Do you have a surplus of negative thoughts?

Many people do, so don’t be surprised if your answer was, “Yes.”

And what about positive thoughts? Ever have too many of those?

No…of course not.

So if you’re like most people, you’d like to have more positive thinking and less negative thinking, right?

Sounds simple enough, right?

NOT?

Positive thinkers (those people who simply and easily have positive thoughts) are either gifted with their “positive thinkings” or have worked diligently, and very consciously, to create an overall positive attitude.

My experience suggests that most people are in the latter category: People who had to figure out the “secret” formula of having positive thoughts and creating a positive attitude.

Here are a few quotes from some familiar people about attitude:

Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats. ~Voltaire

I had the blues because I had no shoes until upon the street, I met a man who had no feet. ~Ancient Persian Saying

If you don’t think every day is a good day, just try missing one. ~Cavett Robert

Oh, my friend, it’s not what they take away from you that counts.  It’s what you do with what you have left. ~Hubert Humphrey

Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.  ~Winston Churchill

But before we go any further, let’s ask a question, “Why?…Why would you, or anyone, want to have less negative thinking and more positive thoughts?”

Check this out:

“The Ohio Longitudinal Study Of Aging and Retirement, a 20-year study of people who were 50 years or older found that our attitude about aging affected how long we lived, showed that people who had a more positive view about aging lived an average of 7.8 years longer than those who did not hold positive views about aging (adapted from American Chronicle, Oct. 2006).”

Let’s stop right there!

A positive attitude will help you live longer…is that a good enough reason?

Ever heard the expression, “Attitude is everything”?

Well, it is!

Your attitude and the thoughts, positive or negative, that come from it will dictate your happiness, your health, the success of your career and the level of harmony in all your relationships.

Your attitude is the root-system of all your thoughts.

Got positive thinking and positive thoughts? Then thank your attitude!

Got negative thinking or negative thoughts? If so, then it’s time for an attitude adjustment!

Here are seven simple ways to create a positive attitude:

1.) Create a mantra or positive affirmation that best summarizes the state of how you want to truly be; for example, it might be something like, “I find the positive in every situation.”

2.) Visualize yourself using this mantra in your daily activities. For example, if you know that you’ve gotten frustrated in the past with checkout lines at the grocery store, then visualize yourself saying the mantra to yourself and then looking around for positive perspectives of that situation.

This can be especially helpful if you know you’re going to encounter a person, event or situation that has had a negative charge in your past. Mentally prepare and prep yourself for new and positively different response patterns by practicing these “cognitive rehearsals.”

You’re simply “retraining your brain” to respond in a way that you desire, rather than the old reactive auto-pilot ways.

3.) Inventory yourself at the end of each day and honestly ask yourself how you did. Celebrate your wins, victories and accomplishments and also make note of ongoing challenging areas and make those priorities to practice on in the future.

4.) Journal your progress and challenge points and review this weekly. Again, celebrate your progress and pinpoint any ongoing challenges.

5.) Get a few friends or colleagues involved and meet together once or twice a month to compare notes. ONLY pick people who are 100% committed to change their attitude to positive. No sour grapes, whiners or chronic complainers allowed, unless they are 100% willing to leave their evil ways of the past behind them.

6.) Surround yourself with positive reminders: Quotes, pictures and other physical items will remind you of the direction you want to go.

7.) Consider hiring a coach or therapist to help you if you feel stuck or have difficulty breaking these patterns.

Negative thinking and stinking thinking will leave you sinking and shrinking in your life.

Time for you to create a positive attitude that will lead you to gratitude and a life of Magnitude!

More from Ken Donaldson…

Today: Marry YourSelf First!

How do you manage yourself, your work-life balance, and at the same time, maintain physical and mental health, harmony in your family and an overall sense of happiness?

Life is challenging today and when additional pressures are added, without the proper resources, something can break down, resulting in decreased performance, poor health, unnecessary personal power struggles and an overall bad attitude.

The good news is that you can do something about all this.

It all starts with YOU managing YOU First!

Are YOU up for it?

Let’s look at some of the current research related to work-life balance (or the lack thereof) and career satisfaction:

1.   26% of U.S. adults report being on the verge of a serious nervous breakdown.

2.   40% of U.S. workers describe their office environment as “most like a real-life survivor program.”

3.   62% of U.S. workers routinely end the day with work-related neck pain, 44% report strained eyes, 38% complain of hand pain, and 34% report difficulty in sleeping due to work-related stress.

4.   26% of U.S. workers take no vacations at all.

5.   88% of U.S. employees say they have a hard time juggling work and life.

6.   70% of U.S. working fathers and working mothers report they don’t have enough time for their children.

7.   64% of Americans report that time pressures on working families are getting worse, not better.

