STEP 4
Reframe your bad attitude.
This step will show you that a change in perspective will change your attitude, which will help you turn your attitude into action.
The car was headed for my rear bumper at about seventy miles per hour. I had nowhere to go. I was stuck in Atlanta traffic when I looked in the rearview mirror and saw it speeding up on me. Not knowing what else to do, I started honking the horn, which only bothered the poor guy in front of me. Then I heard the screeching of tires as the woman in the speeding car behind me suddenly realized that, yes, there were approximately two million other people on the road and no one was moving…except her.
Fortunately, her car’s brakes worked. She did hit my car, but it was just a slight nudge of the rear bumper. It still scared the heck out of me, so I felt entirely justified in exercising my inalienable rights as an American commuter. I lost it. There I was, Mr. Cool, Mr. Motivation, Mr. Upbeat, yelling at this strange woman while still buckled into my seat belt and stuck in an I–285 traffic jam.
Then I looked in my rearview mirror and saw her leaning over her steering wheel and blowing me a big kiss.
A kiss!
Talk about adjusting a guy’s attitude. My inner dialogue changed course: You are positive. You are single.
So I blew her one back.
It’s amazing how easy it is to tune up a bad attitude by making a slight adjustment in perspective. It’s not always as easy as blowing a kiss, but it can be done without painful invasive surgery. When she blew the kiss at me, she wasn’t being seductive. She was apologizing.
When she made the gesture, she changed my point of view. I had been thinking, I know she’s going to hit me. I hope she has insurance. She changed my perspective when she blew me a kiss, signaling I made a mistake, but I’m aware of it. Sorry! I’m glad you’re OK! Don’t be mad!
Attitude Control 101
You can’t always expect other people to adjust your attitude for you, of course. Certainly you can’t expect them to do it in such a pleasant way. It’s really something for which you need to take responsibility.
Most feelings wash over us and then dissolve quickly, but occasionally they strike like lightning bolts and burn deep into our hearts and souls. The death of a loved one, the breakup of a relationship, a blow to your career, an attack on your character—all of these experiences can create powerful feelings of sadness, remorse, and anger. If you don’t take control of your attitude and negative emotions and find a way to ease the intensity, they can cause serious mental, physical, and spiritual deterioration.
We can take classes in school to learn how to control our finances, our careers, and even our overall successes, but where do we sign up for Attitude Control 101? A psychologist at Case Western Reserve University surveyed more than four hundred men and women, asking them what they did to control their attitudes. Nearly all of those surveyed said they were basically at the mercy of their moods. The same study found that the emotion most people had the greatest difficulty controlling was anger. Not much of a surprise there. Some people’s lives are virtually controlled by inner rage. Their attitudes are expressions of that rage. They have hair-trigger tempers. They are easily offended. Staying on their good side is a high-wire act. As a result, they often have few lasting relationships.
People who are quick to anger often feel regret after they’ve experienced a blowup. “I’m sorry, I just lost control,” they’ll say. In some extreme cases of mental illness caused by a chemical imbalance, that may be true. It’s also true that it is all but impossible for people caught up in a raging tantrum to return to reason immediately. They are usually beyond rational thought at that point. But in most cases, moderate anger can be controlled, and so can other emotions that carry negative consequences. Despair, grief, hatred, jealousy, resentment, fear, anxiety, and other potentially harmful feelings may sweep into our consciousness, but these troubling emotions can also be swept out. Your attitude is your responsibility.
Change Your Attitude with
a Change in Perspective
A friend told me that it used to drive him crazy when he would drive home after a hard day through rush hour traffic and find the driveway to his garage impassable, blocked by his children’s bicycles and toys. Nearly every day he’d have to get out and clear a path. He would lecture his kids about putting their toys away and keeping them out of the driveway, but it did no good. He even threatened to run over their toys. The kids would keep his path clear for a day or two but then fall back into their old habits. And he would get upset when he couldn’t get his car into the garage after a long day of work and commuting.
Then one evening, my friend came home and once again found the driveway cluttered with Hot Wheels, sidewalk chalk, Star Wars figures, Barbie dolls, bicycles, and tricycles. He left his car at the end of the driveway, got out, and angrily began clearing a path, getting madder and madder with each toy he picked up.
At first, he didn’t see his retired neighbor walk over and begin cleaning up toys alongside him. The neighbor’s youngest daughter had married a few weeks earlier and moved to another state. They hadn’t talked since the wedding. When my friend realized that his neighbor had joined him in the cleanup, he looked at him and muttered, “I’m sick of cleaning up behind these kids.”
“Hope you don’t mind if I help,” the neighbor responded. “I really miss doing this now that Jamie’s grown up and gone. You should enjoy it while it lasts. Your kids will be gone before you know it too. It goes so fast.”
