Game Changer Mindset: The Attitude That Determines Your Altitude
Survival is a head game. When it’s you against the elements and you have nothing familiar in your new world, all of a sudden, that’s when your head can be your greatest ally or your worst enemy.
Which One Are You? We’ve all been in situations where we’ve been a part of a team with a task to complete....and there’s inevitably “that person” who is negative, whining, focused on the challenges and well, pretty much useless. Maybe you’ve *been* that person... 
Know Thyself - We all are born with innate tendencies in our personalities and whether melancholy or sanguine, choleric or phlegmatic, you are a valuable person and can bring your own unique assets to a team. It is good to know your own weaknesses and to think those through in the event of a survival scenario.
I am a melancholy choleric. (Can you say adrenal fatigue?) My cup is usually half empty...ask my husband who has more than enough in his cup to bring mine to full! But I can plan and I can “get’er done” - and not just one thing at a time- with a vengeance, whereas he’s a little more loose-knit about time and scheduling and can leave me wanting to pull my hair out when I have a plan. Haha - isn’t it beautiful? 
Opposites *Can* Work Together For Good! Over the years, we have learned to see each other’s giftings and strengths and adapt our plans to feature those. I make the plan and gather supplies, he suavely unwrinkles all the kinks as they come up and becomes my hero and we both enjoy the results of good teamwork.
Think It Through Ahead of Time - If you find yourself in a survival scenario alone, with people you know or with people you don’t know, you MUST take a deep breath and evaluate. What are your innate tendencies which might lead you to defeat? How will you overcome those? How will you deal with the “useless whiner” with aplomb and engage that person productively? 
The Game Changer No Matter Who You Are - This is really a whole book’s worth of material, but I want to zero in on one factor that is a game changer: Gratitude.
Why Is Gratitude So Powerful? Gratitude is healing and infectious all at the same time. It takes your eyes off of the negative and puts them on the positive.
It lifts your head above the cloud of circumstance so you can see clearly and realigns your soul. Try it.
Next time you wake up in a bad head (that’s what we used to call it with our wilderness school boys), stop. Go for a walk. Look around you and take stock of the many, many graces and blessings that you get to enjoy every day. Keep a journal daily or weekly of things that you are grateful for.
We can so easily take so much for granted! Having such a journal is invaluable in tough times. 
Gratitude = Hope for Abundant Survival - When you start to incorporate gratitude into your life as a lifestyle, you will notice that when challenging situations come up - you will look at them differently. You will actually have recalibrated your reactions to be able to take note of the positive elements.
This can help calm down an entire volatile situation and enable progress and solutions to happen! I am pretty convinced that gratitude is part of our hardwiring that we often allow to be short-circuited by sheer busyness and difficult circumstances. 
Life Is Hard, Meet It With Gratitude - You’re gonna have challenges, trials and hard times. You just are. How you come out of those will be determined in large part, by whether or not you were able to apprehend gratitude in the midst of them. There are actual scientific studies about the measurable, tangible differences an "attitude of gratitude" makes in the midst of daily struggles - enabling people to value the present moment, block negative, toxic emotions and recover from stress and trauma more readily.
To sum it up, gratitude is a one-word yet comprehensive survival plan. So what are you thankful for today?
~Carin