My Mother Taught Me that Your Choices Determine Your Happiness

Lifestyle

Lifestyle Archives

Elevate your lifestyle for success and happiness

The <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/the-quality-of-your-life-is-determined-by-the-quality-of-your-questions/">quality of our lives</a> is determined by the choices we make: which career path we take, which partner we choose, the lifestyle we embrace. Just as you have the responsibility and the power to make choices about your wardrobe, your relationships or the car you drive, you have the same responsibility and power to choose your attitude and approach to life.



I learned my first lesson in the <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/why-attitude-matters/">power of choosing attitude</a> on my first day of school. It may seem strange, considering that I make my living as a professional speaker, but I was a stutterer for most of my childhood. Until I reached school age, it never seemed to be a problem. My family always assured me that I would grow out of it. My mother and grandmother always reminded me about my uncle who’d stuttered as a child, lost it as an adolescent, and become a respected college professor. They’d tell me that I stuttered only because “your brain is working faster than your mouth.”



I never thought of it as a negative until my first day of kindergarten. I was so excited to be around the other kids and to find a desk in the front row with my name on it. Miss Peterson was a very positive, dynamic woman who glowed with energy and enthusiasm. She told us right off that she thought we were going to be the best class in the school. Then she started to go around the room asking us to say our names so everyone could get to know each other. She asked me to go first. I jumped up, turned and faced my new classmates, and started stuttering terribly because I was so excited. “My, my, my-my-my-m-m…”



I’ll never forget the girl with pigtails in the back of the room. She jumped up and said, “He can’t talk. He stutters.” Everyone laughed. Then the boy next to me looked at me and said, “You’re too tall. You shouldn’t be in our room.” The kids all giggled.



I was hurt, of course. I wanted my mom. I had never felt that kind of pain. I kept repeating those negative inputs: You’re too tall. You can’t talk. You shouldn’t be here. That feeling of “not belonging” is a terrible one, whether you are a kid in kindergarten or an adult in a corporate office. Do you remember the book Everything I Know I Learned in Kindergarten? That’s me. I <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/a-manual-for-dealing-with-rejection/">learned about rejection</a>. I learned that people can say things that hurt you. And, thanks to my mother, I learned that you can choose to not be hurt or rejected.



The voices of my classmates got louder and louder inside my head. Later in life, I learned that the strongest and most destructive voice <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/changing-the-narrative-how-to-silence-your-inner-critic-in-the-new-year/">is your own</a>. It was true in this instance. While the teacher and my classmates went about the first day of school, I sat there telling myself that I didn’t belong in school. I’m too tall. I can’t talk. I want to go home. I laid low until our first recess. Then I bolted.



I ran home. We lived two miles away. I took one breath the whole way. I set the world speed record from kindergarten to the front porch. But as fast as I ran, Miss Peterson was faster. My mom was hanging up the phone when I hit the porch. I ran into her arms and she gave me a world-class hug. It was the hug of a lifetime. I can still feel that hug.



I remember looking up at my mom and saying, “I’m too tall. I can’t talk. I don’t fit.”



“Miss Peterson told me what happened,” she said. “There is good news.”



Good news? I stopped crying. What good news could there be? No more kindergarten? Home-schooling with Miss Peterson?



“The good news is that you tried. I’m proud of you for that. My little man tried and even though you are not able to say your name as well as you would like, that’s OK. This is going to be a challenge but I’m convinced that if we work hard, one day, and I do mean one day, all the kids will listen when you say your name loud and clear. Son, don’t ever forget that you are special.”



My mom effectively supplanted the negative messages I’d heard from my classmates with a far more positive message. When I ran away from school it was because my inner voice <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/understand-other-people/202002/the-destructive-nature-negative-self-talk" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">had been repeating their words</a>: You’re too tall. You talk funny. You don’t belong.



I went back to school with my mom’s words on my inner tape recorder: I’m not different, I’m special. I can learn to talk without a stutter and then they will understand.



Suddenly, I wasn’t speech-impaired. I was working on a challenge. Again, the reality had not changed; I still stuttered. But my perception of my speech impediment had changed. Another paradigm shifted, a new attitude created. And that changed everything. Now, I had a weapon against the teasing and the mocking: I had a new attitude.



My mother taught me then and there on the front porch that afternoon that attitude is a choice. When I told her I couldn’t go back to school, she listened and understood what was contributing to that negative attitude. She was able to listen to the pain that fueled my fears and humiliation. She then gave me the opportunity to <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/click-here-happiness/201909/four-simple-ways-develop-more-positive-attitude" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">choose a new attitude</a>.



