Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life: How to Unlock Your Full Potential for Success and Achievement

CONTROL YOUR SELF-TALK
Fully 95 percent of your emotions are determined by the way you
talk
to yourself. Dr. Martin Seligman’s book 
Learned Optimism
says
that your “explanatory style” is the critical factor in determining
whether you are a positive or negative person.
Your explanatory style is defined as 
how you explain things to
yourself
. If you explain or interpret things to yourself in a positive
way, you will be positive. If you explain them in a negative way, you
will be negative. What Seligman concluded is that optimistic people,
when something goes wrong, always explain the event or experience
to themselves as though it were a temporary, specific situation,
rather than a long-term, general condition.
Imagine that you make a sales call and the prospect is not in-
terested in what you are selling. It didn’t work out. It was a waste