Have you ever let yourself get carried away by feelings of hopelessness, anger, or despair when things don’t go as planned? It’s important to remember that we may not have full control over all the things that happen in life, but we always have full control over one thing, and that is our attitude. Our attitude, or the way we see things, can change our life.

Why Your Attitude Is So Important

Your thoughts, attitude and what you believe about yourself, create your reality. How can this be? What you think about is stored in your Reticular Activating System (RAS). This is a part of your brain that filters everything you observe and only sends what it thinks is important to your brain. I talked about this at length in a previous post.

Here’s how it works. My husband and I are thinking about purchasing a Jeep Wrangler. Now that it is on our minds, whenever I go out, my RAS considers Jeep Wranglers to be important to me. Hence, whenever it sees a Jeep Wrangler, it alerts my RAS. All of a sudden it feels like there are so many Wranglers on the road! But did everyone really go out and buy a Jeep Wrangler? Of course not! The only difference is that my brain notices them on the road because I’ve decided that it’s important.

The human body sends 11 million bits per second to the brain for processing, yet the conscious mind can only process 50 bits per second. That’s only 0.0004%. Ultimately, you only process 0.0004% of your reality, depending on what your thoughts and attitude are. So, if you have a positive attitude, you will see that your life in fact is full of possibilities and positive opportunities. However, if you think everyone is out to get you, and everything goes wrong, you will keep seeing what is going wrong. The reality is that BOTH circumstances are out there. But you only see a fraction of it.

How can you change your attitude?

1. Take responsibility rather than blame. When something goes wrong, rather than blaming the situation or thinking “poor me”, consider how you can take responsibility for this situation. What actions led you to this? How can you make this situation better?

When you take responsibility, you not only learn what you can do better, but you also give yourself the power to improve the situation. On the other hand, when you blame the situation and adopt a victim mindset, you rely on someone or something else to fix the situation for you (which rarely happens). At the end of the day, you’ll be the one who is stuck in the ‘bad’ situation.

2. Choose positive thoughts. As humans, we have something called the negative bias. This is our tendency to think negative thoughts, which helps protect us. By automatically thinking of the worst-case scenario, our ancestors could save themselves from poisonous berries. If they heard a sound, they could protect themselves from a tiger.

However, we no longer need such survival mechanisms in our modern lives. So, instead of seeing the negative, look for the good in each situation. For example, if you are rejected for a job opportunity, rather than feeling dejected, consider the better opportunities you might get! If you get stuck in traffic, rather than complaining about the waste of time, consider the extra time it gives you to call a loved one before work!

Choosing a positive attitude creates a multitude of possibilities for you in your life.

3. Be grateful. The best way to adopt a positive attitude is by cultivating a habit of gratitude. An attitude of gratitude enables you to appreciate all the good in your life, so that it gets easy to find the good even in negative situations.

As you build a habit of practicing gratefulness every day, you will find that you automatically think and feel more positive!

Have you ever been with someone who has brought out a negative side in you? Maybe it was a friend in high school with whom you used to gossip. Perhaps it was a relationship in which your partner brought out all your insecurities.

Who we spend time with plays a big role in our lives. Our behaviors, actions, and mindsets are often influenced by people we spend a lot of time with.

This can be a beneficial thing when we surround ourselves with kind, positive, inspiring, and uplifting people with a growth mindset. However, if we find ourselves with people who are negative, always complaining or blaming, and trying to find the worst in other people, we can also find ourselves being pulled down by that negativity. Remember, misery loves company. 

It’s better to be extremely circumspect with who you spend time with, and sometimes it can be better to be alone.

Here are 3 reasons why it is better to be healthy alone, than sick with someone else.

1. You can focus on your own growth. Rather than spending time with people who are always complaining or being negative, you can focus on your own personal growth. With so much time for yourself, you can spend time learning, reading, picking up a new hobby, and achieving your goals. Not only can you do all the things you never had time for earlier, but you can focus on your self-improvement and create a more positive lifestyle for yourself, free of negativity and drama.