8.   Americans work 137 more hours per year than Japanese workers, 260 more hours per year than British workers, and 499 more hours per year than French workers. The Japanese document approximately 10,000 cases per year of “death by overwork,” or karoosh. Considering the above stats, what must the undocumented U.S. numbers be??

9.   People in the U.S. work approximately 8 weeks longer per year than in 1969—in the space of a single generation—but for roughly the same income (after adjusting for inflation)

10. AND the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks just about everything but worker satisfaction.

So…what does one make from all this?

Work-life balance? Where is it? It doesn’t seem to exist.

Let’s add in a few more “realities of life.”

• 50% of first marriages end in divorce. This goes up to 60% for second timers and 70% for third times.

Obviously changing partners is not the solution, but more importantly, take a look at what must be relational ignorance.

Relationship intelligence? Lacking, to say the least.

How, then, do we cope with all these work and relational challenges?

Not so well.

Here’s more:

• One in every five Americans suffers from a diagnosable mental condition and the majority of those people never receive treatment.

• Alcoholism and alcohol abuse are the third leading cause of the preventable deaths in the United States.

• From 1960 to 2006, the prevalence of obesity increased from 13.4% to 35.1% in U.S. adults age 20 to 74.

• 15 million people display some sign of gambling addiction.

• A VERY conservative estimate suggests that 3% – 5% of the U.S. population struggles with “sexual compulsion disorders.”

SO…what to do with all this?

Manage YOU First!

Yes, you must know how to manage you first.

What does this mean?

How about a new 13 Step Program?

1.)         Manage Your Personal Vision

2.)         Manage Your Life Purpose

3.)         Manage Your Unique Values

4.)         Manage Your Fear

5.)         Manage Your Past: Feel It, Heal It and Release It

6.)         Manage Your Emotions

7.)         Manage Your Thoughts

8.)         Manage Your Belief System

9.)         Manage Your Actions (and Reactions)

10.)      Manage Your Relationships

11.)      Manage Your Career

12.)      Manage Your Free Time

13.)      Manage Your Health

There…start with that.

Effectively manage these 13 steps and you’ll avoid being one of the above statistics.

Manage You First and you’ll win every time…you’ll win with your health, your career, your relationships, your happiness and, of course, your life.

More from Ken Donaldson…

And Marry YourSelf First!

Whether you’re single, in a relationship or perhaps coming out of a relationship, it’s always good to know the primary relationship building blocks…right?!!

Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to work with and/or interview thousands of people and ask them about their relationships.

I’ve noticed some trends in the happier, healthier and longer lasting relationships: The individuals in those relationships have some very clear traits and behaviors that separated them from the rest.

Want to know what they are?

Here you go:

The 12 Steps to Proactively Creating a Divorce-Proof Marriage

1.) Know yourself, trust yourself and like yourself first!

• Define your Life Purpose

• Discern and live by your Values and Priorities

• Create your Life Vision and Life Mission Statement

• Develop a Legacy that will live forever

2.) Create a Balanced Lifestyle

• Set Boundaries and eliminate energy drains

• Create a proactive Self Maintenance program

• Evaluate and Inventory your lifestyle weekly

3.) Surround yourself with Supportive Networks and Communities

• Seek out like-minded and like-valued people

• Create Accountability agreements with others

• Avoid negative situations and environments

4.) Know your Requirements and Needs

• Create and live by your “Deal Makers” and “Deal Breakers”

• Make direct requests to get your needs met

• Always be true to yourself

5.) Take your work in life seriously, but take life lightly

• Practice being flexible, fluid, and accepting

• Avoid trying to “push the river”

• Express your passion in life with the utmost of passion

6.) Understand the healthy romantic relationship developmental process

• Create the criteria for your Life Partner

• Develop “Screening” and “Testing” strategies

• Use your support system for feedback and input

7.) Define your personal Spirituality

• Discover and walk your Spiritual Path

• Practice daily acts to activate your “Highest Self”

• Accept life on life’s terms

8.) Be perfectly imperfect

• Know your character challenges and work to strengthen those areas

• Accept all your errors, mis-takes and failures

• Practice non-judgment of yourself and all others

9.) Live from Abundance

• Practice daily acts of ‘Random Kindness”

• Develop a “Pay it Forward” system in your life

• Create an affirming, fear-less inner dialogue

10.) Be an Excellent Communicator

 • Practice Active Listening as often as possible

• Commit to creating a “Win-Win” outcome with others

• Learn to process emotions, conflict and disagreements

 11.) Get out of your comfort zone

• Learn to accept all your uncomfortable feelings and emotions

• Practice deliberate daily acts of new behavior

• Celebrate discomfort as healthy growth and development

12.) Consciously Breathe and Smile

• Learn to be Silly (use a clown nose if you need too!!)

