The Power of Your Attitude

Your first step forward in harnessing the power of a positive attitude is to believe that your attitude actually does exert incredible influence over every aspect of your life. What you think shapes your identity, literally determining the kind of person you’ll be and the things you’ll do. The people who achieve their goals, enjoy success, and seem to be happy despite their circumstances didn’t get that way by accident. They chose to have a positive outlook, and that choice shaped everything else about them. Likewise, the people who drift through life complaining that nothing good ever happens have also made a choice. They interpret their circumstances through the lens of a negative attitude. Everything looks bad to them, and it becomes bad.

You may be thinking, Well, some things really are bad! And you’re right. People face difficult, even heartbreaking trials every day. Yet some people emerge from those events contented, peaceful, and determined to move forward, while others seem to wither away. The only difference is their attitude. In the same way, many people experience wonderful things like a great job, a loving family, and good health, but nothing ever seems to satisfy them; they’re always unhappy—because they choose to be. Charles Swindoll, the highly acclaimed teacher and author, put it this way:

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… I am convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it. And so it is with you… We are in charge of our attitudes.1

You have the power to choose your response to any situation. And in that power lies the ability to control your identity, your happiness, and many aspects of your future. You’re in charge of the most powerful force in your life: your attitude.

You Have the Power to Choose

If you still doubt that what truly shapes your life is your attitude, not your circumstances, let me give you a stunning example of the power of attitude that comes from the latter days of the Second World War. You know that the Nazis imprisoned many people in concentration camps, notably a large population of Jewish people, also many people of other races, religions, and political persuasions. These prisoners faced grueling hardships. Many were slaughtered by their captors, and many others died of disease or starvation. Confinement in a concentration camp was a virtual death sentence.

During the war, a young Jewish psychiatrist from Vienna, Austria, was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in what’s now the Czech Republic, along with his entire family. Victor Frankl and his wife Tilly were later transported to the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp, and finally moved to the Dachau camp system where he spent seven months, mostly working as a slave laborer. Frankl’s mother and brother died at Auschwitz. Tilly was moved to the Bergen-Belsen camp, where she died.

Victor Frankl describes the conditions he and others endured in his book Man’s Search for Meaning. Living amid such suffering and cruelty, every day a fight for food and survival, never knowing whether they would survive the war, people chose various responses to their circumstances. Some joined in the cruelty, surviving the camps privations by stealing from others or cooperating with their captors. Others simply gave up and died. But some were able to choose a different path, living with dignity and hope even when that meant sacrificing themselves for others.

After enduring the suffering in these camps, Frankl concluded that even in the most painful, disorienting, and dehumanizing situation, life has meaning.

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.2

Interestingly, the original German title of Victor Frankl’s book was Trotzdem Ja Zum Leben Sagen, which means “saying yes to life in spite of everything.” That’s the power you have—to say Yes! no matter what happens. You cannot choose what happens to you, but you can choose how you respond to it. You have the power to adopt a positive outlook, and that power can change virtually everything about your life.

How Negative Thinking Harms You

Before we go further, it’s important for you to understand what’s at stake in the matter of choosing a positive attitude. This goes far beyond simplistic outcomes like seeing a glass half empty or half full. When you choose a negative outlook on life, you open yourself to a vast range of negative consequences. Possibly you’re living with some of these results right now, and they’re holding you back from joy, from opportunities, from relationships, or even earning more money.

What’s at stake? Here are a few of the results of living with a negative outlook.

You Feel Helpless

Negative thinking traps you in a victim mentality, which is incredibly disempowering. Negative thinkers tend to see other people as in control of the world; as a result, negative thinkers always feel helpless. Other people always get the raise. Other people always get the opportunities. Other people always succeed. Negative thinkers develop a helpless outlook on life that keeps them rooted in place. They never change because they don’t think they can.

Age-old wisdom from the book of Proverbs confirms this point. “The lazy person claims, ‘There’s a lion out there! If I go outside, I might be killed!’”3 If you think the worst in every situation, you’ll prevent yourself from taking any action whatsoever.

You Lack Energy

Negative thinking takes an immediate toll on one of your most important assets, your energy level. If you’re one of those people whose mood is affected by a lack of sunshine (called seasonal affective disorder) you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. On cloudy days you just feel kind of blah. Everything else may be fine, but if the sun isn’t shining, you have to fight the urge to lie down and take a nap.

That’s exactly what negative thinking does to you. It brings you down mentally, emotionally, and even physically. When you think negatively, you get a deflated feeling in your stomach. You sigh a lot. You don’t feel like doing much. As a result, you must fight a battle with yourself every morning (and probably throughout the day) to keep your focus and maintain your concentration. Negative thinking saps your strength.