2. You get to know yourself better. Spending time alone is a beautiful experience. As much as I love spending time with others, I also cherish the time I have for myself. You get to know yourself better, you become more confident, and you become stronger. You figure out what you like, how you like to spend your time, and what makes you happy. By learning more about yourself and spending time with yourself, you also increase your confidence since you no longer need to rely on others to feel safe. By being able to spend time alone, you don’t need people to feel good.

3. You can attract other positive people. Choosing to be alone rather than surrounding yourself with negative people gives you the huge benefit of attracting the kind of people you want in your life. If you are in a toxic relationship, the right person will think you are unavailable. If you surround yourself with people you call your friends, but who bring you down, then you might never find your real tribe. However, by disconnecting with people you don’t want to be with, you leave space in your life for the kind of people who you do want. It’s easy to surround yourself with people who are full of negativity to avoid being alone. As human beings, we crave community and social acceptance. However, it’s important to consider the negative impacts that spending time with the wrong kind of people can have on you. At the end of the day, it is your choice: would you rather be alone and healthy or with people who harm your soul just to avoid being lonely?

Sometimes goal achievement is not as smooth and easy as certain experts would have us believe. You might take all of the right action steps, visualize the outcome you want, recite dozens of affirmations, and basically do everything in your power to make it happen, but you still can’t seem to move forward.

When this happens, it’s more likely to be caused by something that’s happening inside of you, rather than outside. You might be taking all of the right steps and working hard to achieve your goal, but if your inner conviction and determination are not fueling your desire, you are probably just going through the motions as if you’re walking on a treadmill, expending a lot of energy but not getting anywhere.

There are two key inner qualities to consider when it comes to goal achievement: intentionality and belief.

To achieve your goals, you must be intentional about your daily habits. Do your daily habits help you get closer to your goals and support the life you say you want to have? Or do they actually lead you away from them? Remember, your focus determines your reality.

Next, ask yourself if you really believe that it’s possible for you to have this outcome you want? Do you believe that you deserve to have it? You must truly believe in what you’re doing and know your reason why you’re doing it for you to be able to make it a reality. And when you truly believe that you deserve to reach your dreams, you will be amazed at what you attract into your life.

You see, the universe falls in love with a stubborn heart. It loves the underdog and wants the underdog to win. When you refuse to give up, the universe will reveal new opportunities for you simply because you are out there and looking for them – which is more than what most people do.

In The Wire, the character Omar Little robs from drug dealers in Baltimore. He is notorious in the area and when he is seen by people in the neighborhood, it is common for them to shout that Omar is coming and to take cover. As he walks with a shotgun by his side, he will whistle “The Farmer in the Dell“. While he does shoot people, he has a strict moral code in that he won’t harm innocent “civilians”.

After Omar is shot at, he proclaims, “You come at the king, you best not miss.”

For Omar, if someone is going to come at him, they better kill him, otherwise they are as good as dead.

The lesson here, is that sometimes you only have one shot to do something. And this is where I hear Mike Ehrmantraut’s voice from Breaking Bad in my head, saying, “No more half measures, Walter.” Just like in the meth world, in Omar’s world, half measures will get anyone killed.

We spend so much of our lives looking ahead, trying to get to the next destination that we believe will make us happy. It seems as if we’re always on our way to somewhere else, and while it’s great to have goals and dreams to keep us motivated and engaged with life, too much of an outer focus can result in missing the joy of the inner journey.

The inner journey is all about the person we become as we move through the outer journey of our lives. As we strive to improve ourselves and our circumstances, as we set goals and achieve them, or fail to achieve them. And we become a completely different person than we were when we took that first step. Without the inner growth and development, we experience along the way, the outer goals would be completely meaningless.

Take a moment right now to consider your own outer journey through life so far. Think about the many experiences you have had in your life, the struggles and triumphs, and everything you have learned along the way. Think about the person you were five years ago, ten years ago, and the person you are today. You’re not even the same person you were back then, are you?

