We’ve seen that your basic attitude, either positive or negative, works its way into your life in everything from your thoughts to your words, actions, and habits. That stream grows into a flood over time, virtually ensuring negative outcomes in your life in the form of poor health, missed opportunities, and broken relationships. Your attitude sets the course for your future in many ways.
If you’ve recognized signs of a negative attitude in yourself, you may be wondering what hope there is for your future. Is it possible to stem that tide of negativity after years or even decades of negative thinking, speaking, and actions? Or will you be stuck as you are forever, not satisfied with your life but feeling powerless to do anything about it? The answer to that question is simple: It’s up to you. You have the power to make choices. You have the ability to make changes in your life, even in the way you think and feel. You’ve been given the greatest gift there is—freedom of the will. What you do with that is entirely up to you.
In this chapter, you’ll discover that you do have the ability to make positive choices. What’s more, you’ll learn to leverage that power of choice to make the positive changes that will strengthen your attitude, propel you into positive actions, and change your life for the better.
Realize You Have Power
Possibly the worst result of a negative attitude is that it brings a feeling of helplessness. We’ve already seen some of the ways this comes into play in your life. A feeling of powerlessness is what drives so much of our negative thinking, taking form in thoughts like I’m not smart enough, or I could never do that, or Why does the other guy always seem to get the breaks? When you say things like that to yourself, it reveals your sense of disempowerment. You’re basically saying to yourself, I can’t.
That feeling of helplessness takes shape in our words to others as well. We complain, gossip, naysay, or resort to sarcasm because we feel helpless to change our circumstances. Complaining may not be much, we think, but at least it’s doing something. Of course, griping only makes us feel even more helpless to bring about change. By complaining and naysaying, we become our own prophets of doom.
Finally, this feeling of disempowerment shows up in our actions. We procrastinate, we hoard information, ignore good opportunities, bury ourselves in meaningless work, and neglect our health. Why? Because we’re convinced that nothing will change. We just don’t think we can break free from the rut we’ve worked ourselves into, so it’s easier to just keep doing the same old things than to risk trying something new.
But here’s the thing: You are not helpless. You’re a free agent, able to put your thoughts into action, able to choose your own attitude, able to change your life! Though we have this power, many of us never realize it—or never act on it. As a result, we don’t live up to our potential.
Tony Campolo tells a story about the ducks in a certain town who waddle out of their houses every Sunday to go to church. They waddle down Main Street, waddle up into the sanctuary, and squat in their proper pews. The duck choir waddles in and takes its place, and then the duck minister comes forward and opens the duck Bible. He reads to them: “Ducks! God has given you wings! With wings you can fly! With wings you can mount up and soar like eagles. No walls can confine you! No fences can hold you! You have wings. God has given you wings, and you can fly like birds!”
All the ducks shout, “Amen!” And then they all waddle home.1
To make a positive change in your life you need a positive change in your attitude. And to accomplish that, you must believe that you have the ability to make choices. Do you think you can? You’re right. Do you think you can’t? You’re right about that too. It all begins with your belief in your own free agency. You can choose a better life than the one you have right now.
Victim Thinking Roots You in Place
It’s vital that you see and act on this principle of free agency. The alternative is a victim mentality that will keep you rooted in helplessness and negative thinking. Inevitably, people who do positive and even heroic things are those who believe they can succeed—or at least that they’d be better off trying and failing than to accept the status quo. People with a victim mentality think just the opposite. They’re convinced it’s better to keep doing nothing than to risk the possibility of change. Their default response to every situation is “I can’t.”
Here’s a dramatic example of that thinking and the results it produces. A man named Danny Villegas spent five years in federal prison for robbing a bank in California. In 2007, after his release, he decided on a whim to visit Florida to see the ocean, but he wound up living in his car in South Daytona and soon ran out of money.
What would you do in that situation? Many people with a positive outlook would look for work, head back home, sell their car to raise funds, or any of a hundred positive things that could bring good results. They would take the first right step believing that something good would follow.
