A Positive Attitude Is Attracting. And Attractive.

A Positive Mental Attitude Means "Thinking in the Beauty Way" 

One of the originators of the self-help movement was Napoleon Hill, who wrote: "Your mental attitude is something you can control outright, and you must use self-discipline until you create a positive mental attitude ── your mental attitude attracts to you everything that makes you what you are." 

In a similar vein, Norman Vincent Peale used to preach, "A positive thinker does not refuse to recognize the negative; he refuses to dwell on it. Positive thinking is a form of thought which habitually looks for the best results from the worst conditions."

And management guru John Maxwell said, "Your attitude is the eye of your soul. If your attitude is negative then you see things negatively. If it is positive then you see things positively."

Your attitude and the beliefs associated with your attitude will either empower you or impede you. The choice will always be yours.

In many ways, the thoughts you dwell upon in your mind, and the attitudes that propel you through every day, are more important than the food and vitamins you put into your body. An attitude of I'm a failure or I'll never be happy again, or thoughts like I hate this person or I am going to get revenge on that person, do more harm to you than junk food. A constant diet of such killer thoughts will destroy you long before cholesterol hardens your arteries.

The Navajo people in North America have an expression for this. They believe that the thoughts that dominate their minds will shape their lives, so they want to fill their minds with only that which is enriching, harmonious and enlightening. They call this thinking in the Beauty Way. It's a process designed to rid themselves of all thoughts that are destructive and replacing those with ones that are good, peaceful and heartening.

This makes a lot of sense. If you fill your mind with new learning you will never stagnate. Have an attitude of courage and you will be able to face life's varied situations with greater confidence and strength. Likewise, if you load your mind with optimistic attitudes you will always have hope.

But only you can determine how to fill your mind and what attitudes you will allow to dominate your personality. And remember, your attitude is an expression of what you believe, the values you carry within and the expectations you have for the future. 

This article is excerpted from the best-selling book Project You: Living A Determined Life, available in paperback and Kindle formats at Amazon. 

Your Attitude Is Up To You (And No One Else)

You Are Responsible for the Attitude You Bring To Each Day

Attitude makes all the difference in how you approach life and what you take from your experiences in this world.

Sports coaches and leading athletes all know the right attitude makes a difference in athletic performance, and their knowledge applies directly to the game of life.

It has been said that "success is 99% attitude." While you can argue the exact percentage, there is no denying the fact that attitude does play a major role in any significant personal success. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, "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."

There are numerous aspects of attitude of which you should become aware: the motivational aspect of attitude, how attitude helps recover from failures, the impact of a negative attitude, how your attitude helps set your expectations about the future, and how the right attitude prepares you to handle challenges and tap into opportunities.

Having a strong, uplifting and reinforcing attitude is vital to keep you going through good times and bad. As Albert Einstein said, "Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character." Or, in the words of Brian Tracy, "An attitude of positive expectation is the mark of the superior personality."

Almost all of the self-development and motivational writers will tell you that it is not what happens to you in life that matters, but rather how you deal with your experiences and what you make of the experiences you encounter. They will also tell you that how you deal with such experiences will be primarily based on your attitude.

Think about it….for every experience you encounter your attitude will make a difference.

It is your choice what kind of attitude you bring to these encounters. But since you are going to have an attitude anyway, you might as well have a positive, uplifting and reinforcing one, no matter what the encounter or circumstances.

Your daily attitude and level of gratitude for this opportunity of life will determine the progress you make on your journey each day. A positive attitude and a high level of gratitude will help you move forward. Likewise, a negative attitude or poor gratitude level will result in setbacks, backward steps or deviation from your intended path.

So which attitude will you take into today? Into tomorrow? Into every day? 

This article is partially excerpted from the best-selling book Project You: Living A Determined Life, available at Amazon in Kindle and Paperback formats. 

Motivation Creates Compelling Images For Success

Real Motivation Is That Drive From Within

According to motivational speaker Zig Ziglar, "People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing. That's why we recommend it daily."

His pithy saying on motivation is at the heart of why some people get motivated and others do not. Everybody has their moments of motivation; a time when sparks go off internally and they tell themselves (or others) "I am going to do this or that."

"Real motivation is that drive from within," believes motivational speaker Denis Waitley. "You know where you are going because you have a compelling image inside, not a travel poster on the wall."

Adds his fellow motivational speaker Brian Tracy, "The clearer you are about the consequences of your actions and the more intensely you desire to enjoy the consequences that your behaviors may lead to, the more motivated you will be."

