9/05/2009

FUEL: Attitude

I am currently reading our latest book program FUEL The Energy You Need To Succeed by Wes Beavis. I haven't gotten halfway through the book but I am definitely learning a lot already. The books talks about the "fuels" that we need in order to have the energy needed as we travel our way to success. Let me share some lines that I highlighted as I go along and maybe share some thoughts and experiences.

You see, I always thought before that I already got what it takes to succeed in life. And I always believed I was taking the right path. Until halfway through it, I realized how sick and tired and unhappy I was. I knew right there and then that something was wrong. I was looking. I knew deep inside that life is much more than working your way up in your career and sacrificing time for your self, family, your passion and the things that you most care about.

Something came that opened my eyes to a whole new definition of life and success. And it was a confirmation of what I was feeling that something was wrong. I was put into a new perspective and it got me really excited and looking forward to every day.

Success for me is being able to get or reach all your dreams... the things that you ache about... those burning desires. But success, as most always tell me, is not an immediate realization of the dream... it is a progressive realization of the dream. There is a journey involve, and in it comes bumpy rides. Now, what you need to prepare for the journey is "fuel" that you will use to be able to travel your way to success.

A positive ATTITUDE can change your circumstances to be more favorable for you.

Attitude is our emotional response on situations and circumstances. We can either respond positively or negatively. However we choose, it creates a change in the atmosphere. But positive attitude creates a favorable outcome for us. Before I committed myself on personal growth, I got the worst attitude. Short tempered, whiner,impatient... I can hurl criticisms anytime, anywhere. I was a perfectionist and I always thought that no once can do better than me. My ego.. my pride was so high that I needed no one. I thought I was just being strong and independent. Until I started to build myself, I realized I was nowhere near the qualities of a great person!

Fine tuning my attitude was a bumpy ride for me. Until now, I am still a work in progress. There are still times when I am faced with difficult situations or people that I am tempted to respond negatively: like hurl back negative words, criticize, bring down the person or get defensive and never admit that I did wrong too. But I am learning to become positive. When I feel like going to the other side of the fence, I read books on attitude, listen to empowering CD's or just think of good things. And now I practice to see the other side of whatever situation I am in. I learn to get out of myself and put it in the other person's shoes. Then I ask myself, will I react the way he did I am in the same shoes? At times, I look at the brighter side of things. I try to see the positive things that came out from the bad situation. It helps also to be counting the things I should be grateful for. Like the other day when I was stuck in the rain and I was running late because of our shuttle driver's dilly dallying. I can choose to pour out my anger to the person but I thought, will it make any difference at all? And what good will that make? I just might be actually hurting the person and in turn lose his respect. And i just decided, I'd better be giving time allowance for such incident next time so I won't run late again.

You see, we have a choice on how we react to situations. It is just a matter of posing for a while and checking if it will do any good if I do this or do the other way.

If you have hot buttons which "set you off" work out a mental strategy ahead of time for how to maintain calmness when one of those buttons is pushed.

One of my hot buttons is CRITICISM. I don't take criticism positively. It sets me off so much that I react negatively in an instant! But I am doing a mental strategy now wherein I pose... then reassure myself that such criticism will not make me less of a person I am now. That I should treat those words as a way for me to identify things that I should be working on within me that will make me a better person.

Bottomline is, we can choose our ATTITUDE. And with it comes our action to know what is a good attitude and what is a bad attitude.

:-)

No comments: