How I Improved My Attitude in One Afternoon - From A to Z

How I Improved My Attitude in One Afternoon - From A to Z We have all had those days where we wake up on the wrong side of the bed. Don’t get me wrong… I truly LOVE what I do…But sometimes you have those mornings where your head is not right… You relate? Yeah…. I recall one particular morning, where as I got out of bed and shut the alarm off, my lower back was aching and I cannot remember what I did to make it throb as it was… Kids were not getting ready as fast as they should, putting me behind schedule. Annoyed by the coffee not perking at the speed of light and not entering my system intravenously, or better yet, by osmosis. Glance at the inbox on the phone and there were already 23 emails in before 6:45am. And there was more, but I won’t bore you with the tedious annoyances that continued with traffic, breakfast not being fully cooked, first appointment being late, etc… What was different about this morning was that I could not shake it. The early morning went into the late morning and, still, I could not shake the bad mood. And, in hindsight, I probably needed to be sequestered away from people for the day LOL (I laugh about it now, but I know some people I spoke to that day would have agreed with me). It was about noon, still in a mentally bad place, and so I called a good friend of mine. I vented about all that was ticking me off that morning. I knew in the big scheme of life, what was irking me were not even first world problems…they were simply logistics not going my way. But again, you know, I could not shake the bad attitude in my head. It was not going away. She said to me, “Alright listen. Go grab a piece of paper.” She waited for me to grab a sheet of paper and a pen. She continues, “Now write the alphabet down the left margin…one letter per line…” I’m thinking….What? But my friend is a tough love girl like me, so I just do what she tells me…. :) ABCDE…. I continued all the way to Z. I said, “Ok…now what?” She said, “Now for every letter write something that you are grateful for that begins with that letter. For example, for me, my grandmother’s name is Adelie, so I would write Adelie next to the A. I love bananas…they make me happy, so for B I would write bananas. It does not matter what it is…a person, place, situation, thing, concept, institution, feeling, whatever….just write it down if you are grateful for it.” I say what I am thinking, “Um…I do not have time to come up with 26 items that are letter specific…” “Well,” she said, “You had time to call me and vent about what is putting you and keeping you in a bad mood, so how about spend some time on an exercise that can improve your attitude?” My shoulders shrug down and, like a child, I reluctantly obey and say, “O.K.” So that afternoon, I started writing my alphabetized gratitude list, starting with A….. I did go out of order a bit…some letters were easy. Like the names of my kids and husband went next to those respective letters, slowly forgetting that they were moving slowly early that AM. I was certainly grateful for the coffee that moments ago I was irked by it not entering my system fast enough. X…X…X.. what do you write down for X? hmmmm…the Xtra cheese I put in my omelet that morning that caused it not to melt all the way through because I was rushing… Grateful for the warm bed, I was able to wake up from that morning. (I put this under W…) Grateful for the cool clients we get to service each and every day. I was grateful for the automobile that I sat in while in traffic. (yes, I did A for this one instead of car, since cool clients took up the C line.) My parents being still relatively healthy. I have the best staff on the planet… And after about 35 minutes, each letter had a word next to it. This made me feel better… Changed my attitude in an afternoon… I recommend this anytime you need an attitude improvement. Your family, friends and colleagues may appreciate it. And if you want to learn how gratitude can help your job search, read 3 Ways Gratitude Improves Your Job Search Results.