Book summary:Attitude is everything by Jeff Keller.
“The mind is its own place,and in itself can make a heaven of hell,a hell of heaven”.
-Paradise lost by John Milton
The title of the book says it all.
If you can change your attitude,you can change your life.
Your attitude is your window to the world.
When a child falls while learning to walk,he doesn’t blame the carpet,he doesn’t blame his parents for giving lousy instructions.He doesn’t quit but gets up and starts again.
But as you know,there comes a point where life starts throwing some dirt at our mental window.Criticism,comparison,disappointment and rejection, they smear our mental window-through which we view things around us.
Clean your mental window.
You always have a choice to have either a positive or negative attitude.
Take example of Sam and Sara.
Both go have lunch at the same place,have the same job,and face the same situation that their order arrives late.
Sam curses the waitress,blames his luck,feels unhappy and goes back to work tired.
But Sara relishes her meal,finds time to relax and goes back to work feeling energized.
Dr.Viktor Frankl,a concentration camp survivor and a psychiatrist whose father,mother,brother and wife were killed in gas chamber,a man who has lived in hell on earth says in his bestselling book Man’s search for meaning-Everything can be taken from a man except his attitude towards the circumstances.Can a person control his/her attitude in a situation like that?”Yes!”,he says.
When someone asks how are you:a negative reply is I’m tired,a mediocre reply is life’s going on and a positive reply is I’m great!
Transformation is entirely mental.We have a choice to feel better.
A negative person-thinks ‘ I can’t’,dwells on problems and focuses on what’s missing.
A positive person -thinks ‘I can’,concentrates on solution and counts his blessings.
“A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances but a person with a certain set of attitude.”
Law of dominant thought
One can’t go on dieting for one meal and eat junk food for rest of the day and expect weight loss.
Similarly one can’t think positive for 10 seconds while being negative for rest of the day and expect positive results.
One must reinforce positive ideas by repetition till they reach the subconscious mind.
Picture your way to success
The power of visualisation-creating ‘movies of the mind’ your ‘inner picture’.
In words of Albert Einstein,”Imagination is more important than knowledge”.
Don’t count on overnight success
Positive thinking doesn’t mean you will never have problems or face any obstacles.But it is the belief that you can succeed eventually.
It is the ‘willingness to do whatever it takes’.
Doors will open, you will meet people unexpectedly,life will test and see how serious you are about your goals.
Why you shouldn’t complain
1.No one wants to hear negative news
2.Complaining reinforces your pain
3.Complaining accomplishes nothing
Watch your words
-because thoughts reinforce your beliefs
Replace the words:
“I’ve been destroyed” by “I’ve been set back”.
“I feel okay” by “I feel phenomenal”.
“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t,you are right”.
-Henry Ford
We become what we think about.
Our thoughts create our reality.
How adversity serves us?
•It teaches us to be grateful
We don’t appreciate something until it is taken away from us.
•Teaches us not to repeat the same mistakes
•You emerge emotionally stronger.
Confront your fears
Nothing in life is to be feared,it only needs to be understood.
To end,
“Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm”.
-Winston Churchill
Written by-
ADITYA VAIDYA
3rd year MBBS
KEM,Mumbai.