Villegas, however, was not so forward thinking. He longingly remembered the good life in federal lockup, which he later said “wasn’t that bad.” Figuring that he had no choice but to either live on the street or go back to jail, the 54-year-old marched into the Kennedy Space Center Federal Credit Union, casually walked up to the teller and said: “Good morning. This is a robbery. You might as well call the police now.” He then took a seat on a couch and waited for the police to arrive.
According to witnesses, he was polite, didn’t show a weapon, and didn’t threaten anyone. He simply decided that his only option for improving his life was to go to prison, so that’s what he did.2
I have no doubt that you’re not foolish enough to rob a bank. But I want you to see the urgency of breaking free from a victim mindset. When you believe you’re powerless to improve your circumstances, you’ll remain rooted wherever you are: in a job that isn’t satisfying, in relationships that are abusive or painful, in a health condition that you might easily overcome. By not making a positive choice for your future, you’re making a negative one.
You have the power to choose the outcomes in your life.
Making a Choice Starts a Chain Reaction
Over the last few chapters, we’ve been tracing the chain reaction that begins with your attitude. Your attitude gives shape to your thoughts, which in turn take the form of words, which finally express themselves in actions, which become habits over time, which create your future.
There’s another catalyst in your life, a factor that precipitates a series of reactions that move you in a particular direction. That catalyst is decision. When you make a decision and then act on that decision, you set in motion a cascading series of positive reactions that move you in the right direction.
Amelia Earhart, the record-setting aviator and first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, reportedly said, “The most difficult thing is the decision to act; the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.”
Let’s look at the positive ways in which exercising the power of choice affects your life. Here’s what happens the moment you make a positive decision.
You Become Energized
One of the worst things about having a negative outlook is how it makes you feel: powerless, stuck, helpless, lethargic. One of the reasons you find yourself unable to take positive actions is that you feel blah all the time. It’s remarkably easy to remain stuck in that place of low energy and no positive movement. Making a choice changes all that. The very act of choosing which direction to take is energizing. Having made a choice, you instantly feel better, relieved at no longer being stuck.
The act of making a choice depends on accepting that fact that you can make the choice. When you make a decision, whether it’s to begin a new health regimen, look for a new job, or develop a positive attitude, you’ve just said to yourself I can do this! That takes away every single excuse you might later be tempted to use to justify not taking action. You’ve already agreed that it’s possible to make the change you’re contemplating.
Making positive choices is a tremendously energizing experience.
You Create Possibilities
An often-repeated saying holds that once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen. This points to a reality that positive-thinking people know, but those with a negative attitude never experience: When you take action, things happen. Of course the universe doesn’t literally conspire to make your dreams come true, but when you make a choice and act on it, positive things result that you wouldn’t have foreseen. More important, these are positive results that never would have occurred if you hadn’t first taken the risk to step out and act on your choice.
Here’s an example. When my father made the decision to leave his full-time job in the coal mine and move our family to Ohio, he didn’t have another job lined up. He was working at a job that was dangerous and unsatisfying, but at least he was employed. The easiest thing to do would have been to stay right there in Welch and go to work in the mine every day. That’s exactly what my dad would have done if he had a negative outlook on life. But Dad was a relentless positive thinker, and he resolved to take action that would put his family on a better footing, though he didn’t yet know how it would all come together. So we packed up and moved.
Frankly, it was still tough for a while. But things began to happen that never would have occurred if Dad hadn’t been willing to step out and take action. We received help from a wonderful group of friends we never would have met if we’d stayed in West Virginia. Dad found opportunities that would never have opened to him without relocating. A year later, we could all say that things were 100 percent better in our family—but none of that would have come together without my father’s willingness to step out and take action. He created new possibilities simply by making a positive choice and acting upon it.
You Gain Resources
Positive people attract attention and gather resources. That’s because most people want to be associated with optimistic, successful people who are engaged in doing something positive in the world. There’s a saying around nonprofit organizations: “Money follows vision.” People are willing to get behind any person or organization that’s able to cast a positive vision for the future. Simply by making a choice to move forward and sharing that choice with others, you’ll gain support, encouragement, and partnership for what you’re doing.