Your name might be the same, your appearance may not have changed that much, and perhaps you still have your dominant personality traits, but you have become so much more than you were when you started this grand adventure. You’re probably a lot wiser, more mature, maybe more focused, with greater clarity about who you really are and what you want in life.

Now imagine who you will be five years from now, or even a few decades from now. How might you stretch and grow beyond the person you are today? How might you make your inner journey a bigger part of your focus as you continue moving forward?

One good way to start is by simply acknowledging that the whole point of the outer journey is to enrich and deepen your inner journey. Rather than getting too hung up on “getting somewhere” outwardly, focus more on the lessons and insights that you gain from each experience. It’s certainly okay to have goals and dreams that you’re striving to fulfill, but also enjoy yourself along the way to them.

Celebrate the growth that you attain through each experience you have. Pause the outer journey periodically and appreciate where you are in the moment. Feel good about how far you’ve come and all that the journey has gifted to you along the way.

This is especially important when you experience disappointment or struggle, and your outer journey is not going along as you’d hoped it would. It’s easy to think that your progress has been stalled or you’ve somehow gotten derailed onto the wrong path, but what if the stall is actually a crucial part of the inner journey? What if the delay is contributing to your growth much more than an easy journey would have?

If you can keep this possibility in mind and simply embrace where you are in the moment, your inner journey becomes even more meaningful, and the outer progress will resume with greater ease and flow.

Have you ever been so hurt and angry that you vowed never to forgive the person who betrayed you? It’s understandable to want to hold onto anger because on some level you may believe that forgiving the other person means condoning their treatment of you. You might also worry that forgiving them will make you vulnerable to future hurt, so you hold onto the anger as a sort of shield.

While anger begins as a healthy emotion, it will eventually become toxic to your mind, body, and spirit if you refuse to process it in a healthy way. Repressed anger eventually becomes resentment, and it can cause health problems and depression, keep you feeling distrustful of other people, and even prevent you from living a joyful life.

Forgiveness is the path to healing and emotional freedom, but it’s a gift that you give to yourself, not anyone else. You don’t even need to tell the other person that you are forgiving them. This is only to free yourself from the bondage of anger and resentment.

The first step in forgiveness is to give your feelings a voice. One effective method is to write out all of your feelings in a journal, or write a letter directly to the person who hurt you and tell them exactly how their actions made you feel. You don’t need to send this letter, it’s only for you to express your feelings.

If writing isn’t your thing, you can pretend that the person is standing before you and simply speak aloud everything you wish you could say to them. You can also process your anger through physical activity. Turn on some music and perform an interpretive dance, or take a walk and imagine anger oozing out through your feet with every step you take.

Regardless of how you do it, allow yourself to be fully present with your feelings of hurt, anger, sadness, or any other emotions connected to the betrayal. Take your time with this process. Depending on how strong the emotions are, it may take several days or even longer to fully process them. You will know when the feelings have been fully processed when you can think about the memory and feel more peaceful about it. Even if it’s an unpleasant memory, at least it should no longer trigger intense feelings.

Next, begin affirming your intention to forgive, but slant it in a way that emphasizes that you are doing this for yourself, not the other person. Say something like, “I forgive you, (name) and I release your energy from my consciousness. I choose to be free and happy now.” Again, it may take some time before you are able to fully let it go. Work at it daily until you feel an inner release and a sense of peacefulness, even when you think about that person.

Lastly, be sure to forgive yourself for any regrets or self-blame that you may be harboring. Say, “I let go of all self-blame, and I love and forgive myself completely.” As you work through this process, you will feel a clear mental and emotional shift from anger and sadness to freedom and joy, and it will truly feel as if you have given yourself the greatest gift.

