Chapter 1 Acceptance & Attitude

Years ago, when I lived in New York City, I used to take the subway to work. Usually, there were hundreds of people on the platform waiting for the train. Sometimes, the trains were late for one reason or another and I used to watch as a few of the commuters became anxious and stressed, trying to "make" the train come. We've all seen this type of person. I'll call him "Hyper Harry." Hyper Harry would begin pacing up and down the platform, look at his watch, then lean over and look down the track to see if the train was there. He would continue this ritual of pacing, looking and leaning as if doing this would somehow cause the train to arrive. Meanwhile, his blood pressure was rising and you could see the veins in his neck popping.

I noticed that, no matter how fast Harry paced, the train did not come any sooner. All of his pacing and anxiety had no effect whatsoever on the train. All it did was stress him out. Clearly this was a situation Harry could not change. He would have been happier and more at peace if he had simply accepted his powerlessness in the situation. Of course, he could have taken a taxi or bus. While we cannot change many situations, we can always change how it affects us.

How many of you, like Hyper Harry, will allow a situation that is out of your control to cause you emotional turmoil?
 

Acceptance

Acceptance is the first key to lifelong success. Acceptance means accepting ourselves, our conditions and the world around us ­ as it is. Not how we wish it to be. It means getting out of denial and getting honest with ourselves. It means analyzing a situation and accepting that which we cannot control or change. It means having the courage to change those things that are in our power to change. It means being wise enough to know the difference between the two. There is a wonderful little prayer - the Serenity Prayer - which can remind us to be more accepting:

God grant me the
Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
Wisdom to know the difference.

Denial

I'm not talking about the river in Africa (get it­the Nile?). I am talking about being fifty pounds overweight and going around believing it is because you've convinced yourself you have "big bones." Are your bones really big or are you simply overweight from eating too much and not exercising?

Accept yourself as you are right now. I am not suggesting that you should not consider reducing your weight to a more healthy number. I am simply suggesting that you must first accept and acknowledge your present condition.
People who have overcome addictions to alcohol, drugs, food or gambling have first learned to admit and accept their problem. This acceptance demonstrates your willingness to "own" the problem which, in turn, gives you the power to change it.
Affirm that you have created your current situation, either consciously or unconsciously, take responsibility for it, and become willing to change (we'll discuss change later in this book).

The more you can accept the reality of what is instead of how you wish things were, the more you will have taken the first step in creating a happy and successful life.

Accept yourself

Another, equally important, part of acceptance is accepting yourself just as you are, right now. Too many of us have been given negative self images and, unfortunately, bought into them. One of the major problems in our society has at its roots self esteem problems. Most criminals have a low self esteem. All you need to do to confirm this is visit a prison and talk to the inmates. The first thing you will notice is that they continually look down at the floor when speaking to you. This is a dead giveaway of a low self image.

During one of my workshops, a woman remarked how she did not like going to events and meeting new people because, as she put it, "then they will know how dumb I am." The truth of the matter is that she is a very intelligent person but has developed this negative self image and allowed it to limit her experience.
Louise Hay, the well known author, suggests we work with the affirmation, "I approve of myself." I urge you to try this for yourself, especially if you have a low self image. If you want to get a quick read on your present level of self esteem, stand in front of a mirror and say aloud, "I approve of myself." Don't be surprised if it makes you uncomfortable, even scared. I have seen people burst into tears doing this exercise. However, if you continue to do this, over time, you will begin to experience changes in how you feel about yourself and in your life in general. Louise suggests you recite, write, sing these words 300­400 times a day!

Practice receiving a compliment with a simple "thank you" instead of brushing them off by saying "its no big deal."

You deserve compliments. You deserve love. You deserve happiness. Remember, God doesn't make junk!

It is useful to keep in mind that, while you will never be perfect, you can become a perfect you. Personally, I have always liked the concept that my life is a work of art in progress. Like an artist working on a painting, I can work on different areas of my life. I am constantly changing, growing and evolving, refining a little at a time. Of course, it will never be fully completed. Life is about changing and growing.

By identifying the areas of your own life you want to change, you are on your way to building lifelong success. Later, we will develop definite plans for making changes, but for now, simply identify what it is you want to change.

To become clearer about the changes you want to make, complete the following exercise.

Exercise - Acceptance

On a sheet of paper, draw six boxes. Label them as shown, with the six major areas of your life:

Family/social
Career
Health/fitness
Spiritual/emotional
Financial
Mental/educational.

