October is Positive Attitude Month, a time when people are encouraged to be optimistic and maintain a positive attitude. Keeping a positive frame of mind is especially challenging when confronted with negative headlines and conditions that seem to be worsening day by day. Despite the daily challenges of living in the midst of difficult times, it is important to know that the kind of attitude one keeps can make all the difference. Radio teacher Chuck Swindoll comments on the importance of attitude:
“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company...a church... a home. “
“The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in 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...I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you...we are in charge of our Attitudes.”
Attitude makes the difference. Maintaining a positive attitude can make a difference in maintaining emotional and physical health. A report from the Dickinson County Healthcare System indicated that “people with a positive attitude simply live longer, happier, healthier, more successful lives…”
Christopher Peterson, Ph.D., one of the founding fathers of positive psychology and author of A Primer in Positive Psychology, maintains that “There is abundant reason to believe that optimism – big, little, and in between – is useful to a person because positive expectations can be self-fulfilling.”
Deveonne Cooke, Central Ohio Counselor and Life Coach, reiterates the same point regarding the importance of keeping a positive attitude: "Attitude determines the outcomes we receive. You get the results of what you think."
In a similar way, Angela Lowe, licensed, Christ-centered counselor and consultant, speaks of maintaining a “genuinely positive attitude” in terms of “sowing and reaping.”
In a discussion of the benefits of maintaining a positive attitude, she goes on to say that individuals who sow with such an attitude will be strengthened, energized and multiply, producing an abundance of endurance and support to withstand any "tests, trials or challenges" that are certain to be awaiting. Maintaining a "genuinely positive attitude" in spite of all circumstances reaps endless benefits that start from within the individual and flow out into every other area of one’s life, producing seeds of hope for others to benefit from and reproduce.
Positive Attitude Month encourages readers to soar in life, as they follow the advice of Patricia Russell-McCloud: “Step forward with discipline, determination and knowledge that attitude determines your altitude, how high you will fly in this life.”
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Positive attitude month: Guarding three gates of your heart
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Take a look at slide show of quotations about the power of positive attitudes.
The accompanying video relates the health benefits of a positive attitude in heart patients.
