Power from ABOVE! Episode 2
“Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.” -William James
Attitude is everything. I know you’ve heard this before and either agree or disagree. Either way, you were confirming its truth. Attitude is a filter for everything that enters your mind and everything that comes out of your mind. Right now, I have no idea what you’re thinking because your attitude is unique to you.
It is not a matter of having a bad or good attitude. Everyone’s attitude is influenced by so many thoughts at once that it’s almost inevitable that their attitude will always be a mix of positive and negative words and images. While most people speak between 150 and 200 words per minute, research suggests that we think at around 1,300 words per minute. Also, many of our thoughts are images, which could span thousands of words at a time. This research led to the design of the Bubble Planner, which helps you capture your ideas before they float away (http://www.BubblePlanner.com).
Like Herding Cats. I know this seems a bit overwhelming right now, but if you stick with me it will become clear. As with most complex problems, there are many causes and variations within problems. There can be literally thousands of permutations with any problem. However, as Dr. Phil said on a recent show, “while the problems are complex, the solutions are simple.”
Don’t yell at the computer. What I am about to write may surprise you, but here goes. There are actually only three emotions: love, anger, and fear. Love draws you towards something, anger confronts you against something and fear drives you away from something. All your feelings are a combination of these three emotions. Whether you are happy, sad, worried, anxious, depressed, scared, or content, all of these feelings come from these emotions.
This are good news. If we can understand what is driving our thoughts, then we can change them. When you make a decision, you can trace that decision back to your thoughts at the time you were making it. Even if you don’t realize it, you are always talking to yourself. Some of you just told yourself, “no, I’m not.”
The way to change your behavior is to change your attitude. To change your attitude, you must separate the stimulus from the response. Unlike animals, humans have the ability to choose their response to any situation. There is a space, although sometimes it can be milliseconds, in which we can choose how to react in each situation. Many people allow their subconscious to make these decisions, which is why they feel so out of control. We can take back control. In the next part of Change UP!, I’ll show you how to do it.
“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.
Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, the feat or talent. It will make or break a business…a church…a home. The remarkable thing is that every day we have a choice regarding the attitude we will adopt for that day. We can’t change our past…we can’t change the fact that people will act a certain way.
We can not change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play with the only string we have, and that is our attitude… I am convinced that life is what happens to me and how I react. And so it is with you… we are in charge of our attitudes.” – Charles Swindoll