Without being aware of it—or maybe he was aware of it—the neighbor had delivered a powerful lesson. After that, my friend never again got angry when there were toys in the driveway. In fact, he said that from that point on, whenever he came home he felt gratitude when he saw bicycles and Barbie dolls spread out all over his driveway. “The kids are still kids. I’ve got more time with them,” he now thinks.
The driveway still looks like Toys “R” Us after an earthquake. His children are not putting their toys away. Nothing has changed but his perspective. Yet his attitude has changed dramatically. My friend simply learned to reframe the situation. He substituted gratitude for anger and changed his attitude for good.
You Determine the Value
of Your Experiences
Have you ever thought about the true value of a one hundred dollar bill? What would it be worth if you were alone on a desert island? Only the little shade it might provide, right? Without someone willing to trade you goods or a service for that one hundred dollar bill, it is worthless. Its worth is only what someone else is willing to give you in exchange for it. Otherwise, it’s just a piece of paper. The bill’s value depends on your point of view.
It’s the same with pretty much everything in the world and everything that happens to you. If you lose your job, the experience has only the value you give it. You can take an attitude of defeat and anger, or you can take the attitude that you are now free to explore other options or to do what you have always wanted to do. It is a matter of perception. It’s up to you to assign a value or meaning to it based on the point of view you decide to take.
If the idea of tuning up your attitude by changing your perspective sounds a little too easy to you—maybe a little Pollyannaish—think for a moment about some of the worst things that happened to you in childhood, those things that seemed like terrible tragedies at the time. Your dog died. You fell off your bicycle and broke your front teeth. You kicked a ball through a church’s stained glass window. You got called to the principal’s office.
Now reflect on those things. Didn’t you learn something about life? Didn’t new opportunities arise even if something was lost? Didn’t some benefits come of those experiences too?
There are benefits to be found in almost anything that happens to you. Sometimes they are not always obvious right away, but if you take a long-term perspective and understand that what is happening right now is only a temporary thing, you will be less likely to become embittered or to form a negative attitude because of things that happen to you.
Some things that happen to you may seem impossible to deal with or to reframe at first. The death of a loved one, for example, triggers grief, a very powerful emotion. Just when you think you’ve learned to “handle it,” grief can resurface unexpectedly. At first, it can seem unbearable, but it’s not permanent. Believe it or not, grief follows a well-charted course. There are many great books on the process of grief, and a grief counselor can help you deal with it effectively. So can loved ones. I’m not suggesting that it will be easy. It never is. There are ways to reframe the grieving experience, though. I’ve found that it helps me to take the perspective that the loved one I’ve lost would want me to go on with life and to enjoy its blessings for as long as I am given.
What you allow yourself to think about your grief or depression can either make it better or worse. Again, you and I have very little control over what happens to us in this chaotic world, but we do have the power to control our responses to what happens and the attitudes we present to the world. We are not helpless.
I came home from playing basketball at the gym one day when I was thirteen years old and found my father packing his bags. He called me into the bedroom and said, “I’ve got to leave. Your mom and I have not gotten along in years. I’m going to live somewhere else. We’ll be getting a divorce.”
I didn’t know what to say. I used to shut my door and put pillows over my head so I couldn’t hear them arguing. My sister would try to stop them. She’s now a police captain, by the way, still serving as a “peace officer.” I asked my dad if he would give me a ride back to the gym. Looking back, I think I just wanted to find a way to spend a little more time with him. I felt guilty that he was leaving, as if I hadn’t done my job. I was full of guilt and regret. It was my fault they didn’t get along.
We didn’t say much on the way to the gym. I felt I understood. I thought I could handle it. I remember getting out of the car saying, “I’ll see you later, Dad.” It was all I could think to say.
Divorce was not such a common thing back then. I felt both guilt and shame. When my friends asked where my dad was, I’d tell them he was sick or on vacation. I lost interest in basketball, my friends, and school. I was quiet, but my inner conversation wasn’t. I’ll never get over this. My entire life is ruined! Why didn’t I do something to keep them together?
My grandmother, bless her, saw me moping around and picked up on it. “You’re holding on to something,” she said. “It’s not your fault that they split up.”
I asked her if she could get my father back with my mom. My grandmother knew it was best for this marriage to end. She told me that my parents would never get back together, but they were still my mother and father. I told her I was worried that my father would move away and forget me. “He has moved out,” she said, “but he is never going to move away or forget you.”
My grandmother, in her wisdom, took the burden of my parents’ divorce off my shoulders. She saw that I had personalized the breakup of my parents’ marriage, which is common for children going through a divorce. She also noted that I had interpreted my father’s move from the house as if he were moving entirely out of my life, so she assured me that was not the case. She helped me see that my life was not going to change dramatically, that there was still a strong foundation of family to support me.