You Suffer Physically and Emotionally

Study after study has shown the link between optimism and positive health outcomes and between pessimism and negative health changes. Your mind and body really are connected! While positive thoughts generally fade in time, negative thoughts cling to you like mold on stale bread.

Think about it. Which do you remember more vividly: the time when you made the winning run in your Little League game, or the time you struck out with the bases loaded?

When you welcome negative thinking, it’s like allowing weeds to take root in your mind and body. The effect of living with bad memories, pessimism, cynicism, doubt, anger, and other negative thoughts can literally kill you. If you’re wondering why you’re down or discouraged all the time, it may have to do with your outlook on life.

Obviously, clinical depression is something else, a condition that can be medically treated. But if you’re suffering a serious loss of energy, experiencing sadness, and seeing negative health changes—you might need a change in attitude.

You Miss Opportunities

Everyone is drawn to positive people. You know that from your own experience at parties, family gatherings, school, or work. It’s more pleasant to be around people who smile, say a cheery hello, and pitch in to lend a hand. The opposite is true as well. Nobody likes to be around negative people. When people complain, naysay, criticize others, and constantly find fault with their circumstances, friends and coworkers begin to quietly avoid that person. As a result, negative thinkers miss out on new assignments, promotions, partnerships, and other opportunities.

And here’s the real problem: You never know it’s happening! Most negative thinkers are unaware of the effect their mental habits have on themselves, let alone others. If you’re a negative thinker, you may be completely unaware of what you’re missing.

You Limit Relationships

If you’re a chronic negative thinker, your attitude is costing you relationships—something far more valuable than money. As I’ve already noted, people always enjoy being around a positive person, but nobody likes to be around a pessimist. Actually, that’s not quite true. There are people who enjoy the company of a pessimist—other pessimists! Complaining, faultfinding, and griping drive away all but the most negative of thinkers. So when you make negative thinking a lifestyle, you limit yourself relationally. You’ll lose friends, and may even lose contact with some family members who simply can’t tolerate continual negative thinking. And again, you may never know this is happening. Negative thinkers seldom perceive the effect of their presence on others.

If you can identify with any of those side effects of negative thinking, you’re getting a glimpse of just how much a negative attitude can cost you. It affects everything from your employment to your relationships, even your physical health. You’re seeing the truth of it now: Your attitude really does have the power to shape your life.

The good news is that a positive attitude has that same power to an even greater degree. When you adopt a positive attitude, you’ll experience a wide range of beneficial results.

A Positive Attitude Brings Positive Results

Though the correlation between positive thinking and positive results has been observed for centuries, sociologist Robert K. Merton formalized the idea when he coined the term self-fulfilling prophecy. Merton wrote, “The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior which makes the original false conception come true.”4

You’ve experienced this before, no doubt, or seen it in action. A rookie basketball player unexpectedly gets to start in the big game. With seconds left on the clock, he goes to the foul line for what could be the game-winning shot. His knees are trembling, his hands shaking, there’s no way he can possibly calm down enough to sink the basket. So the coach wisely calls a timeout and calls the boy over. Placing a hand on his shoulder, the coach says, “You’ve got this. You’re going to sink the shot and win this game. There’s nobody I’d rather have on the line at this moment than you.” The kid’s face brightens, and he returns to the foul line with newfound confidence. Without hesitation, he shoots, scores, and the game’s over. That’s the power of a self-fulfilling prophecy. It takes a once-false definition of a situation and makes it true.

What Robert Merton identified is nothing more than the power of positive thinking. By thinking optimistically, by choosing a positive attitude in every situation, you unleash a power in your life. You influence yourself and others in constructive ways. As a result, you shape your reality by the thoughts you think.

A Positive Attitude Creates a Positive Identity

An often-repeated story about the great British architect Christopher Wren tells of a time he was supervising the construction of a grand cathedral in London. A newspaper reporter decided to interview some of the workers who were constructing the magnificent building, and he chose three men to speak with. When he asked, “What are you doing here?” the first man replied, “I’m cutting stone for ten shillings a day.” When he asked the next man, he answered, “I’m putting in ten hours a day on this job.” But the third said, “I’m helping Sir Christopher Wren construct one of London’s greatest cathedrals.”

