Today's Meditation:

Sometimes it seems impossible to convince my students that the main thing separating them from success in many areas of their lives is their own attitude.  One of the most consistent barriers that I see in them is the "I already know how to do this" attitude, which keeps them from being coached or from being taught something new and different.  Our best effort is important, but it's also important to be open to learning new ways to deal with old and immediate problems-- after all, if they are problems, then our ways of dealing with them probably are a bit ineffective.

All we have to do to shift our attitude is make decisions.  All we have to do to strive to give our best effort is make decisions to do so.  I've been in situations that have been almost unbearable, to the point that I've had to adjust my own attitude in order to make them more bearable.  In the Army, for example, there were times when we were forced to stand around and do nothing for very long periods of time, which was incredibly boring.  Once I shifted my attitude, though, to accept the situation and to try to look for the best in it, it wasn't so bad.  I started looking at it as a chance to get to know the people who were with me, to learn about why they were in the Army, where they were from, what their families were like, and so on.  Instead of being bored and frustrated and annoyed, my attitude turned those times into very interesting ones.

Having and showing a positive attitude isn't something that comes normally or easily to many of us.  But we do always have a choice of how we see things and how we approach them, and that's what Pat is talking about when he mentions a positive attitude.  The best effort is also very important, and also something that makes a huge difference in our actual attitudes.  With these two attributes of who we are, there's very little that we can't do in this world of ours.

Questions to consider:

Why do our attitudes tend so often not to be very positive?

What kinds of specific steps might we take to keep our attitudes positive? 

Do you give your best effort to everything that you do?  What are some reasons for which you might not do so?

For further thought:

Our environment, the world in which we live and work, is a mirror of our attitude and expectations.  If we feel that our environment could stand some improvement, we can bring about that change for the better by improving our attitude.  The world plays no favorites.  It's impersonal.  It doesn't care who succeeds and who fails.  Nor does it care if we change.  Our attitude toward life doesn't affect the world and the people in it nearly as much as it affects us.

Earl Nightingale

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