Choose Your Attitude

Everything is changeable. Only change is eternal.‘ – Truism

The Problem With Me

The thing I hate most about myself is that I don’t want to change. Truth be told, I resist change a lot more often than I’d like to admit. In my cool and contemplative moments, when I’m not preoccupied with resisting change, I’ve been able to identify the following reasons of why I resist:

  • Fear of the Unknown – ‘Only fools rush in. Who knows what lies ahead?’
  • Fear of consequences – ‘What if it all goes wrong? What happens then?’
  • Fear of waste – ‘If things don’t work out, I’ll have wasted all that time and effort that I could have spent on something else.’
  • Lack of confidence in my own ability – ‘Can I really achieve what I set out to do?’
  • Fear of ridicule – ‘This might make me look like a right fool in front of others.’

That’s a lot of fear to deal with. Nonetheless, let’s imagine I manage to remain calm and collected. From my tight ball of nerves, self-doubt and indigestion, a simple thought emerges, like a pure drop of water from the French Alps. The root cause of all my fears is my fear of F-A-I-L-U-R-E.

Try and Do Your Best

The fact is, Resistance and Flow both require energy. Unlike Resistance which shuts down the thinking you and limits your options, Flow enables you to keep an open mind. Flow helps you focus on the present. Flow keeps you moving. Before you know it, you embrace and thrive on change instead of cloying into a tight ball of nerves, self-doubt and indigestion going nowhere.

Catch Yourself Doing Things Wrong to Do Them Right

I’ve learnt to manage the Resisting Me. Whenever something becomes difficult, ‘DING!’ goes the bell in my head, clear as a drop of water from the French Alps, and I ask myself: ‘Am I resisting? Why am I resisting? What can I do to flow?’

  • Fear of the Unknown translates into ‘Let’s hear out your idea.
  • Fear of consequences becomes ‘What are the risks and issues?
  • Fear of waste translates into ‘If things don’t work out, I’ll have learnt something valuable.
  • Lack of confidence in my own ability becomes ‘What does the situation remind me of? What did I do to make it work the last time around?
  • Fear of ridicule translates into ‘She who dares grows.

Of course all of this only matters if you choose your attitude today. And the one you take to work tomorrow.

2 Responses to “Choose Your Attitude”

  1. Winter You | Selfish Programming writes:

    […] rule of having a winnner and losers still didn’t make sense. More recently I observed that ‘I am my own biggest impediment’. Don’t you sometimes just hate being right? As I thought more and more about this assertion, […]

  2. Donna Phelps writes:

    A great blog post Portia! Reminds me of the quote: “We Have Met The Enemy And He Is Us.”(From Walt Kelly’s Pogo cartoon strip in 1971.)

    Since it takes much more energy to resist our experiences rather than to flow with them, think of how much more we can all accomplish by swimming with the tide instead of against it…

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