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My coach Keith Collins shared his wisdom with me in regard to attitudes in relationships.  He was talking about the coaching relationship, however, the same wisdom could also be applied to other relationships.

There are three great assets :
1.  To be sensitively detached.  This means being sensitive to where the person in your relationship is and yet detached from their issues.

2.  To be emotionally rational.  This means being able to assess the situation of the person in your relationship from both a rational and an emotional perspective.

3.  To be exclusively connected.  This means hearing the messages of the person in your relationship that will guide and support them on their path.

Just imagine how work and personal relationships would benefit if we applied our attitude in these three ways.

The results would be more openness, helpful support, better teams and relationships all round would be enhanced and more productive.  Everyone would be working together for the best rather than the opposite.

Have you ever wanted to have a different attitude but didn’t know how to achieve it or perhaps thought it was impossible to achieve?

Perhaps you have a chore or a duty that needs doing but which you find hard work?  You would like to enjoy the task but cannot see how this can happen.

Step 1  Visualise or feel how it would be if you did enjoy the task?
Step 2   Keep the enjoyable picture and/or feeling in mind several times a day
Step 3   Every time you think about the task, whether you are preparing to do it and also when you are actually doing it, keep the enjoyable picture and/or feeling in mind

It may take a week, a month or even longer, but one day you will be doing the task and suddenly realise that it is quite enjoyable!

I hate washing up, but it needs to be done.  By visualising the neat, clean and tidy kitchen, it has helped me to not only do the washing up more speedily, but also leave the kitchen looking good as well.

Now, I can even stand in the kitchen door and admire my beautiful kitchen!

Being inspired to change can be like turning on a light switch.  One moment you are in the dark and then suddenly you have a thought which inspires you to change your attitude.  The attitude change happens instantaneously!

This kind of attitude change helps you to progress more speedily with attaining your goal, whether it is in your spiritual development, taking you forward in business, in your personal relationships or some other arena.

The moment I realised that if you are unhappy in a situataion, you have three choices, helped to change my attitude to life and allowed a lot more contentment.

The three choices are :

1.  Change the situation and do something differently

2.  Walk away from the situation and have nothing more to do with it

3.  Accept the situation as it is

The key to the three choices is that which ever one you choose, it is vital to be one hundred per cent accepting and allowing of the situation.

Working in an office was, for me, a boring occupation, but what else could I do?  One day, while working in the marketing department, the team were looking at an advert for toothpaste which included a promotion for an upcoming golf event to be sponsored by the toothpaste company.

I had no interest in golf whatsoever until . . . . . the winner’s pay cheque was revealed in the advert.  Here was a figure of money that was both enormous and also attainable to the winner . . . .  which in due course could be me!

In that instant, I decided to become a golfer!  I went to the local driving range and announced my intention.  When asked what my handicap was, I had to confess that I had no idea what a handicap was!

The instructor said he could let me know within six weeks if I had the potential and so my complete disinterest of golf was turned into an enjoyment of the game instantaneously.

Many people laughed at me, suggesting it was ridiculous for me to think about becoming a professional golfer.  In a way this made me even more determined to succeed.

At the end of six weeks my teacher determined that I had the necessary skills, attitude and personality to succeed and so I gave up the office job and devoted my time to training to become a golfer.

Although injury prevented me from becoming a professional golfer, I did achieve a world record and on another occasion won a national championship.

Just one flick of the switch created the attitude to change and has brought amazing results!

Sometimes people’s attitudes can be exasperating.  Looking on the bright side, how can it be changed into a learning experience?

Look at the exasperation and ask yourself why you should be exasperated by someone else’s attitude when it is nothing to do with you . . . . or is it?

My mother says she wants to have a good memory, and yet all I hear her say is that her memory is getting worse.  I’ve explained that what we believe, we create and it becomes our reality.  She takes this in and then the next day, she yet again tells me her memory is deteriorating.  This exasperates me.

Why?  She would like to have her memory in full working order at all times and so would I like her to have her memory working effectively all of the time.

Meditating on the situation, it came to me that although my mother would like to have a positive attitude, there is something stopping her succeeding.  Finding what it is maybe another matter, but it has certainly helped me to accept her behaviour and continue to work with her to improve her memory.

Accepting my mother as she is has worked wonders.  She is now beginning to tell me that her memory is improving!  All I have done is to change my attitude towards her and instead of frustration, I am now accepting.

Have you ever listened to yourself talking?  The other day I was participating in a teleclass.  The line was cut and so I could not hear some of the call and instead had to listen to the tape recording.  It was an opportunity to hear my own voice.

What a shock to listen to enthusiasm which had gone overboard and sounded more like frustration.  This got me thinking, I’m giving an outwardly optimistic and positive performance and yet underneath, there is some sort of negative frustration going on.

After the shock and then emailing everyone on the call to apologise for my too strong input, I decided to delve deeper and see if I could find the root cause for what was going on.

A meditation, a coaching session and a further meditation while taking notes of any thoughts that popped into my head over a few days, helped me to peel some layers off the onion skin, metaphorically speaking.

Here I was giving a hundred per cent to the class and yet the results being received were Zero.  The excitement of giving the commitment required against the conflict of complete failure.

As I coached myself through more layers of onion skin, it began to dawn on me that if I am with an expert and follow their course, then the natural answer is to succeed.

This has not been happening, so what is going on?

More meditation and at last the light dawned.  If one way doesn’t work, then explore another path.

The other dilemma was being true to myself.  Happily the next week, the teacher gave the OK for looking at different methods to succeed.  The weight off my shoulders at not having to follow the curriculum as set out, but instead searching for ideas that would suit my personality and allow me to succeed was enormous.

Being cut off the teleclass served a wonderful lesson and allowed the physician to heal herself!

Have you ever asked anyone for their feedback on your attitude over one or more topics?  It can be an enlightening experience.

You may think you are being positive and encouraging, but maybe under the surface, there is something else going on that is quite the opposite.

It can be difficult sometimes to recognise the conflict, hence having a helpful observer can be useful to alerting you of how your attitude comes across.

If you think you are positive and have a healthy attitude, but things are going awry, it could be useful to ask yourself some questions.

What are you thinking?

What is going on underneath those thoughts?

What is causing those deeper thoughts?

Is it fear?  Is it something else – if so what?

What has to happen for change to occur?

You may be able to help yourself, or sometimes, a professional will be needed to access what is really going on and will help you to change.

When you have sorted out your deeper thoughts and feelings, and probably fears, then you will be ready to change your attitude from under the surface right the way through to your conscious self.