The closer you are to self actualization on Maslow's scale, the greater will self satisfaction be as a motivating factor. Naturally, there are few greater reasons for doing anything than taking action because it fits in with your own self image or because it has importance and relevance to you.

When you combine this kind of motivation with determination and commitment, you are nearly unstoppable. You may never achieve the exact, glorious outcome you envision for yourself, but whatever you achieve through motivated action will be far greater than living a passive existence where life simply passes you by.

As Abraham Lincoln noted, "Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing."

Let your personal resolution to achieve your ProjectYou Life Journey goals be your fundamental motivating factor and A Determined Life will be yours. 

This article is excerpted from Project You: Living A Determined Life, a best-selling book at Amazon available in Kindle and paperback formats. 

Monitoring Your Determined Life Journey

Creating Your Weekly Solitude Hour

As the first weekend of 2016 comes to a close, many people are working on their New Year's Resolutions and other lists of goals and objectives for this brand new year. 

Others may be thinking longer-term, and creating their Project You Life Journey paths for the next 3-5 years, or perhaps even longer.

Either way, once you have outlined your goals and action plans, do not cast these in stone or think that they cannot be modified or amended. 

As unforeseen opportunities and unexpected hurdles come your way, your path will need to be occasionally (and sometimes frequently) altered and revised.

A person who rigidly sticks to an initial Project You Life Journey road map is likely to miss out on the benefits for self development and growth that result from such unplanned opportunities. For instance, an unexpected job opportunity in another location or country might offer both tremendous career advancement and personal development opportunities. To reject the job offer solely because it is not in one's road map would be foolish (although rejecting it for other reasons would be valid).

Similarly, a person may find it a struggle to surmount obstacles blocking their path. The wrong approach would be to abandon their goals simply because their road map dictates only one direction to proceed. As an example, if someone is unsuccessful at auditioning for a role in a community play, they could see this as a key obstacle. On the other hand, if they volunteer to be the stage manager for the production, they can still retain some involvement in the play, enabling them to perhaps learn more about the craft of acting through listening to the instructions of the director and watching more skillful actors rehearse and perform.

Perhaps the best methodology for monitoring your Project You Life Journey progress is to allocate time on a biweekly or weekly basis for a personal Solitude Hour. 

This would be a dedicated time of reflection devoted strictly to monitoring your Project You Life Journey.

In effect, your Solitude Hour would be an internal conversation with your spirit, doing a "gut check" on your progress and validating how well your actions, activities, thoughts, emotions, and feelings in the intervening time period have been aligned with both your path and your long-term dreams, hopes, desires and goals. 

All thoughts not associated with your Project Your Life Journey should be pushed aside during your Solitude Hour.

You should consider your Solitude Hour to be a regular appointment with your soul, a regularly scheduled chat session that has greater importance than any other engagement or meeting on your calendar. 

And speaking of being scheduled, put your Solitude Hour onto your schedule, just like any other appointment or call you schedule. Let nothing interfere with it. This is YOUR TIME for YOU. Hence block your schedule accordingly. 

Whatever your plans or goals are for this new year, we hope that you will begin to Live A Determined Life and have your best year ever. 

This article is partially excerpted from the book Project You: Living A Determined Life, available in Kindle and paperback formats at Amazon. 

Be Driven By Commitment

A Commitment is a Promise to Yourself 

Note the slight spelling difference between impossible and possible. Those two additional letters (i and m) are most often used together to represent "I am." It may sound silly, but simply changing one's thinking that impossible actually means I'm possible works. Such thinking changes "impossible tasks" into "I'm possible tasks." Again, it sounds silly, but it does work and may reinforce your commitment to tackle the hard tasks at hand.

Vince Lombardi, the famous American football coach whose name now adorns the Super Bowl Trophy, said, "The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence regardless of their chosen field of endeavor." If you are a teacher, you should strive to be an excellent teacher. If you are a scientist, your aim should be to be an excellent one.

Steve Prefontaine, the American distance runner who held seven track records before his tragic death in a car accident at 24, said, "To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift." This applies equally to your life and your unique gift as it does to any sportsman on the playing field.

Adds George Halas, another famous American football coach, "Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it." Coach Lombardi, who was the opponent of Halas across the field for many years, used to say, "The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender." It is little wonder that their two teams used to have some ferocious game battles. They knew how to instill commitment in their players.

