bepositive_youcando_anything.htm

Growing up, finishing high school, college, and grad school, these were just events I cruised along through, never thinking about the importance of how I viewed things around me. Unlike many young people I never had what would be considered periods of depression. Everything always looked good to me. But, later in my life, a series of events occurred which ought not to happen to anyone. I soon learned the only way to survive was to change my attitude.

You don’t need to hear about my personal problems, but some examples of what happened may help you get ideas about the effects of a positive attitude on life, finances, and your business. I know these things work because I did them and they aren’t difficult. If I successfully used these ideas, anyone can.

To see what a positive attitude can do, just picture a few who have overcome almost insurmountable obstacles to achieve greatness in some cases, but mostly they have just been able to be highly productive and happy individuals.

When I was young my father, a minister, often illustrated a point in his sermon by referring to Helen Keller. Some of you may be too young to remember her, but she was one of the first disadvantaged persons to beat the odds. Can anyone imagine what she and her teachers did so she could communicate, after being born blind, deaf, and speechless?

Anybody in Special Olympics or Wheelchair Sports and similar people just have no limit to their positive nature. The physical tragedies veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have endured and overcome are inspirations in themselves. Though most media news about the wars shows the worst things imaginable, there have been many examples of the invincible human spirit. Disfigurement and amputation don’t slow these wonderful people at all. They make use of every asset they can find and continue with their lives, often excelling in many ways

One of the things I did to build my own positive ideas was to scrape up enough money (I had almost none at the time) to attend a seminar by Zig Ziglar. Zig had a young gentleman with him who was born armless; when he was very young, his mother had to quit doing anything for him so he would learn how to get along. The boy had to learn how to feed and dress himself with no arms! Now that’s a tough decision for his mother, but I want you to remember it for later in the article where I mention a similar technique. The idea is to wake up the positive energy inside each of us. Most of Zig Ziglar’s books and CDs are available here. I recommend you study anything Zig has written or produced.

The focus of this article will be more toward using a positive attitude to overcome some adversity. But positiveness will help you succeed in whatever you do every day. In fact, it works a lot better in the absence of difficulty because you aren’t trying to get over anything.

Adverse situations often have several things in common:

Depression to some degree.

Feelings of helplessness. ("What am I going to do?")

Overwhelming problems; you can’t properly make any kind of decision.

Almost total loss of a support system you've always had; family and former friends avoid you.

The desire to get away and hide from everyone.
One of the first things that happens, usually, is some kind of financial bind; that’s when your family and friends leave. By this time, you are depressed enough so it is hard to function.

The thing to do, instead of trying to fight back in all directions, is to just sit down and maybe stare out the window, or perhaps take frequent walks. Whatever happened is a series of events (though the chain may have begun by accident) that did not occur all at once, and you can’t fix it all at once. The first thing to do is find someone you can talk to, because your mental state won’t let you be rational. Maybe one of your old acquaintances will come forward. Perhaps your minister or someone in your church or community group may help. You might seek professional counsel; most communities have some kind of free mental health facility. There’s nothing wrong with any of this; you are just trying to help yourself.

And sometimes the help you get is not exactly what you might expect. At one point all I could do was walk around in circles and do nothing. A friend came to help me move into a new house. His help was to dump everything I had in the middle of the room and pile it on the bed. Then he left!

It worked. I HAD to put stuff up just to go to bed! And that got me out of my depression or whatever it was. Remember the armless gentleman with Zig Ziglar? Sometimes the unexpected or unwanted is just what needs to be done. A kind of “tough love.”

Each of us has the ability inside to do whatever we want or whatever we have to do. You just have to believe in yourself, that you CAN do things for yourself. Perhaps a couple of examples are in order.

A friend I recently met came through a lot of stuff and has become a remarkable person—caring, giving, and an excellent listener. After a quarter century of marriage, her husband came in one day and basically said he did not want to be married anymore; he’d give her a place to live and date her but didn’t want to be married. She left.

An immediate problem was because he had wanted her at home she had no job! Finding work in a new community where no one knew her took a while; but she succeeded. Just when everything seemed to be getting better, she was diagnosed with a serious life-threatening illness requiring major surgery. She became so depressed she could not do anything; couldn’t even get out of bed. She reached inside and got the courage to ask for help from her family after not being too close for some years. This was a real effort, but she received the counseling she needed and she has risen above all the problems that plagued her for 10 years.

She looks at every day as “the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.” When any sort of difficulty arises she just quits everything and sits down to sort things out. Her motto is, “The trick is not to panic!” She’s always positive and upbeat even after so much trouble. Asking for help is what saved her. She believed in herself enough to save herself!

Heather Mills
Some of you may have heard of an international model named Heather Mills. Heather ran away from a dysfunctional home in England when just 13. She was homeless for a few months and worked at odd jobs. Because of unsatisfactory job experiences, she vowed never to work for another employer. She used the entrepreneurial skills within her to start several successful business ventures and she eventually ended up in modeling.

Before the civil war in Yugoslavia, Heather lived there and was a ski instructor. After the war started, she became active in refugee affairs, using her personal money to help victims of the violence. These efforts required frequent visits to England, and on one of these, a police motorcycle accidentally hit her, causing the amputation of part of her left leg.

This is an awful thing for anyone, particularly a model. Heather believed enough in herself and in her ability to turn tragedy into success. She called the press into her hospital room and sold her story! Now married to Sir Paul McCartney, you can read more about her here.

These are a few instances of using your inner belief in yourself and your abilities and a positive attitude to overcome anything. Just think what can happen when you apply these ideas to your career, your family, and your personal life.

Some things most people emphasize about being positive are to avoid negative situations or leave them as soon as possible, to associate with positive people, and to develop some means of turning negative thoughts into positive ones.

My own strategy is to keep a list of the most pleasant things I know of in the back of my mind. When something negative pops up I just concentrate on one of these pleasant memories. It works!

Examples of pleasant thoughts to replace negativism are:

The best vacation you ever had.

That book or movie you enjoyed so much.

Your first (good) date.

That new car you want.

What you would do with your lottery winnings.

Anything else you can create.
My two favorite positive and inner belief resources are Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill, and The Power of Your Subconscious Mind, by Dr. Joseph Murphy. To reinforce your positive attitude, I also suggest you check The Positive Attitude Institute. Here, Joe Fermano gives insight into how to get your mind and your body geared for a positive life. You’ll get a lot out of this—read it all! For example, here is a poem from the site entitled “The Optimistic Frog”:

Two frogs fell into a large cream bowl:
One was an optimistic soul,
But the other took the gloomy view,
"We shall drown" he cried, without more ado.
So with a last despairing cry
He flung up his legs and said "Goodbye."
Said the other frog with a merry grin,
"I can't get out, but I won't give in.
I'll just swim around till my strength is spent
And should I drown I'll be the more content."
Bravely he swam till it would seem
His struggles began to churn the cream.
On top of the butter at last he stopped,
And out of the bowl he gayly hopped.
What is the moral? Tis easily found:
If you can't hop right out, keep swimming round!

Next, go here, and take Jeffrey Gitomer’s positive attitude test. This may surprise you. I thought I was pretty positive until I took the test. It’s already helped me change my attitude for the better.

Think positive and believe in yourself!

YOU CAN DO ANYTHING!

RESOURCES

Hill, Napoleon. Think and Grow Rich

Murphy, Dr. Joseph. The Power of Your Subconscious Mind

Yank is a home-based entrepreneur and freelance business writer living in Hurricane Alley, North Carolina, USA. His Website is http://www.furriwhalesworld.com/. Contact Yank at globalbiz@furriwhalesworld.com.