In our previos session, we discussed the importance of having God’s Word as a measure to develop right attitudes with the help of the Holy Spirit, and the need to create right fellowship with people who contribute for our effort to build positive attitudes. The latter recommendation shouldn't give us an excuse to avoid people who are not endowed with right attitudes. We might have families, friends, and colleagues filled with bad attitudes here and there about so many things. In such cases, avoidance should not be the front line resolution. We should rather feel responsible to help them develop right attitudes.

Why not we try to come up with a kind of incentive approach where you may ask your loved ones and close friends to enter into informal contract. Reach agreement to pay a quarter or a dollar whenever you are caught demonstrating negative attitudes. Who knows, your friends and colleagues might offer the same incentive for you to help them get ride of unwanted attitudes. Make the deal win-win!!!

As much as we invest our time to clean unwanted attitudes, we should also read books, listen tapes, and watch programs that nurture us to create positive attitudes. There should be a balance between what we take out and intake. There are various books out there written by great authors which could help you shape your attitude consciously.

Among other books that might help you address this issue of attitude, we encourage you to read Dr John Maxwell’s book called, "The Difference Maker: Making Your Attitude Your Greatest Asset." Dr John Maxwell talks about the obstacles that deny us success and progress. In this book, he tried to remind readers, using common sense approach, what we are doing wrong and the way to fix the problems on our own. This is a book you should read to nullify those factors that hold you back and prevent your growth.

Friends, more than our comparative and competitive advantages at hand, we desperately need the right mix attitude towards ourselves, others, and things, which heavily determines whether we would succeed in life. There is no guarantee to slay the Goliath of our progress by just having deadly ‘weapons’ at hand, and/or working out for perfect ‘fitness’, or demonstrating ‘excellence’. Your ‘Goliath’ takes the attitude of winner before you even step out to confront it.

The king and David’s brothers never thought what was lacking to slaughter the giant Goliath who stranded and terrorized thousands. That was why king Saul said to David, "You are not able to go against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth." He thought it was by might and experience. David with his right attitude was more than a conquer because of his attitude about who he was in the God he trusted, which finally determined the out come of the fight. If it was training, uniform, fitness, and other factors in military strategies, there were excessive military men with ranks. For days, they were useless for the victory the king and Israel were desperately looking. Rather, they were shaking under the ‘hood’.

Challenge or confrontation may subdue your talent, over weigh your available resources, out smart your connections but you can soar well beyond challenges with the right attitude that says, ‘I can do all things with Christ Who strengthens me’. You can feel safe in the midst of threats with the attitude of security in God Who says, "Weapons formed against you won’t prosper."

As a final note, we would like to remind you the relationship between positive attitude and faith. Having positive attitude is not our ultimate goal; the goal is to have the right attitude and get fulfilled as per God’s preordained purpose for your life. As the Bible says, without faith, God cannot be pleased. To operate in God’s Kingdom and co-work with Him, we should have faith in what He said in His Word and act as faith without action is dead. That is why we should fine-tune, refine, and realign our thinking process according to His Word and develop attitudes that make our actions are aligned with His will by default.

Faith and confidence is the key to maximize our potential and tap into the forces that could help us accomplish extraordinary things. Faith and doubt cannot co-exist together as light and darkness couldn’t. By the same token, positive and negative attitudes couldn't co-habit together. Therefore, we encourage you to make a commitment and develop positive attitude and then unshakable faith on those eternal principles, which takes reconditioning and renewing our mind as the Bible says. The Power of Positive Thinking author, Dr Norman Vincent Peale, advises the following ten simple and workable rules for over coming inadequacy attitudes and learning to practice faith:

1. Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding. Hold this picture tenaciously and never permit it to fade.

2. Whenever a negative thought concerning your personal powers comes to mind, deliberately voice a positive thought to cancel it.

3. Don’t build up obstacles in your imagination.

4. Don’t be awestruck by other people and try to copy them. Nobody can be you as efficiently as YOU can.

5. Ten times a day repeat these dynamic words, If God be for us, who can be against us?

6. Get a competent counselor to help you understand why you do what you do. Self-knowledge leads to a cure.

7. Ten times each day practice the following affirmation, repeating it out loud if possible. I can do all things through Christ which strengthen me.

8. Make a true estimate of your own ability, then raise it 10 %. Do not become egotistical, but develop a wholesome self-respect.

9. Put yourself in God’s hands. Then believe you are now receiving all the power you need. Affirm that “the kingdom of God is within you” in the form of adequate power to meet life’s demands.

10. Remind yourself that God is with you and nothing can defeat you.

May God give us the truth that set us free from unworthy attitudes!!