She told me that I could still go to my father because he would probably need me more than ever. She said my mother too would be looking to me for support and love. My grandmother did me a great favor that day. She not only helped me deal with my parents’ divorce, she also gave me a primary lesson in managing my emotions and adjusting my attitude.
The Three P’s That Cause Bad Attitudes
There are three points to remember when faced with a major challenge. If you keep them in mind, you will get back on your feet much quicker, and you will be far less likely to develop a negative attitude as a result of bad experiences. Remember that the challenge is not:
When you’re working all three P’s, psychologists say you’ve adopted an attitude of “learned helplessness.” Bad things happen to good people. Some get hit with tragedy after tragedy. Others walk through life virtually unscathed. Understand that life is going to hand you challenges. It may even seem to knock you down to the ground sometimes. You don’t have much choice in that. But you do have control over how you respond. You must have faith that you will overcome.
Gratitude and Forgiveness:
The Antidotes to Negative Attitude
I read a magazine story about a married couple who were devastated initially when they learned that their youngest child had Down’s syndrome. They grieved because they felt the child would never have a normal or happy life, which to them meant being accepted, being self-sufficient, and having a fulfilling life. “Why did this happen to us?” they asked.
As the parents learned more about Down’s syndrome and as the child grew older, their perspective changed. They began to see that this child had a joyful, loving spirit. He had his own unique outlook on what constituted a fulfilling life. When he won a race at the Special Olympics, he was thrilled beyond words. In time the parents came to feel that they had been blessed to have such a child. “Our lives are richer because of this young man and what he has taught us about unconditional love,” they concluded.
Instead of being saddened about what had happened to them, this couple learned to feel gratitude. Their adjustment did not occur overnight. True wisdom rarely comes in lightning bolts. They had to deal with a wide range of emotions including disappointment, grief, and fear. Those feelings came to them, but they did not allow them to live within them. As a result, their attitudes eventually became far more positive and constructive.
When your car runs low on fuel, you go to the service station and fill the tank so you can keep going, right? When your cell phone battery loses power, you plug it back into the power source, don’t you? Why is it, then, that when your emotions and attitude take a downward plunge, you don’t look to your own source of rejuvenation?
We all have a reserve of positive memories and emotions that we can tap into during challenging times. The source that I plug into is God. For some reason, we seem to plug into negative sources more often. In sad times, we tend to plug into emotions like regret, helplessness, and sorrow rather than recharging our attitudes with more empowering feelings.
Two of the best antidotes to a negative attitude are gratitude and forgiveness. When the couple with the Down’s syndrome child learned to feel gratitude rather than disappointment and fear, they moved from an attitude of hurting to one of healing. The same thing occurred with the father who had been angry because he couldn’t get past the toys to his garage. Their lives became happier and richer with that simple exchange of emotions.
It is deceptively simple, isn’t it? All it takes is exchanging one mind-set for another. When you stop blaming and criticizing or feeling hurt and angry, you are then free to forgive and love, to be grateful and accepting. There’s so much to be grateful for. I try not to take anything for granted. Each day I try to count at least a hundred things I’m grateful for. I find that it improves my attitude for the entire day. Knowing you’re blessed allows you to attain a level of patience, understanding, and joy. When you focus on your challenges instead, you become unsettled, impatient, and unhappy.
What others do to you doesn’t cause your bad attitude. Your own thoughts and the emotions you allow to live within you cause it. If you allow yourself to be grateful and forgiving, you’ll be able to let go of pride, ego (which stands for Edging God Out), anger, vindictiveness, criticism, judgment, and hurt.
We demand an awful lot from others, more than we usually demand of ourselves. If we accept that we are human and make mistakes and misjudgments, we should be willing to forgive others.
A few years ago I rushed to judgment on the two people who were working in my office, managing my bookings, travel arrangements, and financial affairs. The business was growing very quickly, and they had become overwhelmed. One of them had health problems that added to the burden. Since I was traveling constantly, I did not see that they were overloaded, but I could detect that there were problems. I brought in some consultants to make recommendations. My staff wouldn’t follow their directives. I felt they had the wrong attitudes. Realistically, they weren’t equipped to handle the business because of its explosive growth. When things didn’t work out, I decided to let an outside firm manage my business. They doubled the people in the office, but we experienced many of the same problems.
At that point I realized I’d been harsh in my judgment of my original staff, who had been very loyal to me. I went to the two individuals and asked for their forgiveness.
Forgiving each other allowed us to work together again. We became closer and developed mutual respect. We learned to appreciate our respective strengths and weaknesses. We reached a real sense of inner peace because there was no bitterness or hurt. We realized that we shared the same goals, and we created an environment in which we worked together to find ways to achieve those goals.
