Author: Joe Kenn | VP Performance & Education
Control the Controllable! And the number one controllable in my opinion is you ATTITUDE. For nine years as a member of the Carolina Panthers football program our main Mantra was to Control Our Inner A.P.E. The acronym stood for Attitude, Preparation, Effort. Over the next three weeks I will touch on each of these individually, but they all contribute equally in the success and failures of individual and teams.
The one thing that I believe people don’t realize at times is that you are personally responsible for your attitude. Your attitude is your choice. You decide how you see things and how you feel about things. Can your attitude be persuaded, absolutely, but you made the choice to allow yourself to be swayed. You made the decision, therefore, you chose to have that attitude.
Your day is and will be created by the attitude you bring into the world upon awaking each day. Every day is a clean slate. How do you intend to live each day? How do intend to create a day filled with positivity and moments of success. And in the case of negativity and adversity, your attitude will dictate how successful you come out of a specific confrontation or criticism.
“Our attitude will create the cause for our future results” (Tilopa). Your thought process beforehand will determine your upcoming actions. It is imperative that we continue to understand how our intrinsic drive and the inner thoughts of our mind will determine outward actions based on the specific attitude we bring into existence. If we continue to have a specific attitude, positive or negative for a particular action, we strengthen this attitude as we continue to engage in these tendencies.
Our attitude drives the mind and how we will drive for success on and off the playing field. The challenge is to stay strong to our beliefs and opinions and allow them to drive towards positivity. And, when negative thoughts and actions come into your mind, take a step back, clear the mind, and give a big exhale to remove the anxiety and negativity of the moment.
Attitude is your choice, choose wisely.
Here are some of my favorites quotes for the article:
12 of the Greatest Quotes on Attitude January 14, 2017 by Paul Gustavson
(1) “Our attitude toward life determines life’s attitude towards us.” – John Mitchell
(2) “The only disability in life is a bad attitude.” – Scott Hamilton
(3) “The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.” – Oprah Winfrey
(5) “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” – Viktor E. Frankl
(7) “A positive attitude causes a chain reaction of positive thoughts, events and outcomes. It is a catalyst and it sparks extraordinary results.” – Wade Boggs
(8) “Adopting the right attitude can convert a negative stress into a positive one.” – Hans Selye
(9) “Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude”. – Thomas Jefferson