Your Attitude is Your Choice

Your Attitude Is a Choice -  Attitude is not a formula we can put under a microscope and make it work every time to help us win every game. We’re still going to lose from time to time. We’re still going to get upset. But because our attitude is a choice, I think if we work hard on our objectives and practice our fundamentals, at the end of the day we’ll probably be pleased with our number of wins. That’s what I’d like to get across, because I believe it’s true.

The older our players get, the more they realize that it’s their choice what they’re feeling, what they’re thinking, and what approach they’re going to take to life. We find that the younger or less-mature players have less of a handle on their attitude and are more reactionary—they’re more susceptible to the events of their lives. They’ll say things like, “I dropped the ball and Coach hates me; I’m never getting in the game again.” Or they’ll focus on the referee and a bad call or on anything else that doesn’t go their way. In the classroom, it’s a professor they think doesn’t like football players.

Attitude is not something that comes by instinct. It has to be practiced over and over or relearned over and over. The more our players study and practice this fundamental, the more they believe they can decide how they feel. They realize they have power over their attitude. Their coach doesn’t have that power. Neither does the referee or their professor. How they approach their attitude is their choice.

We have to choose to have a good attitude. And we have to keep reminding ourselves, in the midst of newspaper publicity or things other people are saying, that we are going to be in charge of how we think. That’s a powerful principle in the life of a football player, a trash collector, a pastor, a dad, a stay-at-home mom, or someone who works in an office.

Tressel, Jim (2008-07-15). The Winners Manual