By Doug Strickel
While the weather this past Friday night did not lead one to think it was baseball season, the feeling at the ballpark was sure there. Opening day has always been something special if you follow a team. For me, it’s LA Tech baseball. Years ago, it was just major league baseball (MLB) in general.
I can remember as a kid watching the news the night before MLB Opening Day. The next morning, I couldn’t wait to get a look at the newspaper and read the box scores. I not only wanted to see who won the games, but I had to see which players changed teams in the offseason so I could adjust my baseball cards. I sorted cards by teams and by the batting order and pitching rotation within the respective teams.
It was something to look forward to at the start of a new baseball season.
There is just something about starting a new season, a new year, a new job, or anything we can just look forward to in any way. Looking forward to something just brings hope. Hope is a powerful feeling that has immense impact, but so many of us struggle with finding it, losing it, and basing it on wrong things or the wrong people.
A healthy approach to a life filled with hope is focusing on a positive mindset. Rather than depending on something new or something to look forward to for hope, the key is to start each day with a positive mindset that allows each day to bring fulfillment, meaning, joy, and satisfaction.
I was reading in the book of Philippians (chapter3) recently and noted that Paul wrote, “Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God…”.
Now whether you are a Bible reader or not, there is a great deal of wisdom in that statement.
Many of us are living defeated by our past. We live with guilt, past failures, or regrets to the point that we have a negative mindset with no hope. We are just grinding through each day with nothing really to look forward to. The past is a dark cloud hovering over us.
Paul said to forget what lies behind. If anyone had a past of guilt and regret, it was Paul. Notice how he dealt with his past. He didn’t explain it away or make excuses. Rather, he changed his mindset. Rather than think about the past and focus there, he changed his mindset to “strain forward to what lies ahead”. He didn’t try harder to make up for his past but rather changed his mindset to chase after something different.
I deal with a lot of regrets from my past too, and here’s a few quick thoughts on how I reset my mindset daily to have a positive focused day full of hope:
- I pray early in the morning to focus on my purpose for the day. That purpose is to have a positive impact on someone or some group that day.
- I get moving early. For me it’s a hard workout. It’s key for me to get moving and breathing early in the day to release all those negative emotions.
- I express thankful statements. Thankfulness leads to a positive mindset.
- I get a win early in the day. I accomplish something early to set the tone.
Mindset matters. So often we put our hope in things or people that disappoint. However, a positive mindset creates hope every day. That hope is not rooted in an acquisition, an accomplishment, or an experience. Rather, that hope is just rooted in the opportunity of the day.
A positive mindset will provide that opening day experience every day!
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