138: Be In Control Of Your Attitude

<p>We can control 100% of our attitude.  Yes, but often we don’t.  There are few things we can be 100% in control of and our attitude would have to rank at the top of things we really need to control.  So you would think we would all be brilliant in this area.  We aren’t and so why do we have problems? </p> <p> </p> <p>Part of the issue can be allowing past failures to sap our mental fortitude.  We mentally re-run the movie in our minds of things we regret or events we actually don’t want to remember, but do anyway.  No amount of self-discipline seems to work,  shielding us from the past.  We seem drawn to flashbacks and re-living the past episodes where we fell short or failed.</p> <p> </p> <p>We are really creative too.  We don’t just allow the past to wipe out our positive attitude, we inject the future in there as well.  We project forward and start imagining all sorts of failures and issues we will suffer, before they ever even happen or arrive. </p> <p> </p> <p>The combination of past realities and future possibilities can be a powerful mix to drag us into a downward spiral, where the world seems bleak, dark and we are hopeless.  No matter how many self-affirmations we do or how positive we try to make ourselves, these prior and future fears weigh us down.</p> <p> </p> <p>What can we do about it?  Try to “live in day tight compartments”.  This means we focus 100% of our energy and attention on what is facing us today and don’t allow the past and future to impinge on our attitude. </p> <p> </p> <p>Here is the crucial mental shift we have to make – don’t try to block out what happened in the past – we can’t.  Instead though, we can recall it but not worry about it.  There is the crucial difference – acknowledge it happened, but don’t worry about the past - we can’t go back and change it.  Keep the focus totally on today, on what we can control and concentrate our energy and efforts there. </p> <p> </p> <p>The same applies to the future.  Of course we should consider what will happen in the future – hopefully