• Develop Breathing Exercises to enhance your Mind, Body, Heart and Soul

• Smile until you are happy

And if you like this, you’re going to love the workshop this Saturday:

Love YourSelf Before You Love Again

Saturday, November 13th, 9 A.M. – 5 P.M.

Cost: $27 if prepaid, $37 at the door (and includes lunch!!)

FAMILY RESOURCES
5180 62nd Avenue North
Pinellas Park, FL 33781.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER OR CALL 866.600.6064.

Read more from Ken Donaldson…

I was invited to be a guest with my friends on Fox TV Good Day Tampa Bay  earlier this week to discuss “our” Tampa Bay Rays playoff situation and the impact it has on relationships.

(It’s funny how we/I suddenly take ownership when the hometown team is doing well…let’s see what happens if/when they lose!!)

Don’t get the connection?

You know, like what happens if one spouse is a Rays fan and the other is a Yankees, Red Sox or (worst case scenario) Rangers fan?

How do they keep the peace?

Or if one is just a diehard baseball fan and the other thinks all sports are just stupid and a total waste of time…how do they bridge that gap?

Or if one gets loud and very animated (or even a bit obnoxious) and the other likes quiet and peace, how can they both be happy and still share the same living space?

Yes, that’s what we were going to talk about.

But when I got there and we started to talk (during the commercial breaks and outtakes…it’s amazing what all happens in those short breaks and how productive that time can be) the conversation went in a whole different direction: What do the Rays need to do to win?

(That’s what you call getting thrown a screwball, knuckler and slider all in one!)

That is what Russell Rhodes, the co-anchor of FOX 13′s Good Day Tampa Bay, wanted to know….here’s what I shared with him (which is pretty much the same thing I’ll say to you when you ask me how to improve the quality of your life, your relationships or your career):

• Live in the present….there is no past. Too many times an athlete will ruminate about a failure and, in doing so, plants a seed to repeat the same thing.

  Why?

  Because the mind is very impressionable to imagery and the images you feed the mind will lead the mind in whatever direction the images go.

  Therefore if a player strikes out, the best thing for that player to think about next is the next hit.

  BUT, if it’s a pitcher who just gave up a hit, then the best thing for that pitcher to think about immediately is getting the next strike out….be fully in the present preparing for your next success…always.

• Be like Michael Jordan…Michael Jordan, who without question was one of the most elite athletes of all-time, had a ritual before every basketball game he played. He would visualize the highlights of the game. He would see how many points he would score during the game, how he would exploit the defenders from that team and how he would prevent them from exploiting him.

  How much of his success was based on that simple ritual? Hard to say, but it’s a similar ritual that almost of the elite athletes use before their games or events.

  Plus, it’s also the same ritual a very high ratio of successful people use for their businesses, relationships and health.

• Do be…sometimes it’s best to DO nothing, but just BE….Do Be!

  It’s easy to get so much advice and information racing around between the ears, that one can overwhelm themselves and distract their true capabilities. 

  In other words, sometimes athletes think too much about what they’re doing or what they’re about to do and they actually don’t allow their natural talent to shine all by itself…or as they say in the East: Less is More!

I probably could have gone on and on, as these are some of my favorite topics, but Russell asked a much more serious question:

What does the person do who’s unemployed and looking for work? Does he/she do the same thing?

“Yes!” Without a doubt!

I’m not going to try to pull any unrealistic Pollyanna frou-frou stuff here, just the reality:
You, I and any one of us can create whatever we want if we want it bad enough and we’re willing to work for it.

Want proof? Here it is, here they are and now there are NO MORE excuses:

“I always felt a bit alone and isolated from other people…I did a lot of pretending as a child. It was my way of coping with the fact that I didn’t feel like I fit in.” ~Keneau Reeves, actor, dyslexic

From a note signed by this dyslexic and his mother: “If I don’t miss one day of school this year I got $1.00.” ~Nelson A. Rockefeller, former VP USA, dyslexic

“When a man does all he can, though it succeeds not well, blame not him that did it.” ~George Washington, 1st President of USA, problem with reading and writing

“Failure in school does not mean failure in life.” ~Steven J. Cannell, author and Emmy winning TV producer, dyslexic

“My mom and I used to go to Hollywood and look at all the rich people. I said then that someday I was going to be somebody. I even practiced signing my autograph.” ~Cher, entertainer, dyslexic

“I firmly believe that deep in their soul everyone has a champion that can overcome obstacles and do great things.” ~Bruce Jenner, former Olympic Gold medalist, dyslexic

“The looks, the stares, the giggles…I wanted to show everybody that I could do better and also that I could read.” ~Magic Johnson, former NBA star, dyslexic

“My childhood was extremely lonely. I was dyslexic and lots of kids made fun of me. That experience made me tough inside, because you learn to quietly accept ridicule.” ~Tom Cruise, actor, dyslexic

