Change your attitude, change your life...

The remarkable thing we have is a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past. We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.” -Charles Swindoll

I remember going through a rough patch in my life a few years ago and each day I would wake up feeling anxious, discontented and just downright uncomfortable. I blamed my unhappiness on the fact that things just weren’t working out the way I wanted them to, it wasn’t going according to plan. As you may know, I’ve been studying self-development and coaching for about 14 years so I went to my personal library and started searching. I came across the above quote and this was a critical lesson for me. I had always just assumed that in order for me to feel better or happier, everything in my external world had to be fixed and better.

Many of us go along the line of allowing what is happening in our life to determine what kind of mood we are in. The circumstances of our lives become the driving force for our thoughts, feelings and behaviour. Then we look for something external to help us ease the uneasiness! But often the uneasiness that we are experiencing is a result of how we feel about our circumstances- it becomes a cycle that many of us can get stuck in.

 I dealt with this issue recently with a client and rather than trying to directly change what was happening (the circumstances), we worked on changing his perception and attitude. Once he was able to see his circumstances from another perspective, he was able to change his thoughts and behaviour. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and gain expecting different results. The new thoughts and behaviour that my client practised worked and he changed his circumstances and got out of a cycle he had been stuck in for years.

So, what external forces are you allowing to determine your current mood? Can you recognise that you may be stuck in this cycle? If so, I would strongly encourage you to look inside and take your mood back into your own hands. I can guarantee you that it feels so good and empowering to know that you don’t have to wait until your circumstances become what you want them to be. You are capable of determining your own inner experience not matter what is going on in the world around you.

Paula,

Your Aspirations Coach

‘The appearance of things change according to the emotions and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves." - Kahlil Gibran