Attitude Adjustment

"Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference."

                                                      --Winston Churchill

 

I can think of a few examples in the last several weeks where simply adopting a new attitude has turned my day around.  Instead of wallowing in the dreadfulness of my current situation I remembered this phrase and made the executive decision that I was not going to have a bad day.  Every day is a blessing from God and I do not want to waste a single moment.  This is a new outlook for me.  Many of you know that I'm not particularly good at letting things go.  However, with the help of the Lord and a phenomenal husband I'm learning to let the little things go.

 

• Working in a government agency that spends millions of dollars every year to help the public is a wonderful experience.  However, it also has it downfalls.  Due to recent budget cuts (both at the federal and state level) many programs are losing funding.  Instead of realizing how dire the financial crisis is in the United States, its citizens are more content to point fingers at goverment employees and elected officials.  This can be extremely disheartening, especially being a brand new employee in the system.  The last few days have been particularly rough at work.  Explaining to constituents that they simply don't qualify for funding is not an easy business.  Staying calm when someone accuses me of not working hard enough to provide them with resources takes all the willpower I have.  When I find myself starting to lose my cool at work I take several deep breaths and look at a post-it I have up in my cube.  It reads. "Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding."  This quote, by Gandhi reminds me that I'm not going to accomplish anything worthwhile if I get angry.  After calming myself down I am more patient and understanding with constituents.  Take the time to say a prayer, or empty your mind, or repeat a quote to yourself that reminds you why you're doing your job.  

• Another example of an attitude change that made a day a million times better was oddly enough on my wedding day.  The morning of my wedding day I woke up feeling on top of the world.  I was wildly excited to marry Shaun and could not wait for the day to get started.  However, as the morning progressed some issues between friends and families started to seriously stress me out.  I got caught up in the drama of what was going on.  While getting my hair done, my good friend Jenn looked at me and said, "Kristen, just let everything else go.  This is your wedding day.  Concentrate on you and Shaun only."  That simple advice made me realize that on that day, nothing else did matter.  Whatever craziness that was going on around me really didn't.  I took that advice to heart and enjoyed the rest of my wedding day to the fullest.

I'm going to continue to implement these attitude changes over the next several months.  The Lord is teaching me that there are things so much bigger than my life.  I want to learn about those things :)