| To boss, you have an attitude. To friends, you have an attitude.
| To your serious project, you have an attitude. And many more.
| ivanech wrote:
| I think this is useful advice for individuals. It's also
| important to know that even if everyone truly followed the
| advice, some people would lose out by no fault of their own (for
| instance, capitalist economies as they currently function do not
| sustain full employment without government intervention - it
| boils down to simple accounting identities). Macro outcomes often
| are determined by other forces than the sum of individual actions
| - just something to keep in mind when you see advice for
| individuals.
| kodah wrote:
| This article seems like a big maybe to me. Attitudes _are_
| contagious and are more observed than one may realize. I work on
| a platform team, many of our sibling teams wield the power and
| influence of being a platform team with the grace of an angry
| third grader with crayons and a blank wall. The angry third
| grader _really_ used to get to me and people could see (whether I
| directly told them or not) that they had affected me in some type
| of way. These days, the self that I bring to work is more like a
| git clone --depth 1, and as a result the angry third grader
| exercises much less power over me.
|
| I discovered that my colleagues notice me far more than I notice
| myself. I was reminded of this when I came back from a meeting
| with one platform team that has treated us with notable
| hostility; they frequently would backtrack statements and
| commitments that weren't recorded or logged, they would make up
| requirements on the spot after requirements had already been
| agreed on, etc... That's the flavor of team these folks were -
| everyone at the company knows it too. I was not able to get them
| to budge and it was more expedient and better for our users at
| this point if we just did what they wanted rather than the full
| vision. My peers asked what happened, I smiled, and said, "Well,
| I wasn't able to convince them to do everything, but we'll make
| do and continue to plan for the future as long as it benefits our
| users." In a one-on-one is when I was made aware of how my peers
| observe me, most of them remarked on my stoicism and the fact
| that it didn't deter me. The fact is that it does, I don't like
| disorganization that becomes nearly undecipherable from gas
| lighting, I don't like having goal posts moved, and I don't like
| organizations that are supposed to be constantly in pursuit of
| making users lives better thinking stagnation is a strategy.
| Having projects cancelled affects my promotion prospects, it
| wastes time/money/energy, etc... I feel some type of way about
| _all_ of these things.
|
| From my sample size of _self_ , I think the article is right but
| more in a way that _perception matters_ and you 're either the
| type of person that has to:
|
| - git clone self --depth 1
|
| - tell yourself fanciful stories
| fortran77 wrote:
| You'll get into a lot of trouble for suggesting this, though.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achievement_ideology
| fjeifisjf wrote:
| Wrong ideas deserve trouble.
| zepto wrote:
| Please can people stop using absolutist epithets like this.
|
| Managing your attitude, emotions, and the stories you tell
| yourself _will help a lot_.
|
| If you do it badly, it will increase your chances of failure.
|
| Doing it well will not _determine_ your success. That's just
| magical thinking. It will predispose you for success _if the
| other conditions are right for it_ , but nothing more.
| liuhenry wrote:
| I understand what you're saying, but honest question: why is it
| helpful to add this caveat?
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| Because "your attitude determines your success" explicitly
| states that if you fail it is because of your attitude.
| People fail for many reasons, usually a combination of
| reasons. Attitude is just one factor.
|
| It is very comforting for people who are high on the social
| ladder to believe in a meritocracy: it lets one their
| successes are due to their superior character, and those who
| are on the bottom of the ladder are there due to a failure of
| character.
| auganov wrote:
| It doesn't say anything about the inverse. You can
| simultaneously believe success is determined by yourself
| and failures are just bad luck. It's positive thinking.
| Some enjoy it, some don't.
| croissants wrote:
| > It doesn't say anything about the inverse.
|
| Interpreted as a literal propositional statement, it's
| saying "if you have a good attitude, then you will have
| success". Therefore if you do not have success, it must
| be because you did not have a good attitude, which is
| your fault. It's the contrapositive, right?
| tux3 wrote:
| You certainly _can_, and I'm all for positivity if it
| helps you, but don't you think there is a contradiction
| here?
|
| Again, if it helps go right ahead.
| rektide wrote:
| > why is it helpful to add this caveat?
|
| It's not really a caveat, though, is it? It's an entirely
| false premise, that intent & direction & purpose are
| irrelevant. That the primary factor that matters is attitude
| & self-belief. As commenter Zepto rightly pointed out, this
| article is proposing magical thinking: the conceit that what
| you want or what you think is the thing that shapes reality
| all about.
|
| Besides being delusional, it also has all the other obviously
| bad impact that it's twin the Prosperity Gospel brings: those
| without riches & success have all failed to be worthy, are
| all faulty. No matter how hard you work, how good you try to
| be, judging in Attitude or Belief as the only/primary/core
| determiner of success doesn't allow for misfortune, or for it
| to be the world that was wrong. Often, the world _is_ wrong,
| and only those rebels that hold up their flame & let their
| light shine are what it takes, what makes humankind & the
| human spirit so great... but so often those folks are
| crushed, too. And not for a failure of attitude or belief,
| nor often strategy nor execution either. Hard things,
| sometimes, ought be tried & embarked upon, but to internalize
| success as the judgement of whether the hard thing was right
| or wrong? That is petty, small, and insufficient. It
| diminishes the light of the world to require & judge only by
| success.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| Being positive through the bad times helps for long term
| achievement. Being naively positive through something that
| has clearly ended is just stupidity.