It’s important to forgive people. Forgiveness does not require you to maintain relationships with harmful and hurtful individuals. If you’ve been abused physically or emotionally, forgive them in your heart. Forgiveness releases you from the pain and the anger. It allows you to release negative feelings and replace them with a spirit of peace. You can have a loving attitude from a distance.
Self-forgiveness is important too. Some people find it difficult to forgive themselves because they’re perfectionists. They’ve set an unrealistic standard. We all need to realize we’re not perfect. In college when I became very ill, I had to adopt an attitude of self-forgiveness. I was mad at myself for being sick and not being able to do anything about it.
I once met a young woman who shared her story of self-forgiveness. For five years, Stacey had been addicted to drugs. She’d quit for a while and then return to her destructive behavior. Her breakthrough came when a counselor made her look him in the eye and tell him how she felt about herself and her life. It was the beginning of self-acceptance. She said that for the first time in her life she had to take a close look at who she was and to confront her guilt and her fear. Most of her life, she’d been afraid that she wouldn’t like herself. Then one day she wrote a letter to herself apologizing for her behavior, for keeping people at a distance, and for not loving herself. Once she forgave herself, she had the courage and the strength to stop using drugs. She says that each day she asks God to help her continue to do her best.
Here are other important points to consider when tapping into the power of forgiveness.
Give Yourself Permission
to Love and Forgive
My relationship with my father always seemed a little distant. I hungered for his approval, and he didn’t easily give it. The son of a blue-collar worker, he improved his life through hard work and intellectual challenges and became a college professor. He believed his role was to push me, not praise me. If I came home with C’s and B’s on my report card, he would say, “You can do better.” If I told him I’d scored twenty points in a game, he’d say the competition must not have been real strong. I didn’t understand it then, but my dad was pushing me to achieve at a higher level and trying to keep me humble.
My buddy Dan Clark gave a speech on the power of effective communications. Dan said, “The next time we give this seminar, let’s take a survey and ask how many men have heard their fathers say, ‘I love you.’” That night I realized that I had never heard my father tell me he loved me. Later that night I called my grandma and talked to her about it. She said something to me I’ll never forget. “I know your daddy loves you, but looking back, I don’t think his father ever told him.”
Sometimes in life, when you want something you have to be willing to take the initiative. I decided that on my dad’s birthday I’d call and tell him “I love you.” If you want more friends, you’ve got to be a friend. If you want love, you’ve got to give love. As a result of that one birthday call, my father and I regularly tell each other “I love you.”
Three of the strongest motivating words in the world happen to be the three least used: I love you. Do you know someone who is overdue to hear those words?
Letting go of blame, hurt, and anger and replacing those negative emotions with an attitude of forgiveness and gratitude is a powerfully healing experience. It also returns responsibility for your life back to you. It’s no longer anyone else’s fault that you haven’t accomplished your dreams or achieved your goals. Once the blaming stops, you accept responsibility. I think that not wanting to accept responsibility is why so many people hide behind negative attitudes.
It may be true that someone else is responsible for something that happened to you, but once you’ve identified that person, what purpose does it serve to continue blaming him or her? Let go of the blame, forgive, and take back the responsibility for your life. Tell yourself that you have the power to heal through forgiveness and gratitude. Be accountable. Begin today to forgive those people in your life who have caused you anguish or pain.
My friend Janelle shared her story of forgiveness with me. She and her father had a tense relationship. He expected her to fit his image of the “proper” female. He felt she should have gotten married and stayed home to raise children, but she didn’t. She’s single, independent, and a well-educated professional. As a result, she has rarely received his approval. He became upset with her and refused to speak to her about the situation.
Janelle has a forgiving heart. Even though she had been treated poorly by her father, she took the initiative and wrote him a letter to try and open communication with him. He refused to read it. She wrote another letter. He didn’t read that one either.
When his birthday came, she sent him a large bouquet of flowers with a card saying, “Daddy, I love you.” That kind gesture opened the lines of communication. They had a loving, painfully honest, emotional talk.
She forgave him.
Many times we take on an attitude of helplessness in these situations. What can I do, he won’t respond? I’ve done all I can. It’s up to him now to reach out. Since Janelle was willing to humble herself and to choose love over frustration and anger, there was a breakthrough.
Love is patient and kind;
it is not jealous or conceited or proud;
love is not ill-mannered or selfish or irritable;
love does not keep a record of wrongs;
love is not happy with evil;
but is happy with the truth.
Love never gives up;…
Love is eternal.
—I CORINTHIANS 13:4–8
Attitude Tune-Up
Remember that your real wealth is measured not by what you have, not by where you are, but by the spirit that lives within you.