Your mental attitude is one of the strongest forces in your life. It can help you to overcome any obstacle or it can cripple every area of your life. It affects your career, your relationships, and your happiness in life. There are three main parts of your mental attitude that I want to talk about… your drive, your responsibility, and your outlook.
The first part of having a positive mental attitude is your drive. The secret to success in your life has nothing to do with the circumstances that you were born in. It is how hard you are willing to work. Some people, from their circumstances, definitely get a head start in the race that we call life. But everyone runs, and anyone can win!
Eric Thomas has a powerful quote about the importance of your drive… “When you want to be successful as bad as you want to breathe, then you will be successful.” What he means is that you must prioritize and not relent in your pursuit of what you want. It is never an option for you to stop breathing. And it is never an option for you to stop pushing forward in your life. Life is going to hit you hard at some point. But you have to resist and overcome. You must roll with the punches and keep moving forward… no matter how long it takes and no matter how much it hurts. When you do that, you will love the results.
This brings me to my second part, your responsibility. In life, you are responsible for how you react to everything that happens to you… not your spouse, your boss, or any other person or thing that you may want to blame. You can’t control the hand you are dealt. But you can control how you play it. Every day you have a million choices available to you. It is your responsibility to pick the best ones. Choose the ones that will improve you and the people around you. I’ve heard of a middle school principal, who would come on the PA system (to speak to the entire school at once) and she would finish her morning announcements with the following statement… “Make it a great day, or not, the choice is yours!”
This is so true! In life there will be good and bad things that will happen to you. But the most important thing is how you react to them. You can get up and push through the bad things, or you can stay on the ground and let them beat you into a pulp. Your choices will determine whether you will have a good or bad day.
The other part of making it a great day is my final point, your outlook. What you seek is what you will find; a day is how you see it. You can choose to see and focus on all of the negatives… or you can focus on the positives. Zig Ziglar, has several amazing speeches on “stinkin’ thinkin’”. And the biggest take-away from them is that your happiness in life is only dependent on you… not your circumstances, and definitely not from the people around you.
Finally, positive mental attitude is not a sprint; it is a marathon that doesn’t stop until your last breath. You have to be aware of it and always do your best to be positive and do what you can to help others in their journey. But be careful not to let others drag you down with them. And lastly, if you are struggling with your own mental state, then please have the courage to get help.