Well into the first month of this new year, how are you doing on your New Year’s resolutions?
The things we wish to improve say important things about us and our priorities. Typical resolutions I’ve heard are “I want to lose weight,” “I want to make more money” and “I want to spend more time with my kids.”
All these are noble resolutions for sure, but what would happen if we chose to improve nothing more than our attitude? Have you ever heard that life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you react to it? If this is true, it’s wonderful news, for no matter what else is happening in our world, our attitude is one of the very few things totally under our control.
I recently read some great thoughts about attitude from Charles Swindoll: “We cannot change our past…we cannot change the fact that people will act a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. Attitude is more important than facts. It is more important than circumstances, than failures, than money, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skills. It will make or break a company, a church, a home.”
What an awesome thing to consider, that the one true thing that is solely up to us is bigger and more important than any difficult time, loss or challenge. How often do we focus on all the things we can do nothing about, when the single most important factor in how our lives is totally up to us? We get to choose it every single day. If we had a bad attitude yesterday, we can get up tomorrow and choose a better one.
In this time of self improvement, perhaps you will join me in the one resolution I have for 2015 – I am going to improve my attitude regardless of what may transpire in my life in these next 11 months. Happy New Year!
