Day 15 – Q 2.“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude”. Examine the significance of his statement for a public administrator.
2. “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude”. Examine the significance of his statement for a public administrator.
“अगर आपको कुछ पसंद नहीं है, तो इसे बदलें। यदि आप इसे बदल नहीं सकते हैं, तो अपना रवैया बदलें”। एक लोक प्रशासक के लिए इस कथन के महत्व की जांच करें।
Synopsis:
If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain. – Maya Angelou.
How important is positive attitude?
If anyone truly wants to be successful, their number one task should be to create and maintain a positive attitude. When they’ve got an attitude of optimism, expectancy and enthusiasm, opportunities grow, and problems shrink.
If you’re a leader, a positive attitude draws people to your side and encourages them to do their best work. A leader with a negative attitude, however, can only compel others to take action through fear.
Some of the steps to ensure positivity:
- Always act with a purpose: Before you take any action, decide how it will serve your greater goals. If the connection is weak or non-existent, take that action off your to-do list. Aimless activity wastes time and energy.
- Stretch yourself past your limits every day: Doing the same-old, same-old is depressing, even if your same-old has been successful in the past. Success is like athletics; if you don’t stretch yourself every day, you gradually become slow and brittle.
- Take action without expecting results: While you naturally must make decisions and take action based upon the results you’d like to achieve, it’s a big mistake to expect those results and then be disappointed when you don’t get them. Take your best shot but don’t obsess about the target.
- Use setbacks to improve your skills: Rather than feeling bad if you fail or get rejected, look back at your actions and see what you can do (if anything) to improve your performances. Remember: the results you receive are the signposts for the results you want to achieve.
- Seek out those who share your positive attitude: It’s a scientific fact your brain automatically imitates the behaviours of the people around you. Therefore, you should surround yourself with positive thinkers and shun those who are excessively negative.
- Don’t take yourself so seriously: If you want to be happier and make those around you feel more comfortable, cultivate the ability to laugh at yourself.
- Forgive the limitations of others: High standards are important, but humans are, well, human. It’s unwise to make yourself miserable because other people can’t do a job as well as you think you could, or when people don’t share your vision with the same passion that you feel.
- Say “thank you” more frequently: Achieving an “attitude of gratitude” requires more than simply being aware of what’s wonderful in your life. You must, and should, thank other people for their help to you, even if that help is something as simple as a smile.
We can explain with an example: A Naga IAS officer’s efforts led to the construction of a 100km road effectively linking Manipur, Nagaland and Assam, without financial aid from the government. Armstrong Pame, the first IAS officer from the Zeme tribe, was determined to put an end to the problem of inaccessibility faced by far-flung localities. He took it upon himself to build a connecting road, and ended up paying from his own pocket!
Soon he wasn’t alone in his venture, several locals came to pour their contributions and not just in the form of funds. And after starting a Facebook page, Armstrong received more funds which came from not just India, but outside as well! The community-built Tamenglong-Haflong road, completed in 2013 now connects 3 states, and is called ‘The People’s Road’.
This shows how positive attitude can solve complex problems in the case of public administrator.
Today’s public administrator lesson: Your attitude is YOUR choice. Only YOU can decide whether to see that glass as half full or half empty. People can choose to see it as half full, but when they are not—it makes things a lot worse.
Best Answer: Abhishek singh