He did not speak until the age of three and teachers labeled him mentally slow: “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” ~Albert Einstein, scientist

“My diary is a disaster…I can’t spell at all…I’ll spell the same word completely differently in the same sentence.” ~Liv Tyler, actress, writing disability (dysgraphia)

“Life is full of challenges. How you handle these challenges is what builds character. Never be afraid to be who you are.” ~Erin Brockovich, activist, dyslexic

In reference to his being the class clown: “I didn’t want anyone to know that I didn’t get it.” ~Tommy Hilfiger, designer, dyslexic

“I used to love reading when I was little, and then it became difficult and I didn’t understand why. I thought, what a bummer, my passion all drained out of me. So when I found out I had dyslexia, it was like, oh, that’s what it was.” ~Jewel, singer, dyslexic

“My learning disabilities pushed me to discover talents that I wasn’t aware of having. It has also led me to develop products to help others who struggled through school as I did.” ~Reyn Geyer, inventor of Nerf balls & Twister, dyslexic

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” ~Agatha Christie, author, dysgraphic (dictated her work)

“My mother was the making of me. She was so true, so sure of me and I felt I had someone to live for, someone I must not disappoint.” ~Thomas Edison, inventor, struggled with math, did not read until 12 years old, teachers told him he wasn’t smart

“If you can dream it, you can do it.” ~Walt Disney, struggled with reading

“I get stubborn and dig in when people tell me I can’t do something and I think I can. It goes back to my childhood when I had problems in school because I have a learning disability. I never wanted to be perceived as handicapped or limited in any way.” ~Ann Bancroft, polar explorer, dyslexic

“Your brain is much better than you think; just use it!” ~Leonardo Da Vinci, artist, scientist, inventor, trouble with spelling, had so many ideas and inventions he had trouble staying on track

“If you read to me I could tell you everything that was read. They didn’t know what it was. They knew I wasn’t lazy, but what was it?” ~Whoopi Goldberg, actress, dyslexic

“One thing about mildly dyslexic people – they’re good at setting everything else aside to pursue one goal.” ~Jay Leno, entertainer, dyslexic

“I felt like an alien. I always felt like I never belonged to any group that I wanted to belong to.” ~Steven Spielberg, movie maker, dyslexic, struggled with math, dropped out of high school

“It is not easy to compete when you have a learning disability, but it is possible.” ~Henry Winkler, actor, dyslexic

Now…just go do that thing that you’re here to do…and just do it to the best of your ability and get people to support you and cheer you on!

Oh, and what’s the pearls and spoiled oysters ( I know, it’s really a clam, but go with me on this!!) got to do with it all? In every spoiled oyster there lies a potential pearl…you just have to turn it inside out to find it!

More from Ken Donaldson here.

Marry YourSelf First!

Here’s a great cheat sheet for your relational intelligence.

• Assertiveness: Say what you mean, mean what you say, and never say it mean.

• Boundaries: With yourself first; then others… ”No” is a complete sentence.

• Communication: Still one of the cornerstones of healthy relationships (See Assertiveness).

• Deal Makers/Deal Breakers: Say “Yes” to your Yes’ and “No” to your No’s.

• Emotional Management: Feel them; Heal them; Deal with them…then move on.

• Focus-Fear-Faith: Do you focus on fear or faith?…your choice.

• God: Is there a spiritual conversation here?

• Humor: Wear a clown nose before every fight …it’ll eliminate most of them.

• Integrity: Be whole, open, honest and forthright.

• Jealousy: Just in case it shows up, know how to deal with it (and any other yucky dynamics too).

• Ken on Call: Always have a coach/counselor you can rely on.

• Logs on the Fire: Keep the passion growing and growing…don’t let the fire go out…ever!

• Most Important: The most important thing is the most important thing…priorities 101.

• NO Blame, Shame or Games!: See integrity.

• Openness: The gateway to the Heart has to be open to let the Love in.

• Purpose: What is the purpose of this relationship? Make it bigger than the two of you.

• Questions: Ask in the direction of the solution, not in the direction of the problem.

• Rituals: Daily, positive, growth-enhancing and fun …got it?!!

• Support Networks: Where/who do you go to for yours? We all need support.

• Tongue-Foo Fighting: Know how to be the bull-fighter of tongue-foo and arguments go away real fast and in a real loving way.

• Understanding: “Do you understand me?” If not, then listen more and deeper.

• Validation: We all want this and it’s often withheld or overlooked…give it away generously!

• Work-Life Balance: See Boundaries and Deal-Makers/Deal Breakers.

• X(Ex)Relationship Baggage: Live in the present not the past…see Ken on Call if you can’t do this.

• Yesterday-Today-Tomorrow: Where do you live… live your best today in today.

• Zealousness: Not too much, not too little, just right in the middle.

 Read more from Ken Donaldson.

And Marry YourSelf First!