Attitude and circumstances

Whatever situation we are facing, we can look at both our attitude and our circumstances.

Every single human being has some life circumstances and some attitude towards them. A good question to ask ourselves when something needs to change is whether we need to start with our circumstances or with our attitude.

For most people, it’s easier to focus on circumstances. Maybe we notice there’s no coffee in the morning. We might think what we can do to prevent this from happening again. We might drive to a café or a shop straight away. We do something about what we experience as a problem.

Another approach is to focus on our attitude to the situation. Is the lack of coffee in our kitchen a problem in the first place? Could it be an invitation to try starting the day with green tea or even without caffeine? Is it really a big deal?

I love the beauty of morning light on these stalks I’ve got on my desk.

We need to learn to change both our circumstances and our attitude. Our life circumstances will never be perfect enough, and that’s perfectly fine as long as our attitude towards that is open.

If we aren’t open, we’ll spend our entire life trying to “get things right”, never quite feeling like things are finally okay. Many people live their entire lives feeling like something is going wrong every day. It’s not nice.

Sometimes the circumstances are incredibly difficult, really. There’s pain, there’s death, there’s unimaginable suffering. For some, it’s in the news. For others, it’s in their families and their bodies. As Victor Frank wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning, reflecting on his experience in a concentration camp:

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

How can we accept the unacceptable? How can we not accept what already is?

At the same time, ignoring our circumstances when we can change them and just focusing on being accepting, grateful, non-reactive and open isn’t quite the answer either. Even though it’s possible to have such an open attitude that no circumstances feel like a problem, getting there requires mind training that needs very supportive circumstances that we need to create. That’s a luxury very few people have.

So, my invitation to you is to always keep both questions in mind. Does something need to be done? Or, do I need to change my attitude? The answer is often both. In an real emergency, something needs to be done first. In many other situations, it’s more helpful to relax a bit around the sense of a problem or a threat and then see what needs to be done.

This comes up in coaching all the time. Just this week, one founder spoke about doing practical things to change her circumstances, but also accepting that founders can’t have it all: some compromises will be inevitable.

Another founder looked at his attitude towards his circumstances, only to notice that maybe it’s not as bad as it seemed at first. The circumstances stayed the same, but the options opened up a bit. That is likely, in turn, lead to a change in circumstances.

So, whatever you’ve got on your plate today or this week, remember that both attitude and circumstances are within your control.

Do something about both.