MANY things determine our success in life and attitude ranks very high on the list. Our attitude, most times, are invincible but they have far reaching effects. Attitude gets formed quietly but their effects eventually get seen on rooftops. The chains of attitude get formed unnoticed until they become so strong that they become conspicuous and almost unbreakable.

Attitude is the way we evaluate things, people, issues and situations. It is our disposition, opinion and mental position as regards facts, people and situations. Our attitude determines how we see, relate and respond to the different facets of life. Our attitude will determine how successful we will be. A man with great talent and a bad attitude will not attain as much as a man with a great attitude and a less than average talent. Attitude will either make or break us. It determines success and failure, defeat and winning, a great life and a not so great life.

Attitude is the by-product of a number of things. It is the outcome of our habitual thought – what we spend time thinking and ruminating over will have a great input into how our attitude will turn out.Our experiences and exposures in life also have a great influence in shaping our attitude. If we have had bad experiences with people, there is a tendency that our attitude to trusting people might be adversely affected. Our attitude will be tended to being pessimistic than optimistic - we are likely to have a “once-beaten-twice-shy” attitude to people. If we have failed repeatedly in an area of our life there is the tendency that our attitude to venturing into that area or in our advice to people who want to venture into that area might not be a positive one. A person who has had it “so nice” in life is likely to have a fairly robust optimistic attitude and approach to life. Attitude, therefore, is produced by the facts we have taken in. If we are to change our attitude we have to change the facts that hold sway in our hearts. We must always be careful what facts we allow into our hearts. We must filter every thought, idea, suggestion and opinion before we allow them residence in our hearts.

“Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.” Phillipians 4: 8 The Message

We must take the issue of attitude very seriously as our attitude determines our actions. When our attitudes are formed they colour everything we see and influence everything we do. Our attitude becomes an unconscious part of us. Like someone said attitude becomes “thinking without thinking and acting without acting”. Attitude is like a second nature – we just see, think and act involuntarily. That is why we need to be careful that our attitude is right as our attitude have far more reaching effects on our lives than we can imagine. We will look at three consequences of our attitude.

(To be continued next week)

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