You awake and stir in your bed. You roll over – yawn, stretch and moan for a minute. This moment is one of the most critical moments of the day. This moment can determine whether you start the day with a bad attitude or with ‘glad’itude. I am naturally a morning person, but as I get older with more nights of disrupted sleep and ever changing hormones – I find that I wake up feeling exhausted more often than I care to count. Thank God for coffee!!! But, even more important than coffee is being conscious of our thoughts in that very critical moment when we wake up.

Do you feel the flood of thoughts race through your mind from what you have to do that day to how your neck hurts from sleeping on it wrong to that demanding email someone sent you the night before? In that moment, it’s vital to put up a stop sign in your mind and flip your thoughts to things you are grateful for. I try to be diligent with this practice and by the time I’ve pee’d and made it downstairs to the coffee pot- I’m saying ‘thank you’ and feel the exhaustion lift and my attitude transformed. Of course, I’m not perfect at this every single day, but I try my best. That’s all we can do, right- try our best. 

Here’s a few ways to keep a positive attitude:

1) STOP BLAMING: Your attitude is your choice. It’s easy to blame other people (our kids, our spouse, our boss) for why we have a bad attitude. You are giving them power over you. It’s not really about what happens TO you, but what happens IN you. Your happiness is YOUR responsibility. Bad things happen to us everyday, but what counts is our attitude toward it. That ensures we retain the power. 

2) COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS: I know I mention this quite often on the blog, but it truly changes everything. When we focus on our burdens instead of our blessings- inevitably we bring more burdens into our lives. That’s the foundation of keeping a bad attitude. The moment you choose to focus on the many blessings in your life- watch more blessings arrive keeping you in a state of ‘glad’itude! 

3) GO BEYOND LIMITATIONS: All of us face limitations in life like lack of talent, money, from the wrong side of the tracks, learning disabilities or even physical disabilities, but it’s our attitude toward those limits. I grew up in a lower income family in a not so great area outside of Houston, Tx and lived in a trailer park until my little sister was born at age 5. My family was also of mixed ethnicity, but I didn’t know that would be an issue until I was in junior high. Whatever it was within me- maybe a deep desire to see the world- I had a firm attitude that I wanted to go beyond that small town and achieve my dreams. We may start out in a trailer on the wrong side of the tracks, but that doesn’t mean that’s where we have to end up. 

Please take a moment to watch this. This man’s attitude is remarkable. I need to watch this once a month when I start complaining about the cellulite on my legs- at least I have legs! 

It makes that demanding email we got or that massive pimple we woke up with seem so unimportant. Be grateful. Do not energize the things that feed a bad attitude.

I would love to hear your thoughts!

Go out there and strut your stuff sista,

Tiff Xoxo