If you doubt this, try it in even a small way. Announce to your coworkers that you’re beginning a diet or starting to train for a half-marathon. You’ll be joined by others who’ve wanted to do the same but lacked the wherewithal to make the decision. Even before you start your diet or run your first mile, you’ll have team members to coach, encourage, and support you.
Resources flow toward people who’re willing to make positive choices with their lives, time, and energy.
You Build Momentum
Have you noticed that getting started is the most difficult part of any project? Whether it’s cleaning your room or writing a book or building a swing set in the backyard, the whole thing can seem so overwhelming, it’s hard to know where to begin. Making changes in your life, especially a major change like adopting a positive attitude, can feel a bit like that. It’s both exciting and daunting. You want to do it, but you just can’t seem to make yourself get started.
Here’s a helpful bit of advice: Remember that you don’t have to see the whole staircase to climb the first step. You don’t have to know all the steps to completing a project in order to get moving on it. Once you begin, momentum starts to build, and before long it’s difficult to stop working on it.
You begin that little bit of momentum when you make a choice—and tell someone about that choice. Announcing your decision becomes the critical first step toward getting started. Once you write it down, say it out loud, or tell a friend, you make your decision real. That provides the little shove in the right direction that gets you going, starting the process of gaining momentum. Until you make a choice, it’s easy to be stuck where you are. Once you do decide, speaking that decision to someone else will get you moving.
You Are Responsible for Your Choices
There’s another side to this matter of decision making. You have the ability to make choices for yourself, and you also have the responsibility to make those choices and to accept the results of your decisions. This quotation often attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt sums it up nicely: “One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words. It is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.”3
The victim mindset always makes someone else responsible for the choice in our lives. Thinking that way not only prevents you from making a decision but also puts the responsibility for your life with someone else. If you’re unhappy, it’s because your parents or your spouse haven’t done what they should. If you lack resources, it’s because someone else didn’t support your ideas. If you dislike your work it’s because your employer makes things difficult for you. People with a victim mindset do not believe they can make choices to improve their lives, and they refuse to take responsibility for the choices they make.
And remember this: Choosing not to decide is a decision. When you don’t seek other employment, you’ve chosen to stay where you are. When you can’t decide whether to have a difficult conversation with a family member, you’ve decided not to have the conversation. You, not others, are responsible for those choices. That’s why it’s critical to understand and harness the power of choice in your life. It’s operating on your circumstances whether you’re aware of it or not.
How much better will it be when you take control of your life by making positive choices. And no choice is more critical than your decision to adopt a positive attitude.
Make a Choice and See What Happens
It can be intimidating to exercise the power of choice in your life. You have a sense of what may follow. There could be risks. You could make a decision you later regret. Either way, you and you alone will be responsible for the decisions you make. That can seem a bit overwhelming. But the important thing is recognizing that to move forward in life, making positive choices is necessary—and then stepping out and acting on those choices. Often it’s better to make the wrong choice than none at all. When faced with a choice or possibility, the very worst thing you can do is nothing.
That’s what Ronald Reagan is said to have discovered as a child when his aunt took him to visit a cobbler for a new pair of custom-made shoes. The cobbler asked the young future president whether he wanted square-toed or round-toed shoes. The young man was unable to decide, so the shoemaker gave him a few days to think about it.
Sometime later the cobbler saw Reagan on the street and again asked which style of shoes he wanted. When Reagan still couldn’t answer, the cobbler told him to come by in a week. “You shoes will be ready,” he said. When Reagan arrived a few days later, he was presented with one square-toed and one round-toed shoe!
“This will teach you to never let people make decisions for you,” the cobbler said.
“I learned right then and there,” Reagan said later, “if you don’t make your own decisions, someone else will.”4
You’re the only person who can take charge of your attitude, your thoughts, your actions, and your habits. If you adopt a positive attitude, it will be because you chose to do so. You have the power to make that decision. In the next section, you’ll learn the seven critical choices that underlie positive thinking. By choosing to say yes to each of them, you’ll receive the seven wonderful gifts that my father passed on to me, and one more besides: the winning attitude that will enable you to achieve your dreams.