It's All About Attitude

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.

Attitude is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failure, than success, than what other people think or say or do.

It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company… a church… a home.

The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past…we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable.

The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.” Chuck Swindoll

One of life’s greatest gifts is our ability to choose our attitude. No person, thing, event, circumstance, etc. can force us to have a certain attitude. We are in complete control. Sure bad things may frustrate us, shock us, anger us, but ultimately we control our attitude.

It is very common for us to not believe that we have complete control of our attitudes. We like to pretend or believe that others can cause us to have bad attitudes. Whether through their behavior or actions we blame others for our poor attitudes often times as a way to justify them. Deceiving ourselves in this way only hurts us though. In the end, the truth is that others can impact our attitude only when we allow them to—the choice is ours.

Let’s look at a simple example. When someone is rude to me at work, I can remain positive or I can give in to the rudeness and walk away with a bad attitude. Ultimately, however, the choice is mine. The rude person in no way “forced” me to change my attitude. In fact, many times we willingly succumb to bad attitudes essentially giving up or denying our ability to control them. Truth be told, if I have a bad attitude about anything, I can only blame myself regardless of what has happened.

It is empowering to know that we control our attitudes. And our attitude is so critical to our success and happiness in life. Next time we have a poor attitude about something, let’s take control of that attitude and change it! The power is within us! And doing it will help us live a more rewarding life.