You, too, have a choice. You can accept an attitude of humiliation and fear or you can take on an attitude of action. You can be a victim or a victor. You can let life run you over or you can take it on!



My mother showed me a way out of fear and humiliation, and in doing so gave me insight and inspiration. She showed me that even as a small, insecure boy, I had the power to choose a better way.



I’m not going to tell you that I didn’t backslide from time to time. I took speech lessons for six years and I used to lie about why I was getting out of regular class to go somewhere else. I had my days of attitudinal backsliding, anger, rejection and embarrassment. But I never forgot the lesson communicated in my mother’s hug and her words of encouragement: You are special. You can choose not to be hurt or discouraged. You can <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/7-practical-tips-to-achieve-a-positive-mindset/">choose a positive attitude</a> over a negative one. And you can overcome this challenge.



What negative messages do you repeatedly tell yourself? What positive messages can you adopt to replace any negative ones?



This article was published in January 2009 and has been updated. Photo by DisobeyArt/Shutterstock

Just as you have the responsibility and the power to make choices about your wardrobe, your relationships or the car you drive, you have the same responsibility and power to choose your attitude and approach to life.

Just as you have the responsibility and the power to make choices about your wardrobe, your relationships or the car you drive, you have the same responsibility and power to choose your attitude and approach to life. | SUCCESS

Comment

My Mother Taught Me that Your Choices Determine Your Happiness | SUCCESS

https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/My-Mother-Taught-Me-that-Your-Choices-Determine-Your-Happiness.jpg

Home

SUCCESS

https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/success_opengraph_image.png

https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/e940dfa9810c8d0358e016b63fd1a62efa2678173233fc407ba92f87522e4a48?s=96&d=mm&r=g

Keith Harrell

https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/the-power-of-positive-thinking/

