Choosing Your Attitude

By Jessica MacGregor Johnson

It can be a challenging time when our world as we know it shifts beneath our feet. One of my favourite quotes is "Don't worry about having the carpet pulled out from under your feet, learn to dance on a shifting carpet.

That's the key right now, and it all depends on where your focus is and what attitude you choose to bring to this moment. At no point in time has it been more important to manage your mental state and choose where your mind goes and what you are focusing on. If you are focused on doom and gloom, then it going to be all you will see. If you shorten your focus and become present in the moment, you will be able to see, that you are in fact, right now, okay. You will also be much more likely to creatively deal with whatever comes towards you and still create the life you want.

We have the free will to choose our attitude to what is going on around us. In my book 'Remembering Perfection' in the chapter "Reality and Attitude' I talk about the one thing we have absolute control over is the attitude we choose to adopt when something happens in our lives. Right now, when it can feel like everything is outside of your control, it is quite useful to feel in control of one aspect. So to choose you attitude. If you are affected by the 'credit crunch' ask yourself what attitude can I adopt that would put me in the most positive mindset to handle this well. For example you could stop making it personal to you. By this I mean rather than 'woe is me, the credit crunch is happening to me' simply shift your focus to 'there is a credit crunch' What this does is give you a nanosecond of choice. If you can bring yourself to the present moment you can choose to think creatively, not only about solutions, but also new opportunities you could create. By choosing a feel good attitude it gives you the ability to respond with awareness rather than unconsciously react.

For example, a client of mine who is graphic designer recently looked at the current climate and decided that this was a good time to open her business. She has extensive corporate branding experience and could offer a high quality of design for half the cost of the large design agencies. The attitude she adopted successfully was one of 'it's an opportunity' If she had listened to the doom and gloom merchants she would never have been so positive or successful. Often our fears are mental constructs that we get caught up in, and then it can be challenging to talk ourselves back into calmness and clarity. Once we start to focus on the fear factor the filters in our unconscious mind start to look for evidence of what we are focusing on. NLP talks about these filters and demonstrates how our unconscious mind can only let in approx 134 bits of information each second from the 2 million that are coming towards us. If we start to focus on what is wrong we will begin to see the evidence. For example, have you ever had the situation when you see something for the first time -like a car model that takes your fancy- and then you start to see it everywhere? This is the unconscious mind filtering for something we have taken notice of. With this in mind start to become aware of what you are filtering for, and consciously give yourself a new focus. Our attitude to what is happening is also a filter so start to become very aware of how you are approaching your own life. This is where visualisation can be helpful, ten minutes everyday focused on what you would like to bring into your life and how that will feel is a far better focus than the one you will get by reading all the bad news and watching the news channel 24/7. I am great believer in limiting the amount of doom and gloom we expose ourselves to. I am not saying don't be informed-that would be irresponsible-but I am saying don't watch the repeats of the doom and gloom all day everyday. Get the information that is relevant to your life, deal with it in whatever way you can and then be vigilant as to where your focus goes for the rest of the day.

It is a turbulent time, so to flow with it as smoothly as possible and deal with all that comes will serve you the best. If you catch yourself with an attitude that is making you feel bad, then it is a sure sign that your thoughts are not in a good space. Stop a moment and ask yourself, what attitude would serve me better? It is the one place where you can have total free will, use it- choose to dance on a shifting carpet.

Jessica McGregor Johnson
Jessica works internationally as a Life Fulfilment Coach and has recently published her book Remembering Perfection - Everyday Inspiration for Living your Spirituality for more information visit http://www.jessicamcgregorjohnson.com