Most understand their lives aren't working. Rather than looking for solutions, however, many choose to believe that a vast conspiracy, set in motion by their parents or siblings, their spouse, or their coworkers undermines all they set out to do. They view themselves as small and insignificant.

As a network marketer, it's easy to fall into this type of mindset. You can blame your upline, downline, lead service, or even your company itself. A victim mentality is easy to develop, but it won't bring your goals any closer.

For that, you need more than blame. Simply reacting to life means spinning your wheels, not accepting responsibility for your actions. Your attitude is determined by outside events that happen to you. You're a boat without oars.

Your attitude sets the foundation for your life. It serves as the basis for everything. If you control it, you control your life. Attitude means more than feeling positive on a good day. It's how you choose to look at life. Yes, you read that right. Attitude is a choice.

Put in another way, attitude is what you say when you talk to yourself. Contrary to what most people believe, you can control that voice in your head that makes you angry, hurt, or afraid. You don't have to believe that life is an endless series of heartaches.

If you pay attention to your own self talk, you'll find that it eerily predicts what occurs in your future. What your self talk focused on yesterday, you're probably seeing today. More importantly, what you're telling yourself today, you'll be seeing tomorrow. Are you OK with that?

I've seen countless examples of this. One young lady I knew once bought a car. It was a shiny red Camaro. A nice car for a young, attractive blond college student. Her friends all loved it. All she could say, however, was that she knew it was going to break down.

Even though she had no reason to think that, you could tell she was waiting for the big event. Sure enough, less than a month after she bought it, the transmission failed. All she could say was, "I told you so. This kind of thing always happens to me." And so it did.

If you look for solutions instead of blaming, you can take control of your self talk. Again, this is a choice, and sometimes a difficult one. It's so much easier just to say that God or the Universe has it out for you. So what if your mother didn't tell you she loved you enough? This is today. Stop whining and find your own solutions.

It's also easy to get down on yourself. You will find reasons why you're not good enough, if you look. A wise man once told me that you can find a demon under every rock. You can also find an angel under every rock, if you choose to look for it.

Focus on your strengths. You possess many, even though you might not know it. Think about what makes you unique. What do you do better than most people? Whenever self doubt or negative thinking plague your mind, bring this focus back. With practice, it makes a huge difference in your life.

Think with an open mind. I cannot overstate this point. Where does a closed mind get you? If you think you have all the answers, that means you're unteachable. Being a know-it-all almost guarantees failure. All successful people, without exception, enjoy learning.

Learning keeps you humble. I'm always amazed when I talk to the heavy-hitters in this industry to find out how approachable they are. I mean, they're like rock stars to me, yet when I talk to them, they are the warmest, most unassuming people you could ever meet. That's just one more reason why I love this industry.

Learning also allows us to find solutions to our problems. Know-it-alls already know that the problem is with their boss or upline, anywhere but with them. This creates a dead-end, helpless situation. If the problem's not mine, then I don't have to solve it, do I?

If you find yourself facing a problem, don't run from it. Own it. Ask yourself, "Is there anything I can learn from this?"