2019! It’s hard to believe. Another year has come and gone!

It is incredible to me, even at my youthful age of 32, to comprehend how quickly time flies.

As I reflect on the past year, I am overcome with gratitude for the opportunities I have had as an inspirational and motivational speaker, but even more the blessings of all the people who have been such an encouragement in my life, enabling me to use my God given talents to help others.

2018 was full of growth as well as numerous challenges. As we all deal with this growth and challenge throughout our journey in life, attitude is one of the things I’ve found that can make or break our success and increase or rob our joy along the way.

If you want to rise above and truly be successful in life and work, you must develop a healthy and positive attitude. The altitude you enjoy will be directly related to the attitude you employ. I’ll be the first to admit that this is not always easy.

Every day when I get up in the morning even after 20+ years, I open my eyes praying and hoping that today will be the day when I can “see” again. Every day I am disappointed when my eyes fail to see and though I am used to it, it affects me. For the past several months since august I had been waking up with the instant reminder that I also have a broken foot. I’ve talked about how this happened in a previous blog.

The broken foot, though now healed up, affected my life more than I could have ever imagined. It consumed not only my physical activities, but also my mental thinking and threatened to bring me down. Each day I had a choice, and still have that choice, as to how to view and deal with the changed circumstance. Will it take over and rule my life, or will I rise above and use it to my advantage?

I would like to show you a wonderful way to help ensure you develop and maintain that positive attitude and rise above, no matter how many “broken feet” you encounter along the way.

This is an exercise that I started doing each day to help ensure I have the best day possible. It is called the 5/5’s. On a piece of paper make two columns. In the first one write down 5 things that you are grateful for. Recently I’ve been writing things like:

• Grateful to be out of my wheelchair and back on my feet
• Grateful for the extra time I had to write while my foot was healing
• Grateful for the new speaking gigs I recently acquired
• Grateful for the continued support and love from my friends and family
• Grateful for the new rowing machine I received for Christmas

There is always a light at the end of the tunnel, you just have to find the light switch.

Then switch gears and write down 5 things that you want to attract into your life or things you are praying for.

For me:

• Getting back into the ocean to swim now that my foot is healed
• Schedule a new speaking gig this week
• More faith and confidence
• One new insight or idea for future presentations
• A new triathlon training partner

It doesn’t matter if the things you write down are big or small, and you can repeat many of the same ones each day. What this exercise does is help you to focus on the things you are grateful for and what you want more of in your life and your work, rather than on your problems, regrets, fears, or lack thereof. I would encourage you to try it out for yourself. Do it for a month and let me know how it has worked for you.

This attitude of gratitude and abundance mentality is something that becomes more natural the more you do it and change what you focus on. Someone once said that it is impossible to be truly grateful and sad at the same time. That is an impossibility worth having!

Friends, whether you realize it or not, your attitude can truly have a major impact and even change the trajectory of your life. It’s not always easy to maintain a positive attitude with everything life throws your way, but taking time to be grateful and remembering all that you have can help a lot. I have a weak recovering right foot and am still blind, but I choose each day to focus on what I have, what I can do and am working towards. 2019 is upon us, and no matter what challenges it might present, with a positive attitude, an abundance of gratitude, and eliminating the excuses, the best is yet to come!