This week I am excited to write about one of my favorite topics - Attitude! Not just attitude, but positive, nothing’s-gonna-stop-me attitude. The type of attitude that does not settle to just see the glass half full. Rather, it is the type of attitude that sees the half-full glass as an opportunity to fill it up! It is an attitude that blasts past “can-do” to “WILL-do.” In short, it’s what happens when attitude meets commitment.

Before going on, I must warn you, I am very passionate about attitude and may come across a little over-the-top. But I do so to emphasize the importance and power of your attitude. I have not mastered it by any means, but I work towards it every day. These are the thoughts and mantras that drive me to sharpen my attitude. I have way more thoughts, opinions and philosophies on attitude to fit in one newsletter, so this will just be the scratch on the attitude surface. So consider this the Cliff Notes on Attitude according to Scott. Buckle up, here we go!

The foundation of the will-do attitude is to live your life on purpose. The will-do attitude wakes up in the morning and is proactive throughout the day, not reactive. The will-do attitude is a mental edge that is ready to handle any circumstance. The will-do attitude anticipates change and is on point to not just deal with change, but embrace it for the opportunities it brings!

I heard a clip from the movie Star Wars over the weekend. In it, the little green Jedi Master named Yoda says “Do, or do not. There is no try!”

Wow! Right there in eight words is the epitome of attitude and commitment coming together. It forces you to make a choice. You are either going to do something or you are not going to do something. There is no alternative. You have a goal and you go get it. You don’t get deterred by obstacles, walls or road blocks. You persevere through them, using or finding the resources needed to obtain your goal.

Trying is a black hole that lives somewhere in between “do” and “do not” that sucks the life out of the will-do attitude. Converse to the will-do attitude, the “try” attitude is effort without commitment. Trying is sticking your toe in the water to see if it’s comfortable. Trying gives up when things get tough. Trying makes accomplishment a possibility rather than a certainty.

Another great example of the will-do attitude appeared in something a friend of mine and I were talking about last week. A group of us are working on a very large community project and with only a couple weeks to go, everything is coming together great! We stopped for two seconds to reflect on where we started and the class event that is upon us and commented on how huge this event will be! It was then that I said that with most things we all do, it usually takes just as much effort to go small as it does to go big, so why not go big!?

For this week, I am going to wrap up with my favorite quote on Attitude by Charles Swindoll. The actual quote is much longer than this, but paraphrased it is “The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day…I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.”

So there you have it. What choice are you going to make today. Are you going to do? Or are you going to do not? (I really hope you do!)