How Do We Change Our Attitude?

A couple of weeks ago I preached a lesson on attitudes. In it, I gave some examples of bad, or negative attitudes, and good, or positive attitudes. It was mentioned to me afterwards that it is one thing to know what kind of attitude we should and shouldn’t have, but it is another thing to know how to change our attitude if we have a poor one.

When trying to change our attitude for the better, the first step we need to take is to realize that we have a bad attitude. After the initial realization, we should constantly watch ourselves and be conscious of the type of attitude that we are ‘wearing’.

From then on, we will need to assess our daily lives. If we have the wrong attitude, we will need to take a look inside ourselves and change that attitude. Some questions we may want to ask ourselves are: Why do I have this negative attitude? What is causing my attitude to be negative?

There could be a variety of reasons that our attitude has worsened. Perhaps, we have had a bad day at work. Maybe there is something giving us some physical pain. Or perhaps there is a lot of work on our ‘plates’ and we have a lot of stress.

If we can determine the reason that our attitude has become one that we shouldn’t have, it will be easier to correct. Knowing what caused our attitude to ‘sour’ can greatly help us determine how to correct it because that reason is not likely something that is really worth getting worked up over and can probably be easily dealt with.

What if the reason were something big though? What if we can not directly see how we could have a good attitude when something terrible has taken place? The first major step we need to take is to pray. Praying can do wonders, for us and a simple prayer could be all that we need to help us realize that things will work out for the better, put our minds at ease, and turn our bad attitudes into good ones.

The next major step would be to talk to someone else — someone with whom we are close, who will understand our problems, and who can give us helpful advice. Sharing our thoughts and asking for help in correcting our attitudes should make it easier for us to gain a more positive and Christ-like attitude.

              -- John Thrower Jr.