According to psychologist Dan Goleman, how well we manage our attitudes and behaviours is more important than actual intellectual abilities when it comes to success at work. Goleman turned traditional assumptions about workplace success on their heads in the ’90s with his groundbreaking books Emotional Intelligence and Working with Emotional Intelligence.

There’s another book that proves how we manage our thoughts can make all the difference for our careers. Martin Seligman’s school of positive psychology, as expressed in his book, Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment, has major implications for workers.

In Authentic Happiness, Seligman offers three mandates.

Be happy

Though there is a gene for “positive affectivity” that gives you a natural tendency to be cheerful or grouchy, you can still learn to be more optimistic by examining how you think about situations and resolving to chase away negative thoughts. This is called disputation. The less the biases of others affect you personally, the less likely they are to throw you off track and diminish your effectiveness in your work.

Expect success

Pessimists are much less likely to take even well calculated risks and put the positive energy required to succeed in the tasks they face. They expect poor results, so why try? Positive emotion, on the other hand, has been proven to enhance intellectual, physical and social performance.

Optimists are likely to be more “expansive, tolerant and creative” than their grumpier peers, according to Seligman. Of course, the catch-22 is that if you’re pessimistic and expect to fail in the end, then you’ll perform less well, disappoint yourself and your supervisors, and end up proving your negative expectations.

Identify strengths

All of us have signature strengths, the skills and attributes we really enjoy using, which in turn put us in a state of flow. Being in flow means that what you're doing feels so wonderful at that moment, you could do it forever. Seligman lists 24 flow-producing signature strengths in six categories.

■ Wisdom and knowledge

■ Courage

■ Humanity

■ Justice

■ Temperance

■ Transcendence

The majority of “definitely not in a state of flow” people feel there is no room in their current work situations for what really matters to them.

For example, you might be a consultant at a law firm, but you are inclined towards painting. Your high profile job leaves you with no time at all to indulge in your hobby. In that case you got to rethink what your priorities are.

Get started

If you feel you’re in need of an attitudinal makeover, you need to meet two requirements for making use of Seligman’s ideas: You need self-awareness and a willingness to change. If you have both, then you have already taken the first step.