Attitude Is Everything by Jim Rohn

The process of human change begins  within us. We all have tremendous potential. We all desire good results from  our efforts. Most of us are willing to work hard and to pay the price that  success and happiness demand.

Each of us has the ability to put our  unique human potential into action and to acquire a desired result. But the one  thing that determines the level of our potential, produces the intensity of our  activity and predicts the quality of the result we receive, is our attitude.

Attitude determines how much of the  future we are allowed to see. It decides the size of our dreams and influences  our determination when we are faced with new challenges. No other person on  earth has dominion over our attitude. People can affect our attitude by  teaching us poor thinking habits or unintentionally misinforming us or providing  us with negative sources of influence, but no one can control our attitude  unless we voluntarily surrender that control.

No one else “makes us angry.” We make  ourselves angry when we surrender control of our attitude. What someone else  may have done is irrelevant. We choose, not they. They merely put our attitude  to a test. If we select a volatile attitude by becoming hostile, angry, jealous  or suspicious, then we have failed the test. If we condemn ourselves by  believing that we are unworthy, then again, we have failed the test.

If we care at all about ourselves, then  we must accept full responsibility for our own feelings. We must learn to guard  against those feelings that have the capacity to lead our attitude down the  wrong path and to strengthen those feelings that can lead us confidently into a  better future.

If we want to receive the rewards the  future holds in trust for us, then we must exercise the most important choice  given to us as members of the human race by maintaining total dominion over our  attitude. Our attitude is an asset, a treasure of great value, which must be  protected accordingly. Beware of the vandals and thieves among us who would  injure our positive attitude or seek to steal it away.

Having the right attitude is one of the  basics that success requires. The combination of a sound personal philosophy  and a positive attitude about ourselves and the world around us gives us an  inner strength and a firm resolve that influences all the other areas of our  existence.