Attitude and Effort: The Only Two Things You Can Control

One of the most memorable moments of my childhood happened during my American History class in High School. My teacher proclaimed on the first day of class that there are only two things in life you can control: attitude and effort. He said that no matter what happens in life, or no matter the hand you are dealt, you can only control your attitude and effort. His motivational speech was intended to empower us to not fall asleep while taking notes, but the ramification of his words became the foundation of my young adult life.

At the age of 18, I found myself in Army fatigues standing in front of kneeling soldiers and speaking about attitude and effort in Basic Combat Training. Another year or so after that, I spoke the words again to some very worn down and tired soldiers in some Eastern provinces of Afghanistan. An area known by the soldiers as the "Purple Heart Factory". Fast forward a little and I was a Resident Assistant at University of Northern Iowa giving my college freshman floor mates some practical guidance with the words of my teacher...and hopefully it sunk in. A couple years later, I stood at the front of my classroom and gave my Emergency Medical Responder students the same exact lecture on their first day of class that I got from my teacher years ago. Attitude and effort are the only two things you can control. No mater what you're up against, no matter the hand you are dealt, you can only control the attitude you have and effort you put forth.

Attitude

Among the several definitions of attitude I found on merrium-webster.com, the one that stuck out was "a bodily state of readiness to respond in a characteristic way to a stimulus (such as an object, concept, or situation)" (n.d). From my own understanding of that, Attitude is the physical manifestation of how we are thinking on a particular item, job, or event. Attitude is all about how we think. The way we think controls how we feel and how we feel is how we act towards something or someone. In any given situation, we need to attempt to think about our thoughts, and if they aren't good... we need to change them. We need to think positively.

Lena Firestone (2018), a writer for Psychalive.org and owner of a really cool last name, makes note that a positive outlook on life has many wonderful health benefits and there are ways to increase your positive thinking. We can increase our lifespan, improve cardiovascular health, reduce depression, and improve our well being overall with positive outlooks (2018). Firestone (2018) mentions that we naturally want to think negatively, but there are tools to help control that and strengthen our positive side. The following is a helpful list of tips that can be practiced to help increase positive thinking (Firestone, 2018):

• "Take in the good" and try hard to focus on all the good things that happen during the day, big or small.
• Be grateful and take time to write things down that you are thankful for.
• Stomp out the "inner critic" and don't have a defeatist mentality.
• Respect yourself and give yourself some good self-care.
• If possible, avoid negative people or negative environments.
• Be generous and give to others.

With a way to increase the positive thoughts swimming around in your brain, your outlook on many situations will change.

Effort

My history teacher also had another saying to go along with effort. "You're in this class for 45 minutes. You can't go anywhere right now. You are stuck here, so you might as well give it your best effort". I don't know about anyone else who is reading this, but these words still apply for me. I work as a Paramedic doing 24-hour shifts in a rural community. We average 3 calls per day. For a rough translation, 0 - 14 calls on any given day at all hours of the day and night will average out to 3 calls by the end of the year. Routine isn't a word used to describe my job. Regardless if my day consists of sitting on the office chair or the crew seat of an ambulance, I can't go anywhere else. I'm stuck, so might as well put my best effort into it.

You can't control how your days will go 100% of the time, but you can control 100% of the effort you put into those days. You can't control the phone ringing constantly, the disrespectful customer, the long afternoon meeting, and the multitude of other annoyances of the day. At the same time, you certainly aren't going anywhere from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, either. Why settle for mediocrity in the workplace when you still have to face those work related pests regardless of the effort put in? Do good work, take on those annoyances with much gusto, and feel accomplished at the end of the work day! You control your own effort, other people and other things do not.

Attitude and Effort are the only two things in this life that we have 100% control over. When faced with adversity and the daily grind of this life, how we respond is a direct reflection of our inner most being. Our attitude and effort define who we are because attitude and effort are who we are. We can only control ourselves and nothing else. On a somewhat related note, I have one last memory I'd like to share of my beloved teacher...and (for quote context) football coach: "Life just punched you in the face, how are you going to respond". I hope you all respond to the punches received in this life with positive thinking and nothing but the best effort in your professions respectively.

References

Firestone, L. (2018, October 18). Thinking Positively: Why You Need to Wire Your Brain to Think Positive. Retrieved from https://www.psychalive.org/thinking-positively/

Attitude. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/attitude