The Courageous Positive Attitude
This week on the Shift Change podcast I spoke with Tim Riggs. Tim served as a staff pastor at a large church in OKC for several years before stepping out to start his own business. This change required courage. There is risk involved in making significant change, but I was also struck by his ability and choice to maintain a positive attitude throughout the process.
Let’s be honest about several things here: (1) change requires courage (2) courage requires risk (3) attitude matters. Most folks don’t make the needed or desired change because they lack the courage to change or are unwilling to take the risk. And you can be courageous in your change, but if your attitude stinks during it, the journey will be awful. So, let’s look a little more closely at our three ideas.
(1) Change Requires Courage
We all desire a certain level of change in our lives. Perhaps your idea of change is getting into shape, or changing careers, or moving to a new location. Yet, we all know that significant change is challenging and difficult. It is the fear of failure or even embarrassment that we often find paralyzing in achieving change for our desired outcomes.
Moving beyond those fears into real change demands courage. Courage moves us to act when the easy thing would be to simply stay in our current place. It is courage that compels us to move beyond our present circumstances and into a place of hope. You see, hope is a foundational component of courage. There is no courage without hope!
(2) Courage Requires Risk
There is real risk in acting courageously. Courage requires us to speak up when others remain silent. It is courage that moves us beyond the known and unknown risk. It propels us to do more than talk. It moves us to act. There are always risks in life and working to avoid them only stagnates growth for us.
The greatest leaders recognize that their courageous acts reflect their personal convictions. If one is going to act courageously it will often demand a deep conviction that things must change. That change will mean risk, but the risk is worth it.
(3) Attitude Matters
If you’re going to change anything significant in your life, it is easier with a good attitude. There are few things as annoying as the adult who whines about a required change. We are better, our marriages and homes are better, and the world is better when we keep a positive attitude during change.
Our attitudes affect not only how we see the world, but it impacts all our relationships. So why not choose a positive attitude? It’s one of the few things you get to control every minute of every day. Choose to see the change and the world around you with a positive attitude. That’s not to say that we need to approach the world from a Pollyanna point of view, but it is to say that change is not the worst thing. Change can be good.
Embrace the change and courageously enjoy the journey.