Change Your Attitude & You Will Change Your Experience

My daughter is a cheerleader for California All Stars, an elite academy that makes the cheerleading I used to see at high school football games look like elementary age patty-cake. When she injured herself in a bike incident and couldn't cheer she began to huff and puff about going to practice to support her team. She said, “I will be bored and I won’t learn anything.” My response was “Change your attitude and you will change your experience.” This direction will help to shape her attitude for years to come.

I explained to her that if she went into that gym with her eyes and attitude open she would see the things others were doing that didn’t look sharp and what looked amazing that she may want to try and emulate or incorporate that would help her perform her back-tuck perfectly. By the time she got home her coach had emailed me and said her attitude was great while she was there. My daughter shared with me that she actually learned a lot just by watching. Without changing her attitude her experience that day would have been completely different.

There is a direct link between our attitude and the way we behave. When people come in contact with us they see the outer expression of our inner attitudes. Since our actions are based on our attitude towards any given situation, attitude must be considered one of the key ingredients for success, not just in business but in recovery, relationships and life in general.

Let’s look at some great success stories. What was their attitude towards success, life, relationships, healthy boundaries, and balance in their lives? Why did they succeed? Was it their skills alone? In most cases successful individuals have a driving attitude to succeed. Milton Hershey failed many times before getting his chocolate bar just right. Donald Trump was bankrupt. The Chicken Soup for the Soul guys were told “no thanks” more than a hundred times before they got their one “yes”.

It is even a well-known fact in the medical community that a positive attitude along with laughter produces what has been determined to be a "miracle drug" within you. So, what is your attitude? Be brutally honest with yourself here. Do you live thinking that any situation is an opportunity for success or do you believe that sooner or later something bad is going to happen? Do you have self-limiting beliefs from your childhood such as the “I will never be anything and don’t deserve abundance” or look at things as "too much trouble," "there is nothing I can do?" Or do you say "this is an exciting door opening for me and I am going to take this opportunity to shine"?

Obviously, we first must realize that we need a reality check and need to do some serious internal housekeeping and take emotional inventory. But knowing we need to isn’t enough. Without action you won’t break free from the behaviors that keep you from crossing that finish line of your dreamBIG goals. I knew, even on that bus in the middle of the Egyptian desert, that I must WANT to and ACT to correct past programming and in turn my attitude and my experiences. The most practical way to change attitudes is through repetition, which is how attitudes were developed in the first place, like breaking a bad habit and having a negative attitude certainly qualifies as a bad habit!

Remember, it takes 28 days with continuous, consistent and positive re-enforcement, to break a habit. Another powerful tool to change attitudes is affirmations and, once again, actions to back them up and I have a great story to share that proves my point.

I was in Chicago recently to be honored as an inductee on the La Rabida Chilren’s Hospital Survivor Wall and be an advocate for the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. While there, although Harpo was on summer hiatus I asked the taxi driver to take me to Harpo Studios. He looked at me weird and told me no one was there. I didn’t care.

I needed to go there and stand in front of the building, visualize the seats filled, the parking lot full, me walking out and shaking hands with Oprah and being an articulate, insightful, informative and inspirational guest for the Oprah Show. I took a picture in front of the sign so that I could put it on my vision board next to my affirmation that states am excited to be invited as a guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show to share my journey and inspire millions of people and I believe someday that is exactly what will happen.

Continuous use of positive affirmations have a tremendous influence on how we see ourselves; how we see ourselves impacts our attitude; our attitude impacts how we act, how we act impacts our success.

Developing and following an action plan to accomplish your goal with positive affirmations to guide you is great. But the big secret: be shameless. I was shameless going to Harpo while they were on hiatus. I didn’t care. Inside I knew why I was paying for a taxi to drive me to an empty parking lot. To me, the parking lot was full, the audience was there, Oprah was greeting me and I was amazing.

Going from homeless teen and hostage survivor to where I am today took vision, guts, strength I didn't even know I had and a whole lot of soul searching. Don't see yourself where you are. See yourself where you are positively headed with an attitude of success and slowly you will see your life changing, your experiences becoming more vibrant and positive and loving, personally and professionally. What I discovered was this very simple formula: While juggling, balancing, breathing and being shamelessly ambitious in setting my intentions, a positive attitude combined with actions, affirmations, visualization, skills and goals result in success. If you want to ready more, visit my website at www.Michelle-Renee.Com and sign up for my newsletter, 8 Week Teleclass and pre-order my upcoming ebook, "How To Be Your Own Success Genie."