About two years ago, I read John Maxwell’s book Today Matters. It changed the way I look at my day to day activities and helped me to truly grasp the gravity of the things I do everyday. And also how those habits affect my life and success. One Of the things I’ve seen the most improvement in since practicing these steps is my attitude.
If your attitude is bad you don’t have much of a shot at changing the world.
If your cynicism is taking over your thoughts, you probably can easily talk yourself out of making something awesome.
So why not cut it off at the source? Why not just shift your thinking and intentionally choose to have a good attitude today?
Intentionality is critical when it comes to thinking. So here are a few intentional things that you can do today to improve your attitude.
1. Write down the negativity.
Get it all out. Write down all the negative thoughts in your head and then describe how wrong they are on paper. Example: you’re feeling like people are better than you and that nobody cares? Write it down and then write the names of the people you think don’t care THEN subtract that number from 7 Billion. The number that’s left is the pool of people who might care.
Also writing it all down just takes it out of your head. Which is the goal.
2. Breathe in, Breathe out, Smile, Repeat.
The act of paying attention to your breathing is a meditation practice and will leave you feel refreshed. The act of smiling on purpose creates the same feeling in your brain as smiling unintentionally. Focusing on these things and only these things for at least a minute will not only help shift your thinking, it can literally have an effect or your physiology. (For more on this, Check out the book You Are Here, by Thich Nhat Hanh.)
3. Set up a reminder, “Check Your Attitude”
Every day at 2pm for the past 709 days I have gotten a reminder (through Apple’s Reminder app) that says “Check Your Attitude.” That’s all. So now, almost 3 years later, as soon as I feel that buzz in my pocket at 2pm, I take a second, think about how my attitude is affecting me, and I move on. Some days it helps more than others but it always causes me to stop and think about how I’m doing attitude wise today. This has by far helped me the most and is the most consistent method I’ve found for turning it into a daily habit.
We all get thrown off during work and our day-to-day tasks from time to time. And it’s easy to forget how our attitude can affect us. But if we just allow ourselves a couple of minutes to think about it, it could change our entire day.
Check your attitude today and let me know if it’s as much help for you as it is for me.
Happy Wednesday!
Chris
Question: What is the biggest drain on your attitude?
What are some ways you can start pruning these things from your life and work? Or eliminating them altogether?
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The Passion Hunt - I love this so much! I think the biggest drain on my attitude is when I allow myself to become tired or I don’t take time for myself and then I have a poor or slightly more stressed attitude about the things I have to do. This is such a great post. Would love to come back and reference it often!!
Chris Creed - Totally get that way when I’m tired as well… or when I’m hungry 😉
Thanks for reading!
PM Hut - Hi Chris,
Am I the only one who smiled when seeing that your last “Check your attitude” reminder was 2 years ago (602 days).
Chris Creed - Hey!
Haha Yeah when I got a new phone I set up a new one. Turns out the other one rolled over through the cloud. If you don’t cross them off in the app, they keep showing up and that’s where the number comes from. Now I have two that go off everyday at 2 o’clock 🙂