In Cobra Kai, Daniel offers some wisdom to his daughter Sam. In the third season, Sam is struggling with the trauma of having gotten into a fight at school and Miguel becoming seriously injured. She tries to push through it and is faced with setback after setback. Daniel gently reminds her that she is the only one who can get up when she is down and that no one else can do it for her. She has to make the decision to stand up for herself.

Even when we are surrounded by an incredible support system, at the end of the day, we are the ones who have to stand up and fight for ourselves. Our support system can’t make that decision for us.

When I was diagnosed with cancer, I knew that I had to be my own best health advocate. No matter how much other people around me helped and made sure that I got what I needed from doctors, I was and remain, the person who is most invested in a good outcome and peace of mind for myself. For me, that meant I had to educate myself as much as I could. I had to spend the time I would rather spend chasing waterfalls or traveling understanding my condition and all the potential treatments, that weren’t necessarily standard of care at the hospital. I had to make myself a priority, which was really hard for me, because I had never done it before.

When life comes and knocks you down, you may have an amazing group of cheerleaders around you, but you have to be the one to stand back up. You must decide that your life or whatever it is you want is worth fighting for and that you are willing to do whatever it takes to overcome your struggles.

Are you willing to stand back up when you get knocked down?

Many of us have this idea that if we insist on being treated well, we are being too selfish or “high maintenance”. But there is a huge difference between being high maintenance in a relationship and having the reasonable expectation of being treated fairly and well.

In my younger years, I struggled with feeling selfish for wanting to be treated well. I often felt like when set boundaries with someone or I stood up for myself, I was overreacting to the situation. I would second guess myself and end up caving in because I felt guilty holding someone to a reasonable standard. In my mind at the time, it didn’t feel like a reasonable standard. I felt like I was being unfair and expecting more than what any reasonable person could give. But the truth is, I was being fair and reasonable. And in many cases friends and family were appalled at the nonsense I put up with, not understanding why I would do so. But now, I see exactly why I did.

When you come from a place of lack or not feeling like you are enough, you will compromise yourself every step of the way – without even realizing it. You will put up with shitty treatment, because on some level, you don’t believe you are worthy of being treated well. I also held the belief that the way you show love is by going over and beyond for others, even at the expense of your own well-being. This is a very distorted way of seeing yourself, and for me, it was self-destructive.

In a previous post, I listed some reasons why I’ve accepted nonsense in my relationships. Maybe you can relate to some of them.

• Feeling guilting setting limits and boundaries or that I am being unfair by doing so
• Wanting to save someone or seeing their “potential”
• Fear of being alone
• Poor self-esteem and self-worth, like not believing I deserve better treatment
• Overall insecurity with myself

You can read the full post here.

There were two things that really helped me start to see that I was worthy of deserving to be treated well. One, I started to practice self-care. And this was really hard for me. I felt selfish doing things for myself and didn’t even really get anything out of it at first. But I kept doing it anyway, and eventually, I started to look forward to doing those things and found it recharging. It also helped me reconnect to myself. When I started doing things to nourish my soul, I was reminded of who I was at my core. And ironically, as I started to invest more in my own well-being, I found it harder to be around people who didn’t see me as worthy of basic respect and kindness. If you struggle with finding ways to practice self-care, I created a page on our website that can help you get started. 

The second thing that helped me overcome this way of thinking was a litmus test. When I started to second guess whether or not I was being selfish for wanting to be treated decently, I asked myself a question. If my best friend came to me and asked me if she was being selfish for the same exact thing that I was feeling selfish for, what would I tell her? Almost every time, it was like, “no, you aren’t being selfish at all.” I had that conversation with myself when those thoughts popped in my head. Eventually, I was able to start standing up for myself more and setting healthier boundaries.

In some cases, setting boundaries worked well, and in other cases, it didn’t – so be prepared for that. I wrote a post all about setting boundaries and how some people will get angry when you set them. You can read about it here.

Remember, you can still be the kind, giving person you are and still be treated with love and respect. If you’re like me and are more of an empath by nature, you have to find a way to balance your desire to give to others, with creating healthy boundaries for yourself.