How To Develop A Determined Attitude To Control Your Diabetes
January 30, 2010Jaye No Comments »- I’ve been away for a while, what with the holidays and all. I also had a recent wake-up call that has re-focused my health priorities. During my annual checkup the doctor did the digital exam (yes, that one). There was blood indicated, which was not a good sign. The doctor handed me some slides to use over the next week to collect fecal samples to test for blood. A positive test would likely be an indication of cancer.Needless to say, I was quite shaken and disturbed over the next week. I spent a great deal of time in prayer and refocusing my energies and time, and trying to prepare for whatever the good Lord had for me. I thought about my son and daughter and my darling grandchildren and whether I would live to see them grow up.
A few days ago I turned in the test slides to the office. I asked them to please do the test and let me know the results. I had prepared myself as best I could for the bad news. A few minutes later one of the nurses came out with the test results.
“Everything’s negative,” she said, “you’re fine.”
How wonderful! I could hardly believe it. I had prepared myself for an awful regimen of tests and uncomfortable medicines, and instead I was fine. Praise the Lord! I went out to my car and wept with relief and joy. I determined there and again to live my remaining years, whatever they might be, with a renewed commitment to the things that are really important.
One of those things I am committed to is to help my readers and followers live better and healthier lives. As I considered what might be the single most important thing I could say at this point, it is this: you must develop a determined attitude to control your diabetes. If you don’t have a determined attitude, you cannot succeed. Your diabetes control and general health will suffer as a result. So I am starting a short series on developing a determined attitude.
How To Develop A Determined Attitude To Control Your Diabetes
If your feelings affect your diabetes control, you are in trouble. The problem isn’t that you have feelings and emotions. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t. The problem is that you let your feelings control your diabetes.
When you feel good, you feel like eating right and exercising and doing the things you need to do. But when you feel low, your desire and energy fade. You don’t feel like doing anything. You eat what you shouldn’t, or skip meals and don’t exercise. You let your diabetes get out of control and then you feel even worse.
The solution is to develop a determined attitude to control your diabetes instead of letting your feelings and emotions do it.
A determined attitude is not based on your feelings. It is based on your mind and will. Unlike the so-called “positive attitude” of perpetual cheer, a determined attitude succeeds no matter what. Cheerful or not, things going your way or not, life otherwise being up or down, the determined attitude presses on.
The first step is to understand that feelings and attitude are not one and the same thing. Feelings can certainly affect your attitude, but they don’t have to if you don’t let them. Feelings have their important role to play in life, but determining your attitude is not that role. Your feelings are greatly affected by people, things and events around you. If you let feelings direct your attitude, then your attitude will be determined by the things around you, instead of by your own conscious determination.
You are more than your feelings. You have convictions about life, hopes, dreams and aspirations. These are not mere feelings, but the core of who you are. They do not easily change and shift like feelings do. They are also full of content, which feelings are not.
That is, your convictions and hopes can be expressed in propositional statements. Such as:
“I want to live a long and healthy life. I can and I will do what I must, no matter how I feel or what circumstances should come.”
This is not a hope-so or wish. This is a conviction and determination of your will. It is not a denial of feelings, it is not a pretense of feeling one way when you really feel another. It is the determined attitude – based on your deepest conviction of heart – that no matter what your feelings may be, good or bad, you will do what you must.
This is the first and most important step to a determined attitude and real success.
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The next article in this series will explain the error most “success gurus” tell you.
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