Work hard. Give your best. Don't sacrifice the gift you have been given. Strive for excellence. Don't do things halfheartedly. These coaches and athletes knew what commitment was all about.

If your goals are clearly articulated, and if you make an unconditional commitment to achieve your most important ambitions and dreams, then you will find yourself properly positioned to find the resources, power, energy, assistance, and a correct path to accomplish what you set out to do.

A solid commitment to yourself (and that's really what a commitment is  ─ a promise to one's self) will give you plenty of reasons to get out of bed in the morning, to practice your skill set, to work on important things rather than seemingly urgent tasks, and to take on new experiences en route to accomplishing your desires.

Remember, good habits are just as addictive as bad ones. If you ensure that your habits are centered on your commitment to your goals, you will attain these in a more timely manner.

After all, a person driven by commitment knows where they are going….and the whole world steps aside for the person who knows where they are going. 

This article is excerpted from the best-selling book Project You: Living A Determined Life, available at Amazon in Kindle and paperback formats. 

Commitment Implies Action. And Determination.

Determination is a Core Component of Commitment

Translating your intentions into choices and then moving your choices into action requires the power of commitment.

You can think of commitment as a contract between your spiritual side ─ the part of you that wants to grow and develop ─ with your mind and body. Your mind and body have to do the work to achieve the goals of your spiritual side (which explains everyone's conflict between having a desire for change and often lacking the commitment to change). You will feel the decisions of your spiritual side internally, in your heart and gut. Only you can decide who will win the battle between your heart and gut on one side, and your body and mind on the other.

When you make a firm commitment you dedicate yourself to a course of action in pursuit of your goals and desires, hopefully resulting in an expansion of your well being, self satisfaction and overall happiness.

You have to make a decision to act and then make a commitment to act. As Bertrand Russell wrote, "Nothing is so exhausting as indecision."

Commitment implies action. When you make a commitment to others, this pledge usually propels you to follow through and do what you promised. The same should be even truer for a commitment you make to yourself.

Andre Malraux, the French author, adventurer and statesman, is definitely on the mark with his comment that, "Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one has better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to be on one's ideas, to take a calculated risk ─ and to act."

How do you obtain the commitment to act? It comes from within, from the burning desire deep within yourself that produces a spark in you saying "I have to achieve this" or "I must accomplish this."

There is a huge difference between a "must have" or a "must do" and a "want." There are likely many things you want to do, but only a handful of things that grasp the inner core of your soul and your self-consciousness to produce a must do.

The things that you willingly practice in order to hone your skills and talents will usually fall into the must do category. Sometimes this willingness to practice will come naturally, through an internal flame of motivation. At other times, however, you will need to coerce yourself into action.

But, as Harry S Truman said, "In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves ─ self-discipline with all of them came first."

Former baseball manager Tommy Lasorda noted that, "The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a man's determination." Determination, of course, is a core component of commitment. 

This article is excerpted from the best-selling book Project You: Living A Determined Life, available in paperback and Kindle formats at Amazon. 

Commitment Means Commitment To Action

Learn Commitment From Michael Jordan 

One of the things that made Michael Jordan such a fierce competitor is evident from one of his most famous quotes: "I can accept failure, but I cannot accept not trying."

Part of what Jordan is talking about in that quote is having a commitment to commitment ─ the commitment to try, to act, to overcome hurdles and blips encountered on the way, to go after your goals and dreams no matter what.

Commitment is what transforms dreams, hopes, goals, and desires into reality.

Here's another quote from Jordan about commitment: "I have always believed that if you put in the work, the results will come. I don't do things half-heartedly because I know if I do, then I can expect half-hearted results."

This level of commitment means doing the daily things you need to do to accomplish your goals and bring your dreams to reality, even when you do not feel like it (perhaps especially when you don't feel like it).

The key is to keep your goals in mind and understand that your daily activities are a means to an end. 

For instance, if your goal is to build your upper body strength, you will need to lift weights three times a week. Now, lifting weights three times a week is not your goal (building your upper body strength is), but merely the steps required to achieve your goal. So on days you feel too tired to lift weights, you have to tell yourself "in order to achieve my goal I must do my weights workout" and "I am not too tired to pursue my goals." That is what Jordan means about putting in whole-hearted work.

Commitment requires a commitment to action. You cannot become a howling success merely by howling!

A New Year is upon us. Make a commitment to being committed and 2016 will be a year you long remember. 

This article is excerpted from the book Project You: Living A Determined Life, available in paperback and Kindle formats at Amazon.