In each box, what it is you would like to change or work on improving. For example, if you are overweight and have health challenges, write that in the box marked "Health/Fitness." If your income is not what you would like it to be, write "increase income" in the "Financial" box.

You will, most likely, have something in each of the boxes. That's OK. Remember, we are all in a constant state of evolving.

Attitude

Another key to lifelong success is Attitude. Your attitude affects everything in your life. How's your attitude? Are you one of those people who is always blaming outside forces for your problems? Do you walk around in a negative state of mind most of the time? I think not. People like that would never have opened this book in the first place.
However positive you may be most of the time, there will be days when you just feel negative. While this may be fine for a brief period, prolonging a negative attitude has disastrous consequences. A negative attitude robs your initiative and destroys your discipline.

The "so what" or "who cares" attitude stops you from taking the actions that will help you build the kind of life you want to have.

Your attitude determines your altitude.

What happens

Here's how a negative attitude robs us of our potential for good. At one of the low points in my own life, I had developed a "who cares, what's the use" attitude. I felt that I was stuck where I was because of circumstances outside my control and blamed the world for my conditions. I figured I was at the bottom so why even care. The problem was, as I learned through a lot of emotional pain, is that there are always lower bottoms to which we can sink. As my attitude continued to be negative and blaming, my situation worsened.

Only when I was willing to take responsibility for my life, stop blaming and look for what little good remained, was I able to begin to turn this situation around.
A negative attitude keeps us stuck by robbing us of the self discipline we need to improve our conditions. If you take a "what's the use" approach to your circumstances, they will only get worse.

It is imperative you turn a negative attitude around and learn to become a positive person. Use the principles, techniques and ideas in this book to assist you.

Gratitude

The fastest and easiest way I know to change from a negative to a positive attitude is to develop gratitude. You may even want to keep a gratitude journal, a place where you can build a list of the things you are grateful for in your life.

It is impossible to have gratitude and be in self pity at the same time and most negative attitudes are rooted in self pitying, "poor me" self talk. You can quickly change a negative attitude to a positive one by becoming grateful.

The simplest way I know to do this is to ask a question like, "What am I grateful for today?" Then, write down whatever comes to mind. It may be all of the blessings you have like good health, a clear mind, a loving family, satisfying work, a comfortable home, friends, pets and so on.

Make a daily habit of counting your blessings and list what you are grateful for in your life. Doing this first thing in the morning will help you feel better immediately and begin your day on a positive note.

On days when you are feeling down, take out your "gratitude journal" and reread it. Doing this simple exercise will make you feel better almost immediately.

Action

While we will discuss action in more detail later in this book, I wanted to touch on it here because this one simple distinction can have a major impact in your life.
Too many of us spend our lives fence sitting, trying to decide what to do in any given situation, One of the chief characteristics of virtually all highly successful people is that they make decisions quickly and rarely, if ever, change them.

Unsuccessful people, on the other hand, take a long time deciding what to do and change their minds at the drop of a hat.

When you are faced with making a decision, after carefully weighing the facts, make your choice and act on it immediately. In almost any situation, doing something is usually better than sitting, waiting for something to happen.

There have been times in my business life when I didn't know what to do next. Times when I was scared and confused. If you are in your own business, you can probably identify with this situation. What I found was that, if I just acted - went out and saw people, made a call, wrote a letter - the situation would begin to change for the better. Taking action puts us in what is known as the "path of probability." You're a lot better off doing something than just sitting around waiting for something to happen.

Our tendency, especially in stressful situations, is to become like the ostrich and put our heads in the sand, or under the blankets as the case may be. Gripped by fear we do nothing. The problem is that doing nothing produces the same result - nothing!
Taking action will always produce a result. If you are in a quandary about what to do, especially in your business, do something. Do whatever comes to mind first. As you begin taking action, keep going and the right action will become clear to you.

It has been said "Trust in the Divine, apply what you know and the next step will be given."

Immediate action exercise

Write in your journal any situations or challenges you are facing. Next to each one, write one simple action you can take immediately to help resolve it.

Once you've accepted your situation, shifted your attitude and decided to act, the next step, and the next key, is Believing you can do something about your situation.

Whatever it is you want to change it is critical for you to develop the belief that you can change it. If you feel stuck and think you are a victim of circumstances, you first need to change your belief to one of possibility and power.

One of the reasons you identified the changes you want to make, accepted and "owned" everything in your life is, that by doing so, you gain the power to change them.