Finding Peace in Your Life
If you are looking for peace in your life, a positive attitude is a great place to start! The following are five categories of skills to improve your attitude:
- Distraction
- Principles
- Restrictions
- Tolerance
- Values
Distraction
Sometimes your attitude can be so poor that even you don’t want to be around yourself! You have stopped using skills and have replaced them with all-or-nothing thinking, for example, “Nothing is ever going to go right,” “No one cares about me,” or “This situation will never end.”
A distraction can provide you with a morale boost so that you can return to your problem and solve it with fresh energy, wide-open eyes, and your full attention. The following is an example of something you can do to distract your mind:
Learn how to count to 10 in 5 foreign languages.
One distracting stress reliever is learning how to count to 10 in 5 different foreign languages. Worrying is like rocking in a rocking chair: lots of action, but you don’t go anywhere. If you fill your mind with learning how to count to 10 in a foreign language, you can distract your mind.
Principles
Principles are the basis of your beliefs. A principle is a basic, fundamental truth that helps guide you through life. These guiding principles dictate your behavior and can help you understand the difference between right and wrong.
When you are feeling content or happy, your attitude is influenced positively. When you feel grateful instead of frustrated, your attitude is influenced positively. When you can recite positive affirmations, your attitude is influenced positively. The following is an example of something you can do to focus on your principle:
Be thankful.
Read Thankful by Nancie J. Carmody (1933-2019). For your own mental wellbeing, it is important to look at things from a different perspective. Have you ever thought of being grateful for a heating bill because it means you have a home and have heat? Sometimes the things you complain about the most are really the things you should be thankful for, but only if you are able to change your attitude.
Restrictions
Frequently, your negative attitude is the result of real or perceived restrictions you place on yourself. You have been asked to carpool 6 kids to soccer practice. You don’t really want to do it but “can’t” say no, so you grudgingly, with a negative attitude, take the kids to practice, grumbling the whole way. No one has a good time.
When you understand your boundaries and hold firm to them, your attitude and your self-esteem can be positive. If you are not attempting to appease other people, you will actually feel less restricted and more confident in yourself. The following is an example of something you can do to create healthy restrictions or boundaries in your life:
Eliminate “I’ll try” from your vocabulary.
Saying, “I’ll try” is a game of “smoke and mirrors”. “I’ll try” is usually said to make someone else happy, but with no intention of follow-through. If you planned on doing something, you would just do it. You wouldn’t be talking about it. For example, “I will try to quit smoking cigarettes” is just a delaying technique. If you were really intent on quitting, you would say, “I quit smoking.”
Tolerance
Your ability to listen to others and be forgiving speaks to an attitude of tolerance. When you are not able to practice tolerance, your attitude can devolve into negative self-talk of “I know better than you” or “I am better than you.” Your attitude controls your ability to tolerate listening to someone, even if you do not agree with them—and especially if you do not agree with them!
The following is an example of something you can do to improve the tolerance you have for others:
Listen deeply.
There is listening, and then there is listening deeply. Listening is being engaged in a 50/50 conversation in which there is a give and take of thoughts and ideas. Listening deeply is 25/75, where your listening is at 75%. Deep listening is about hearing not only the words but also the tone of voice and watching body language. It is also hearing the intent and meaning behind the words.
Values
Your values and your attitude are usually very closely aligned. Both focus on what you believe in, your fundamental beliefs. When you know you are doing the “right thing”, consistent with your values, you feel confident and secure in your attitude. Your values help you determine your priorities in life. “Am I honest?” “Do I have integrity?” “Do I have courage?” These beliefs go to your core. Your values motivate you, and they guide your decisions. One of the things that will surely cause sleepless nights is living a life that is inconsistent with your values.
The following is an example of something you can do to enhance your values:
Practice integrity.
Integrity is about acting and speaking in accordance with your beliefs. It is about keeping your word and doing what you said you were going to do. Integrity in action is demonstrating that you know the difference between right and wrong. It means telling the truth, even if the truth may hurt.
Summary
If you have found this blog on attitudes to be interesting and/or helpful, you can read about 292 more skills for managing your life in my book, Crush Your Stress: 302 Coping Skills for Managing Your Stress.
With warmest regards,
Thank you so much for reading this blog. If you enjoyed the content, please check out other blogs at:
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In addition to blogs and articles, I have written a series of self-help books called The Personal Empowerment Series and a fictional series named The Charlotte Novella Series. To view my books and novellas I have written, please go to my Amazon Authors Page.
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