Example from your own life of a time when acting a certain way changed your attitudes/thoughts

This experience made me realize how powerful our mindset can be when it comes influencing both our attitude towards situations as well as the eventual outcome they lead us too. After all, according to cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger 1957), “if behavior is incongruent with attitudes then individuals will change either their behavior or their attitudes so that they are back in alignment” which is exactly what happened here - changing my attitude helped align my behaviour better allowing for better outcomes than before. Additionally, Albert Bandura’s social learning theory (1977) suggests that we learn through observing others and modelling our behaviour based on theirs which certainly played its role here since I observed how confidently some colleagues approached similar meetings allowing for successful outcomes thereby motivating me try something similar resulting ultimately in success for myself as well!

Sample Solution

An example from my own life of when acting a certain way changed my attitudes and thoughts was during an internship I held in college. As part of the internship, I had to attend meetings with company executives that were often intimidating for me due to their immense experience in comparison to myself. Initially, I would approach these meetings with a sense of dread and be uncomfortable when speaking up or engaging in conversation. However, after a few weeks, I decided to take on a different approach - instead of worrying about what other people thought about me or feeling intimidated by their presence, I focused on being confident in my own abilities and ideas. The results were drastic. Not only did this help increase my self-confidence but it also allowed me to engage more actively with the executives during the meetings and share more creative ideas as well as challenge existing ones if needed. This change of attitude not only allowed me to learn new things but also increased respect between me and the executives which eventually led them to trust in my decisions more than before resulting in additional responsibilities being assigned to me such as leading projects independently.