Replace: On Attitude Adjustment
Just yesterday my husband commented on some changes he was noticing in me. He mentioned how happy he was that we were able to spend time together this weekend and that I had been so willing to help him with things like weeding and staining our deck. He said all of this while I lay on the couch watching Monday night football with him, which he also commented, was out of character for me.
“Well. . .” I replied, “reset. . . haven’t you been reading my blog?”
(Because really friends, I’m not just writing about this thing, I’m living it out myself)
“Yeah, I know”, he said, “but I thought that was like a personal thing, I didn’t think I would actually see a difference.”
Well good then, I thought. For me, my resets have to do with my health and my relationships primarily. And so I want to be more intentional about both. So I would hope that my loved ones would notice a change. Because otherwise it’s just words. Like we talked about in yesterday’s post it isn’t enough to have good intentions, reset involves walking the walk and actually making some changes. It involves movement.
So while, I’m happy that my sweet hubby is noticing some “change” in order to get to a place where I could be intentional about a “reset” I had to change my attitude.
Why was I out gardening and staining and watching football? Because I love my husband, yes. But also because I had changed my attitude. I let go of the idea that I’m not outdoorsy or good at “gardening” and that I wouldn’t be very good at staining our deck so why even offer to help.
I had to start seeing myself in a different way; as capable of many things even if they were things I had not spent time doing before.
It’s like with avocados. I spend most of my life thinking that I didn’t like avocados. I mean they look wierdish and they are green so obviously I wouldn’t like them. Except I had never tried one so I didn’t actually KNOW this to be a fact. So I changed my attitude and thought that if so many people think avocados are so great maybe I should give one a change. And you know what? Of course I liked them. I mean they are avocados, they are delicious. I eat them all the time now. But first I had to rethink my thinking.
In his book Mid-Course Correction Gordon MacDonald says this:
Can anyone escape the patterns and attitudes that get us into trouble? Can anyone truly change?
Many are tempted to believe the answer is no, that there comes some critical moment in life when the development of a deeper, broader, more spirited life is no longer possible. And without thinking through the ramifications of their perception, they give up and abandon hope of all further transformation. Which, I say respectfully, is kind of stupid, certainly out of synch with what I hear Jesus, the Author of life-change, saying.
MacDonald uses the term mid-course correction, I’m using “reset” but they both refer to the “ways in which we seek to initiate change in our lives at any age and in any circumstance.”
If we want to have a reset we need to believe that we are capable of change. Any past attitude of defeat must be replaced with an attitude of hope and optimism.
We are in a position to change our relationships, circumstances, dreams. Life. But we’ll only get there if we actually believe we are capable of such things.
Today let’s consider:
What attitudes have held you back in the past?
What beliefs have convinced you that you are incapable of a reset or a change in some aspect of your life?
What would it take for you to overcome such beliefs and replace them with a new attitude?
