The word Attitude is synonymous with Inner-Spirit. Your inner-spirit is made up of your deepest thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about yourself, others, and the world around you. Your attitude or Inner-Spirit has a greater impact on your success or failure than any other single factor in your life.

The great news is that you have control over your Attitude. It is something you have the power to create, direct, or change with the right knowledge of how to influence it.

Changing your attitude can be compared to learning to ride a bike. It requires a little bit of faith. At first this may feel like it requires a lot of faith, plus a little courage. But as you gain skill and momentum in your task, it begins to feel not only easier, but pleasurable, even satisfying.

If you have not previously learned how to change your attitude, the first time can feel scary, wobbling, and illogical. Shifting your attitude is an experience in leaving familiar, solid ground, just like riding a bike. You’re placing all your weight (trust) on the pedals of an object that feels unbalanced, unfamiliar, and unsafe; that is scary.

Yet, when you succeed at finding your new balance, when you feel the wind across your skin and through your hair, the pleasure, satisfaction, and fulfillment of learning something new, conquering your fear, and being rewarded with a new sense of capability and freedom are exhilarating!

Just like coasting on that bike, there is spiritual freedom in gaining the power to change your own attitude.

The single most significant decision I can make today is my choice of attitude.

~Charles Swindoll

There are many benefits of controlling your attitude. Among them are improvements in physical health, mental health, and spiritual power. Learning to control your attitude through adjustments gives you the power to completely transform yourself and the way the world responds to you. This means you get the power to transform your life by adjusting your attitude!

Attitude allows us to become the creators of our world, not just reactors. In other words, when you effectively choose your attitude (consciously and consistently) then you have the power to transform things in your life and in the world around you.

Choosing your attitude gives you the power to transform pain into pleasure, conflict into a satisfying connection, and poverty into fulfilling prosperity. You may think of it like transforming food scraps into rich compost for a thriving garden or permaculture food forest. Not only are these benefits possible, but they are also natural and normal. They are the innate essential qualities of being human.

Your attitude is YOUR choice. You choose how to act and react in any given situation.

Think about something you don’t like in your own life right now. Is your attitude loving, joyful, accepting? If not, what IS your attitude in this area?

My attitude in the area of my _____________ (health, x relationship, work, money, etc) is an attitude of ____________ (distrust, anger, impatience, defeat, disrespect, etc).

Now imagine that you transform your attitude into something positive. Imagine your changed attitude might allow you to give all parties concerned the possibility of a positive outcome; an outcome that is pleasant and satisfying to everyone involved!

My attitude in the area of my _____________ (health, x relationship, work, money, etc) is an attitude of ____________ (gratitude, hope, curiosity, courage, faith, joy, etc).

The later attitude options give you the edge. . . let’s explore more about how and why.

When you have a negative attitude, are fearful, or are angry, three or more parts of your brain shut down to allow you to save energy for fight or flight. On the contrary, when you adopt a positive attitude, not only does your brain function fully, but your digestion works better, your immune system is stronger, and it is easier to lose weight, build muscle, think clearly, and see opportunities for mutual success.

For example, cortisol (the stress hormone) causes the body to store belly fat. It also causes tension in the muscles which can lead to injury during physical exertion.

More recently people have discovered that adjusting your attitude ignites the #LawOfAttraction. A sustained shift in attitude soon causes changes in and to your environment.

Again, the power(choice) to choose the attitude you will have for that day is the power(choice) to shift pain into pleasure, conflict into satisfaction, and poverty into fulfillment.

Think nirvana/heaven/happiness…

Here is the challenge that most law of attraction “experts” don’t tell you. You will walk through the valley of the shadow of death of your bad, negative, fearful attitudes. You may feel like Alice in Wonderland wandering the dark forest before you step back through the looking glass into the light.

In other words, you have to move through your own shadows first before reaching the nirvana created by good attitudes!

In my own experience, I have found this to be true and it is the reason why I continue to strive to live Spirit-First with an attitude of #gratitude. Even with years of practice it still sometimes takes a conscious concerted effort to choose my attitude, and I am often required to “pick my battles”.

Like you, I sometimes am struggling in many areas of my life all at the same time…I just don’t try to work on all of them all at once. Working on too many things at once splits your attention into too many different directions. Your attention is your power.

Instead, I choose one top-priority as a focus. (To learn how to select top priorities see my post on Time Mgmt.)

My secret prioritization strategy is that I always start on health first, relationships next, and financial prosperity third. I’ll be writing another article on why soon, so stay tuned. To get FREE updates on my newest post Subscribe to get my email notifications.

The power we have over our attitudes is something I was introduced to somewhere between the age of 14 and 16 and it changed the trajectory of my entire life. You might say that learning about the power to choose my attitude saved my life.

Although I have continued to struggle with my attitude on and off throughout life (who doesn’t). . . I have also traveled through the valley of the shadow of death (through my bad attitude to a better one) many times and found this adventurous journey leads to glory, admiration, and pleasure. I’ve done this journey enough that I have been able to coach and advise others for more than a decade on ways to practically approach this in their real-world daily lives.

Below is a speech by Charles Swindoll that changed me and my life forever. Ever since reading this in my teenage years, no matter how low I got from things like losing love to the pain of confusion; I always knew with the power to choose my attitude that I could find my way back to the sweetness in life. Please read this respectfully and thoughtfully.

Attitude

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.

Attitude to me is more important than facts.

It is more important than the past,

then education, then money.

Then circumstances, than failures, then successes.

Then what other people think, or say, or do.

It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill.

It will make or break a company, … a church, …a home.

The remarkable thing is that we have a choice every day

regarding the attitude, we embrace for that day.

We can not change our past…

we can not change the fact that people will act in a certain way.

We cannot change the inevitable.

The only thing we can do is play the one string we have,

and that is our Attitude…

I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me

and 90% how I react to it.

And so it is with you, that we are in charge of our attitudes.

Charles Swindoll

Are you interested in learning to control your attitude to have the power to chose your inner most spirit?

Would you like to be able to experience freedom, love, joy, peace, satisfaction, and fulfillment in the face of anythings?

If you said yes to either of the above questions… than spiritual awakening is for you.

You have two steps ahead of you.

Step 1:

Learn more about living Spirit-1st. Learn how to pick your attitude battles. Learn how to choose your attitude and consistently stick to your choice (instead of defaulting to your shadow attitudes).

Step 2:

Get coaching and a community. Coaching in Attitude and Spirit-1st Living is a lot like coaching in anything else. It lets you better understand your strengths so you know what you are doing well. It teaches you the techniques and which tools can help you to strengthen your areas of weakness. Coaching is for people who want results and are willing to work hard but want to save themselves the delays and injuries of unneeded mistakes.

Part of Step 2 is to get a community. It is great to get coaching but any time you want to master something whether it is football, gymnastics, science, math, wisdom, or spiritual awakening, it is easier and more fun with a community.

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