When you choose a positive attitude, you create a positive identity for yourself. Are you a lackey or a trusted assistant? Are you a beleaguered single mom or a strong, empowered woman? Are you a defeated businessperson who can’t seem to get a break, or are you an energetic, innovative entrepreneur closing in on success? The answer is up to you. It lies completely within your power to define your identity. You are what you think you are. And you can become whatever you believe you can be.

A Positive Attitude Improves Your Health

Also, I’ve already noted the connection between mind and body, and I’d like to emphasize this again. When you adopt a positive attitude toward life, you’ll have a positive impact on your health. But don’t take my word for that. A team of researchers who studied more than 5000 workers concluded that “people with a highly optimistic life orientation experience daily events in a more positive way and expect more positive outcomes than pessimists.” They noted, “highly optimistic individuals appear to attract supportive social relationships, use adaptive coping strategies, and have different health habits than pessimists.” The research suggests that a positive outlook reduces the risk of health problems after experiencing a negative life event, and promotes faster recovery.5 You aren’t imagining it: When you think more positively, you actually do feel better.

A Positive Attitude Creates Possibilities

I love the story of a man who approached a Little League baseball game one afternoon and watched the kids playing ball. He asked a boy in one team’s dugout what the score was. “Eighteen to nothing,” the boy said. “They’re winning.”

“Wow,” said the onlooker, “I bet you’re discouraged.”

The boy looked mystified. “Why should I be?” he said. “We haven’t even gotten up to bat yet!”

When you believe you’re defeated, you almost certainly will be. But when you believe that anything is possible, something probably will be. Opportunities come to the person who looks for them, who believes that no situation is hopeless and that some good result is bound to occur. When you adopt a positive outlook, you create your own possibilities.

This was more eloquently declared in a statement widely attributed to the great Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi, who helped lead his country to independence from a century of British rule:

Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.

When you believe in possibilities, you’ll begin to see them everywhere. So by adopting a positive outlook, you actually change your future. Things become possible for you that wouldn’t have been otherwise. Your positive thinking shapes your world for the better.

A Positive Attitude Wins Friends

As researchers in the study noted above point out, optimistic people attract supporting social networks.6 That’s scientific proof that happy people more easily win friends and influence people, as if we needed proof of that. Intuitively, you know this is true. And it’s vitally important for creating a positive future, because we all need friends, associates, and teammates in order to achieve our goals and live a happy, productive life. When you adopt a positive attitude, you’ll begin to gather like-minded people around you. You’ll find yourself surrounded by positive thinkers, doers, and high achievers, and they’ll inspire, encourage, and help you, both with the problems you face in life and with the dreams you hope to fulfill. Adopting a positive attitude is the first step to building the momentum you need to move into the future you’d like to create for yourself.

Simple Ways to Get Started

Clearly, there are a lot of benefits to choosing a positive attitude. But how do you do that? If you’re like I was during my early years, weighed down by life and a series of negative circumstances, finding a silver lining may seem like wishful thinking. Let me assure you that it isn’t. Here are some practical first steps toward moving yourself from the negative column to a positive outlook.

Recognize Negative Thinking

First, recognize negative thinking in yourself. This can be difficult to do because negative thinking can become the “hard-wiring” in your brain. Without realizing it, you may filter everything you see and hear through this grid of negativity. To help you recognize that, here are two simple things you can do.

First, ask for outside help. Find someone you trust—someone who’ll tell you the truth—to assess your attitude. You may need to give this person permission to be completely candid with you, because they may fear offending or upsetting you. But if you really want to know where negative thinking affects your outlook on life, your thinking about the future, your relationships, or any other area, you’ll need someone to hold up the mirror, so to speak, and let you see yourself clearly. Find someone you trust and ask them, “Would you say I’m an optimist or a pessimist? Where do you see negative thinking in my life?”

Second, make a searching self-appraisal of your thoughts. This may be easier to do once you’ve gotten some clues to your thinking from an objective friend. You may find it helpful to block out some time for this—an hour or even a whole day. Think specifically about these areas of life:

• your reactions to stressful situations

• your tolerance for change

• your willingness to take risks

• your feelings about meeting new people

• your self-image

• your patterns of speech

• your first reactions to news or announcements

Briefly write an assessment of your current outlook on life. Note where it’s positive, and be completely honest about the areas in which you’re subject to negative thinking. Don’t try to explain or justify your reactions. Remember, nobody is accusing you of anything, so there’s no need to be defensive about how you feel or how you look at life. Simply state reality. If you’re able to recognize negativity in your thinking, you’ll be able to deal with it. If you’re unwilling or unable to see when and how you think negatively, you won’t ever change.

Resolve to Take Action

When Jesus met a man who’d been lame for 38 years, he asked what would seem to be a ridiculous question: “Do you want to get well?”7 Who wouldn’t want to get well! However, Jesus was probing the man’s thinking to find out how serious he was about dealing with his problem. Jesus wanted to know if he had the resolve to do something about it, or perhaps was content to be helpless. Many people are.

Negative thinking can feel like a warm blanket—safe and familiar. It seems comforting to believe that your life isn’t changing because it can’t or because that’s just the way it is. Those negative thoughts can be all the excuse we need to remain passive.

That’s why making the resolve to change is a necessary first step toward improving your outlook. Do you want to have a positive attitude? Resolve to do whatever it takes to make that change.

Practice Displacement

In part 3 of this book, I’ll give you a simple, practical plan for renewing your thinking. I’ve also written an entire book on this subject titled ReThink Your Life: A Unique Diet for the Mind. For now, you can begin to shape your outlook by displacing negative thoughts with positive ones. When you discover yourself defaulting to negative thinking, immediately replace the negative thought with a positive one. Here are some examples.

It’ll probably rain.	It might not rain.
Nobody ever wins those things.	Somebody has to win, why not me?
She’ll probably say no.	She might say yes!
I don’t think I can.	I’ll give it a try.

Does that sound simplistic? Let me assure you it’s not. Replacing negative thoughts with positive ones, even in small ways, is a solid first step to transforming your outlook on life. Try it and see.

Get Accountability

You can’t do this alone. That’s not negative thinking; it’s just a fact. Making positive changes in our lives takes a network of support. If you hope to harness the power of a positive attitude in your life, you’ll need a support team. Begin by asking the people closest to you to keep you accountable for changing your attitude. Simply tell them, “I’m trying to change the way I look at life, and I really want to eliminate negative thinking. Please let me know whenever you see or hear a negative attitude from me. I’d really appreciate it.” Then be open to their feedback. This, perhaps more than anything else, will help you recognize patterns of negative thought and root them out. Find at least one friend or relative who’ll help you change your future by changing the way you think.

You Can Do This!

I really believe you can do this. I know it seems daunting to change your life from the inside out. You’ve experienced some tremendously negative events in your life, and negative thinking may have become the boilerplate in your brain—it protects you from experiencing further disappointment. I understand.

Yet I can’t let you stay there. I care too much about you and your future to allow you to wallow in negative thinking. You can do more, you can have more, you can experience more in your life! If you doubt that, let me remind you of the amazing story of a true American hero, Helen Keller.

Helen Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in the small town of Tuscumbia, Alabama. Although she was born with ability to see and hear, at 19 months of age she contracted an illness, possibly scarlet fever or meningitis, that left her deaf, mute, and blind. For most people, that would have meant the end of any chance for a productive life. But Helen Keller wasn’t just any person. Helen’s amazing teacher, Anne Sullivan, broke through the near-complete isolation that Helen lived in, teaching her to communicate—a key to forming relationships and experiencing life. Helen Keller grew to become a prolific author and outspoken advocate for a number of causes, including women’s suffrage and the rights of laborers. To say that she was empowered by a positive attitude would be a complete understatement. Here’s what she said about finding happiness in life:

Most people measure their happiness in terms of physical pleasure and material possession. Could they win some visible goal which they have set on the horizon, how happy they could be! Lacking this gift or that circumstance, they would be miserable. If happiness is to be so measured, I who cannot hear or see have every reason to sit in a corner with folded hands and weep. If I am happy in spite of my deprivations, if my happiness is so deep that it is a faith, so thoughtful that it becomes a philosophy of life—if, in short, I am an optimist, my testimony to the creed of optimism is worth hearing. As sinners stand up in a meeting and testify to the goodness of God, so one who is called afflicted may rise up in gladness of conviction and testify to the goodness of life.8

In the early 2000s, when each of the 50 United States selected an emblem to represent that state on a unique edition of the quarter-dollar, Alabama honored one of its most favored citizens by choosing an image of Helen Keller to place on its state quarter. It’s the only circulating US coin to feature braille.

Regardless of the circumstances you now face, you can change your life for the better by changing your outlook. Your attitude has the power to lift your life to new heights or to hold you in despair. Your attitude can win friends, influence people, and be a catalyst for making your dreams come true, or it can be the governor on the engine of your life, the limiting factor that ensures you’ll never succeed beyond where you are now.

No one else can change your outlook for you. It’s up to you. Make the choice to adopt a positive attitude. Do it for yourself, for your family, and for your future. Let this be the first day of a beautiful new you.