Personal Development

Personal Development Archives

Personal Development | SUCCESS | What Achievers Read

One of the most important steps you can take toward achieving your greatest potential in life is to learn to monitor your attitude and its impact on your work performance, relationships and everyone around you.
<blockquote>
Related: <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/it-takes-a-positive-attitude-to-achieve-positive-results">It Takes a Positive Attitude to Achieve Positive Results</a>
</blockquote>
I generally start my workshops and seminars by asking a fundamental question: What attitude did you bring into this meeting? Often, this brings puzzled looks. In truth, people generally don’t have a high level of attitude awareness. They’ll know if they are hungry or if their feet hurt, but they usually don’t have a good handle on their attitude. That is a mistake because attitude is everything. It governs the way you perceive the world and the way the world perceives you.
We all have a choice. We can <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/blog/say-this-not-that-7-responses-for-common-negative-thoughts">choose an inner dialogue of self-encouragement</a> and self-motivation, or we can choose one of self-defeat and self-pity. It’s a power we all have. Each of us encounters hard times, hurt feelings, heartache, and physical and emotional pain. The key is to realize it’s not what happens to you that matters; it’s how you choose to respond.
Your mind is a computer that can be programmed. You can choose whether the software installed is productive or unproductive. Your inner dialogue is the software that programs your attitude, which determines how you present yourself to the world around you. You have control over the programming. Whatever you put into it is reflected in what comes out.
<blockquote>
Related: <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/blog/why-its-all-about-attitude">Why It’s All About Attitude </a>
</blockquote>
Many of us have behavior patterns today that were programmed into our brains at a very tender age. The information that was recorded by our brains could have been completely inaccurate or cruel. The sad reality of life is that we will continue to hear negative information, but we don’t have to program it into our brains.
The loudest and most influential voice you hear is your own inner voice, your selfcritic. It can work for or against you, depending on the messages you allow. It can be optimistic or pessimistic. It can wear you down or cheer you on. You control the sender and the receiver, but only if you consciously take responsibility for and control over your inner conversation.
Habitual bad attitudes are often the product of past experiences and events. Common causes include <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/the-business-of-self-esteem">low self-esteem</a>, stress, fear, resentment, anger and an inability to handle change. It takes serious work to examine the roots of a harmful attitude, but the rewards of ridding ourselves of this heavy baggage can last a lifetime.
<h2>Here are 10 strategies from my attitude tool kit to improve your attitude: </h2>
<h3>1. Self-Coaching Through Affirmations</h3>
Affirmations repeated several times each day, every day, serve to reprogram your subconscious with positive thinking. An affirmation is made up of words charged with power, conviction and faith. You send a positive response to your subconscious, which accepts whatever you tell it. When done properly, this triggers positive feelings that, in turn, drive action.
<h3>2. Self-Motivation Through Discovering Your Motives</h3>
Discover what motivates you—what incites you to take action to <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/blog/if-you-want-to-change-your-life-change-what-you-think">change your life</a>. Basic motives include love, self-preservation, anger, financial gain and fear. Self-motivation requires enthusiasm, a positive outlook, a positive physiology (walk faster, smile, sit up), and a belief in yourself and your God-given potential.
<h3>3. The Power of Visualization</h3>
Studies of the psychology of peak performance have found that most great athletes, surgeons, engineers and artists use affirmations and visualizations either consciously or subconsciously to enhance and focus their skills. Nelson Mandela has written extensively on how visualization helped him maintain a positive attitude while being imprisoned for 27 years. “I thought continually of the day when I would walk free. I fantasized about what I would like to do,” he wrote in his autobiography. Visualization works well to improve attitude.
<h3>4. Attitude Talk for Positive Internal Dialogue</h3>
Attitude talk is a way to override your past negative programming by erasing or replacing it with a conscious, positive internal voice that helps you face new directions. Your internal conversation—that little voice you listen to all day long—acts like a seed in that it programs your brain and affects your behavior. Take a closer look at what you are saying to yourself.
<blockquote>
Related: <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/blog/attitude-adjustment-101-say-it-out-loud-with-me">Attitude Adjustment 101: Say It Out Loud with Me…</a>
</blockquote>
<h3>5. The Power of Words—WOW</h3>
Once released to the universe, our words cannot be taken back. Learn the concept of WOW—watch our words. What we speak reflects what is already in our hearts based upon all the things we have come to believe about ourselves. If we find ourselves speaking judgmental and disparaging things about our circumstances or those around us, we know the condition of our hearts needs to change. You can create a direct path to success by what you say.
<h3>6. The Power in a Positive Greeting</h3>
When people ask me how I am doing, I say, “Super-fantastic.” Most people enjoy working and living with others who try to live life for what it is—a beautiful gift.
<h3>7. Enthusiasm: Vital Tool for Staying Motivated</h3>
Enthusiasm is to attitude what breathing is to life. Enthusiasm enables you to apply your gifts more effectively. It’s the burning desire that communicates commitment, determination and spirit. Enthusiasm means putting yourself in motion. It’s an internal spirit that speaks through your actions from your commitment and your belief in what you are doing. It is one of the most empowering and attractive characteristics you can have.
<h3>8. Connecting to Your Spiritual Empowerment</h3>
The ultimate level of human need extends into the spiritual realm. Just as we feed our bodies in response to our primary need to survive physically, we need to feed our spirit because we are spiritual beings. Many people find powerful and positive motivation in their faith. I happen to be one of them.
<h3>9. Lighten Up Your Life with Humor</h3>
<a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/blog/how-i-silenced-my-self-doubt-through-humor">Humor is a powerful motivator.</a> The more humor and laughter in your life, the less stress you’ll have, which means more positive energy to help you put your attitude into action. There are also health benefits to lightening up.
<h3>10. Exercising Will Help Keep You Motivated</h3>
One of the best ways to move to a more positive and motivated frame of mind is to exercise. <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/increase-your-activity-increase-your-happiness">A regular exercise routine</a> can provide relatively quick positive feedback in the form of weight loss, muscle development and a sense of doing something positive for yourself.
Seek your personal and professional success by using the tools in this attitude tool kit. It is no secret that life seems to reward us most when we approach the world with a positive attitude.
<blockquote>
Related: <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/5-things-you-can-do-to-improve-your-mindset-in-20-minutes">5 Things You Can Do to Improve Your Mindset in 20 Minutes</a>
</blockquote>


 Editor’s note: This post was originally published in March 2009 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy and comprehensiveness.

Here's how to improve your attitude: Positive thinking, positive affirmation and positive self-talk.

Plus, 10 ways to turn it into action. | SUCCESS

Why Your Attitude Is Everything

Why Your Attitude Is Everything | SUCCESS

https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/whyyourattitudeiseverything.jpg

Keith Harrell

Latest Articles

My Mother Taught Me that Your Choices Determine Your Happiness

Why Your Attitude Is Everything