Attitude Determines Your Altitude

ATTITUDE DETERMINES YOUR ALTITUDE

Another key to lifelong success is Attitude. Your attitude affectseverything in your life. How is your attitude? Are you one of those peoplewho is always blaming outside forces for your problems? Do you walk around in a negative state of mind most of the time? I think not. Peoplelike that would never have opened this subject inthe first place. However  positive you may be most of the time, there will be days when you just feelnegative. While this may be fine for a brief period, prolonging anegative attitude has disastrous consequences. A negative attitude robsyour initiative and destroys your discipline.Your attitude will determine your altitude and a man who struggles withhis attitude will struggle with many other essential and important factorsand elements that will lead him to his altitude in life.The ³so what´ or ³who cares´ attitude stops you from taking the actionsthat will help you build the kind of life you want to have for yourself andyour family.

Here how a negative attitude robs us of our potential for good. At one of the low points in my own life, I had developed a ³who cares, what theuse´ attitude. I felt that I was stuck where I was because of circumstancesoutside my control and blamed the world for my conditions. I figured Iwas at the bottom, so why even care? The problem is, as I learned througha lot of emotional pain, that there are always lower bottoms to which wecan sink. As my attitude continued to be negative and blaming, mysituation worsened.Only when I was willing to take responsibility for my life, stop blamingand look for what little good remained, was I able to begin to turn thissituation around. A negative attitude keeps us stuck by robbing us of theself-discipline we need to improve our conditions. If you take a ³what¶sthe use´ approach to your circumstances, they will only get worse.It¶s imperative that you turn a negative attitude around and learn to become a positive person.

The fastest and easiest way I know to change from a negative to a positiveattitude is to develop an attitude of gratitude. You may even want to keep agratitude journal, a place where you can build a list of the things you aregrateful for in your life. It¶s impossible to have gratitude and be in self- pity at the same time, and most negative attitudes are rooted in self-pitying,³poor me´ self-talk. You can quickly change a negative attitude to a positive one by becoming grateful.The simplest way I know to do this is to ask a question like, ³What am Igrateful for today?´ Then, write down whatever comes to mind. It may beall of the blessings you have like good health, a clear mind, a lovingfamily, satisfying work, a comfortable home, friends, and pets and so on.Make a daily habit of counting your blessings and list what you aregrateful for in your life. Doing this first thing in the morning will help youfeel better immediately and begin your day on a positive note.On days when you are feeling down, take out your ³gratitude journal´ andreread it. Doing this simple exercise will make you feel better almostimmediately.

Even though this may seem cliché but we can never get enough of the phrase ³never give up´. It motivates us to reach for the stars and no matter 

how hard it is, we continue the job until it is perfected. Thomas A. Edisonsaid ³I have not failed. I¶ve just found 10,000 ways that don¶t work.´Why do people quit so easily after making a mistake? In my perception, amistake is not something terrible or negative but a life lesson learnt.Sometimes, we can never have or get what we always wanted. So what?Let it go and get on with life! If it is meant to be, then it is. Don¶t getdemotivated just because something didn¶t go the way you intended it to be.Most importantly, never beat yourself up for it. If we blame ourselves, thematter only gets worse. We¶ll be wallowing in sadness and we won¶t beable to think straight. This incident might eventually lead to depression.Take a break and smell the flowers. Don¶t go too hard on yourself. After all, we are only human.Think of God¶s wonderful creations and all the beautiful things in life. Lifeis magnificent if we look at it from a brighter perspective. It¶s not meant to be about work, stress or depression. These things happen only if we letthem happen. It¶s not anyone else¶s fault because you let it happen.Happiness starts within.

Perseverance is commitment, hard work, patience, endurance. With nodetermination and perseverance, we can kiss success goodbye.Perseverance is being able to bear difficulties calmly and withoutcomplaint. We have to try and try again. Who said life is a bed of rosesanyway? There definitely got to be ups and downs. We should rejoice and be grateful when we are at the ups and pick ourselves up when we areexperiencing the downs.All things will come round to him who will but wait. You may bedisappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try. When

something starts to bother you, wait as long as you can before you expressfrustration. Focus on someone or something that ordinarily makes you loseyour patience and try to understand it. Whatever happens in life, face andaccept it.Write your problems down if it makes you feel better. When you look  back at your entries, you¶ll either realise that your previous problemseemed so petty now or you had finally overcame that problem you hadand you¶re ready to tackle a new one. Besides that, relaxing or motivatingmusic will definitely perk you up.Beethoven persevered despite being deaf and managed to compose many beautiful pieces like Fur Elise. Thomas Edison (inventor) had a learning problem, Stevie Wonder (musician) is blind, Terry Fox (runner) is anamputee with cancer, Helen Keller (author) was deaf and blind, Franklin D.Roosevelt (president) was paralyzed from polio and Stephen Hawking(physicist) has Lou Gehrig¶s disease. Great people always persevere nomatter what.

The right attitude

Many inventors were first frustrated when using the wrong resources for their inventions but when they imbibed the right information with the rightattitude, their inventions became known and they became inventors.Money, wealth, riches, good quality of life, flashy cars or big houses etc.whatever is it that drives you to acquisition of anything is not the greatestachievement in life but the right attitude to everything and everyone in life.As we embark on this new journey this week, let us adopt the right attitudeto our friends,neighbours, colleagues, workers, employers, businesses andto everyone we come across, every relationship or friendship we findourselves in and more importantly our relationship to our maker, our creator, the one who moulded us out of nothing, HE has made ussomebody out of nothing, record how far your positive or negative attitudetakes you this week and determine to change the world around you.