This arti­cle com­pletes the series I had in mind to write about the right atti­tude (yes, I know two arti­cles hardly make a “series”, but let’s put that aside). The right atti­tude is one of the three vital com­po­nents to life­time dia­betes con­trol. If it’s miss­ing or if it’s off-kilter, it saps the energy and will nec­es­sary to keep your blood sugar and weight and other dia­betes health fac­tors under con­trol day in and day out. The typ­i­cal “pos­i­tive” atti­tude preached today is not the “right” atti­tude. It needs some adjust­ment. Let me show you what I mean:

This video is from Jef­frey Git­o­mer (http://www.gitomer.com/). A look at his web­site shows his focus is devel­op­ing a pos­i­tive atti­tude for sales­man­ship. But what he says in this video is typ­i­cal for a pos­i­tive atti­tude in any area of life.

He starts out great, stress­ing one of the most impor­tant points of what the right atti­tude is, and is not. He says, “Atti­tude is not a feel­ing. It’s a state of mind that’s self-induced.” Exactly! If you don’t under­stand this, your dia­betes con­trol is going to suf­fer from the ups and downs of daily life and your feel­ings and reac­tions to what’s going on around you. Jef­frey makes the point well.

How­ever, in the rest of the video he com­pletely misses the point. Like so many pos­i­tive atti­tude gurus, he would have us puff up our atti­tude with pos­i­tive peo­ple, pos­i­tive affir­ma­tions, read­ing pos­i­tive books and lis­ten­ing to pos­i­tive record­ings. We ought to take our les­son from “The Lit­tle Engine That Could”, he says. You can do it if you believe you can.

I agree that stok­ing your­self up with pos­i­tive affir­ma­tions and deter­mi­na­tion works for over­com­ing a dif­fi­cult obsta­cle or achiev­ing a par­tic­u­larly daunt­ing task. I’ve done it myself. And that’s fine for the lit­tle engine to make it up and over the hill. It works, but it is def­i­nitely for the short-term. There will be more hills. You need to make it over the next one. And the next one. And the next one. Every day. So you need to keep stok­ing your­self up, again and again, to face each hill and hard­ship as it comes. At some point, though, you’re just going to run out of steam and your pos­i­tive atti­tude will not be enough to make it up the hill.

Here’s what I really think about the “you can do it if you believe you can” atti­tude. There’s a rea­son that it “sounds hokey,” as Jef­frey admits. Because it is. It’s wish­ful think­ing and shaman­ism. Most of a so-called pos­i­tive atti­tude is steam and vapor. It lacks con­tent. It lacks a solid foun­da­tion. That’s why you have to keep stok­ing it with daily pos­i­tive affir­ma­tions. With­out the con­stant affir­ma­tions there’s noth­ing to it.

What then is the right atti­tude? As Jef­frey states, “it’s a state of mind that’s self-induced” — but it’s not based on wish­ful think­ing and pos­i­tive speak­ing. It’s based on who you really are and what you really want to achieve. As I’ve said many times, you have to start with your­self, your core val­ues and pri­or­i­ties. This is your sure and solid foun­da­tion. This is what you build and stand on to get through the daily grind and the tough times. There is noth­ing puffed-up, super­fi­cial or arti­fi­cial about it. Build your atti­tude on this and you will make it over every hill, every day.

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