| steve_g wrote:
| The caveat is helpful because there's a lot in life that you
| can't control. Luck plays a part in both success and failure.
| If you believe that your failures are solely your fault you
| will be unreasonably discouraged . If you believe your
| successes are due to you and you alone you'll turn into a
| jerk.
|
| It's true that your attitude and behaviors matter. Competence
| is usually rewarded, and you should act in accordance with
| that truth. But it's not absolute. Life is not a meritocracy
| (whatever that really means).
| quelsolaar wrote:
| I think the lesson is, no matter how good or bad you have
| it, things outside your control can make it or break it, so
| forget about trying to predict the future and just go for
| it.
|
| Or as an old space pirate once put it "never tell me to
| odds!"
| [deleted]
| varispeed wrote:
| There are millions of people having such problems with
| motivation, attitude and experience lack of success, so these
| kind of blogs give them exactly what they want to hear. I
| wasted ton of time on such publications as I was under
| impression that if only I change my thinking then suddenly I'll
| get on right track. Unfortunately it doesn't work like that.
| What helped me the most is realising that making mistakes is
| just part of a process and in order to succeed I need to be
| aware of them and just keep going. It's extremely hard, but it
| is what it is. If I stop then chance of failure is 100%.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| That has been my experience as well. Be positive, but remove
| the stars in your eyes. Don't give up at the simplest
| failure, but also don't set unachievable goals that are
| clearly destined for failure (such as things that require
| pure luck).
| ImaCake wrote:
| >millions of people having such problems with motivation
|
| Presumably the clicks are why such pointless articles
| continue to be written.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I always feel like I'm not good enough but I'm also an optimist.
| I know that if I work at anything long enough I can do it.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| I often know I'm not good enough, but I figure if they didn't
| fire me then clearly I'm good enough.
| mshea0001 wrote:
| More accurate article title "Luck Determines Your Success!"
| jevgeni wrote:
| Probably that's what all those struggling hotel and restaurant
| owners right now are missing: a can-do attitude!
| quelsolaar wrote:
| This is such an important lesson. The high order bit in any
| success is the decision to go for it. Determination is more
| important then anything.
|
| I worry greatly, about how young people today are thought, that's
| the world is stacked against them and especially for minorities
| and women. Its true that the world is a very unfair place, but to
| change it we need encouragement, not horror stories.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| This is something I think of fairly often.
|
| Telling young people that the world is ruled by a clique of
| powerful old white men who conspire to keep them oppressed must
| be crushing, especially if done incessantly.
|
| A cynical part of me says: see, sowing and cultivating
| frustration is precisely what some politicians need to reap
| power. They might not gain as much power if their voters had
| more self-esteem.
| bitwize wrote:
| > Telling young people that the world is ruled by a clique of
| powerful old white men who conspire to keep them oppressed
| must be crushing, especially if done incessantly.
|
| If you're a young white man with a fighting chance of
| becoming one of the next generation of powerful old white
| men, I can understand where you might find that unnecessarily
| demoralizing.
|
| But for everybody else, it's the bitter truth they
| nevertheless _need_ to know. And the only way to change this
| is at the systemic, political level.
| itronitron wrote:
| Reminds me of reading a story someone wrote about the
| epiphany they had when their therapist finally told them
| "the world does not wake up in the morning _to fuck you_ "
| sokoloff wrote:
| If I were a therapist, I'd probably have that made in
| vinyl and put on the ceiling over the couch. (It's one of
| many reasons I could never do that job.)
| fjeifisjf wrote:
| Many of live in a country with a long history of laws
| written explicitly for that purpose.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Running a demoralization campaign on youngsters is
| unlikely to improve things, though.
|
| Would there be an Israel today if Jewish people convinced
| themselves that the world is forever going to hate and
| subjugate them and that they are powerless to change it?
|
| They could have done so, after all, the Holocaust was an
| unspeakable evil. But they chose the path of constructive
| defiance.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| > If you're a young white man with a fighting chance of
| becoming one of the next generation of powerful old white
| men, I can understand where you might find that
| unnecessarily demoralizing.
|
| Is this really the only situation where you think this is
| demoralizing?
|
| Not for women or minorities who are told they will never
| have a chance of making it anywhere because they're not
| white men? Personally I think that's pretty discouraging.
| covid5throw wrote:
| I think white men are more oppressed than minorities and women.
| We are underrepresented in silicon valley companies [0], in
| higher education [1], asians and jews far out perform us in
| salary and acceptance into top universities compared to their
| relative demographic proportion [2].
|
| I think it is about time to start talking about asian privilege
| and how white people are oppressed. I'm sure I'm going to get
| downvoted, but I am completely serious in this.
|
| [0] https://gigaom.com/2014/08/21/eight-charts-that-put-tech-
| com...
|
| [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/the-
| degrees-o...
|
| [2] https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2019/06/22/are-the-doors-
| to...
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