Are You Flying or Falling?

The Difference Between Flying Or Falling is simply a matter of adjusting your attitude!

Are You Flying or Falling Through Life?

There is a term in aviation that is used when referring to the pitch of the airplane. Ironically, that term is “attitude.” By adjusting the airplane’s attitude you can determine whether the plane is climbing (flying) or dropping (falling). The same can be said your personal attitude.

Your attitude is one of the few things you can control in every situation regardless, of any other factors. If you choose to look for the silver lining, then you will find it. Conversely, if you spend all of your time thinking about reasons why you can’t do something, then you often give up without even giving yourself a chance to succeed. You may miss out on an amazing experience because you fear potential failure, as opposed to understanding that there might be something positive you can draw from the experience, even in the face of adversity and in-spite of your failures.

Quit Making Excuses!

It is easy to find excuses in life for everything that goes wrong. Understanding why you are failing is different than justifying it. If you can learn to hold yourself accountable and to stay positive in spite of failure, you will feel better about yourself. By removing the self-imposed excuses and barriers, you give yourself a real opportunity to get out of your own way and succeed at whatever it is you are trying to accomplish. We always look for someone else to blame for our shortcomings and can develop a victimized mentality with the belief that the world is out to get us.

The truth is that, more often than not, we become our biggest roadblock to success. If you realized how little time people actually spend talking about you, you can move past your concerns about what you think they are saying. Why give other people that level of control over your life? Why live every day worried about what the world thinks of you? Be confident in your convictions and know you are putting forth the best you that you know how to be and forget about what anyone else thinks about you. When you achieve this level of freedom, you will see the world change around you.

You will begin to live comfortably in your own skin and you will be able to approach every situation feeling good about what you are doing and therefore be more effective in doing it. Maintaining a positive attitude is not easy. We all have out burdens to bear and crosses to carry. We all come with a little baggage.  We have all of these different influences in our lives and voices in our heads telling us we are failures or we are not good enough. The truth is that you can silence those voices, over time you can train them to be your biggest fans. We can convert the negative to a positive and truly empower ourselves to do something amazing.

Do you know someone who is always happy? Smiling all day long and enjoying every bit of life, as far as you can tell? How do you feel when you interact with this person? Do you feel better when you talk to them? Do they make you want to be happier yourself? So, what is holding you back? You could be that person in the lives of so many by making the simple decision to maintain a positive attitude no matter the situation.

Sometimes You Fake It

Like everything, it takes time to develop the skill of maintaining a positive attitude. I used to have this job I despised. I loved the people with whom I worked and I enjoyed doing what I was doing, but the business was not for me. I worked more than 60 hours most weeks and was not making anywhere near the money I thought I deserved based on my job performance and the time I was investing in the company. The one thing that kept me coming to work long after I decided the job was not for me were some of my coworkers.

Their attitudes were always positive and I loved being around them. They showed me that the lives of those around can be affected by something as simple as a positive attitude. That you can brighten someones entire day by looking them right in the eyes and smiling, even if you hate every moment of what you are doing. We were there for each other in that sense after a while. If one of us were having a bad day another person would be there to pick him up. The bonds I built through this job were my true compensation for what was otherwise a very unfulfilling professional experience.

I did eventually leave that job, but not after learning a valuable lesson. For a while there, my goal was simply to pass on that same positive attitude to others inside the company just as my coworkers had done for me. I learned that it did me no good to go in and be negative because either way I still had to do my job. I still had to talk to everyone and perform my job duties. I had already decided I was going to stick it out there for a while longer so I decided I would do it with a smile on my face, suck it up and make the most out of it and I ended up learning more about myself in 8 months than I had learned in the 28 years before it.

I learned what I was made of while working at that company. We sold office supplies door to door. Commission only, no car, travel, meal or entertainment allowance. We went on business trips four to a room with double beds, we knocked on 40-50 doors a day and were required to make 2 sales a day. Snow, rain, heat, no matter. This was not a sales job, this was sweatshop sales and it made me strong. It made me understand that I was capable of doing anything. That if I was willing to work this hard for someone else then I could do it for myself. It helped me understand that I could be in control of my own destiny.

I faked a smile for 8 months. Testing myself. Promising to quit each morning but unwilling to let down my team. We were brainwashed and it was brilliant. They had strategically exploited our basic human nature to build a thriving business. I hated them for doing it but loved understanding it. I learned much during my time as a sales spy! I discovered secrets of manipulation and persuasion and I despised myself for it. I faked it for as long as I could. I finally got out before my mind was completely converted. I still wonder how some of them do it. Part of me still admires some of them and the other part of me hurts for the destruction they leave in the lives of the ones that don’t make it.

 Always Move Forward

No matter the experience, good bad or indifferent you must always learn. You must always explore the inner workings of how you grow from any situation life throws your way. In order to maintain a positive attitude you must understand your flaws and weaknesses and build your strengths around them.

Write down your experiences, start a blog, find a good friend to talk to but don’t keep it bottled up inside. It will eat at you like a cancer until one day it takes you to your limit and you either implode or explode. You will eventually self destruct and the beautiful house of cards you have spent so long building will crumble. In the blink of an eye you will lose it all and that is not something you should ever want to risk.

In order to maintain a positive attitude you must let it all go and understand that there is nothing you can do about the things in your past. It means that you have to forgive yourself and hope that others will find ways to do the same and move past the ones that cannot. You must not burden yourself with the guilt of the past or the weight of all your mistakes.

You can never fly unless you let go of all your unnecessary weight. Strip your soul of the excess baggage you’ve been carrying around and look at the world in a whole knew light. Find your runway and adjust your attitude and then run. Don’t look back and dont slow down. Just spread those wings and keep moving forward. I promise you’ll fly. How high and for how long? Well that part’s up to you.

Are you flying or falling? Have you had a similar experience? Let’s talk it out in the comments!