Change Your Attitude, Change Your Life!
When your life goes in a direction that you’d rather not experience, it’s often hard to deal with the challenge. You try many different ways to get yourself on the right track, but nothing you’re doing seems to work. Does that sound familiar?
If it does, you’ve undoubtedly noticed that having the ideal life isn’t always easy to come by. However, enjoying a fulfilling life has very little to do with how your cards are dealt, but rather how you play them.
As the saying goes, “Life is 1% what happens to you and 99% how you deal with it.” How you deal with life’s situations ultimately determines your quality of life.
The attitude you display in any circumstance will inevitably impact the outcome of it. But you’re probably wondering, “How am I supposed to react to a negative event other than feel negatively about it?” Let’s take a look at an example and how a change in attitude can improve your situation:
The Traffic Scenario
Let’s say you’re driving and you’re about to come upon a yellow light, which you’d rather not stop at because you’re late. So you speed up and actually run through the red light instead, and end up being stopped by a police officer, who is now writing you a ticket.
You’re angry and annoyed because you’re late for a meeting at the office. Your anger overflows and you suddenly start to shove the police officer. As a result, you get a second ticket for assaulting an officer. Your negative attitude has resulted in receiving two tickets instead of one, and you’re still late for the meeting!
Let’s look at how a change in attitude could have impacted the outcome for the better:
· Leaving home a little earlier would have bought you enough time so you wouldn’t have to speed through the light in the first place.
· Stopping at the yellow light would have resulted in a two-minute delay instead of the 20-minute delay you experienced with the police officer!
· Accepting your wrong-doing and acknowledging it to the police officer could have resulted in leniency with the first offense. You might have gotten off without a ticket at all.
· Containing your anger would definitely have prevented the ticket for the second offense.
· You’re now down at least $200, which you were planning to use to complete your credit card payments. A more positive attitude would have saved some money and enabled you to follow through on your credit card payment plan.
That example clearly shows how a change in attitude can significantly change the outcome of a situation you’re thrown into – or one which you’ve created all on your own! It is instinctual to want to respond to the tone of a situation with an equal tone. But when that tone’s negative, you’ll almost always end up being worse off.
The minute you start to change your attitude towards life’s challenges, you’ll start to feel accomplished at the end of a challenge as opposed to feeling conquered by it.
When you remember that you have the power to choose your reaction, you’ll have the power to determine the outcome of a situation!
Over the years, I’ve learned that the key to maintaining a healthy attitude towards life, self and others is to take responsibility for my own thoughts, emotions and reactions. I believe that we can live our best lives when we intentionally fill our minds and meditate on the things in life that are true, honorable, honest, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to celebrate, not things to curse. Being intentional about seeing the best in self, others and the world gives us the advantage in possessing a truly positive mindset.
If your ultimate goal in life is to be truly happy, stop and take a look at how much control you have over most outcomes. Once you have stopped long enough to realize that only you can determine how happy you feel, you’ll automatically start making the choices and attitude adjustments that will help you achieve that happiness!