The daily attitude reset that changed my perspective

Editor’s note: This essay was first written in 2019 and lightly updated for mikesimone.co. I’m resurfacing it now because the practice I describe here — a daily attitude reset — remains a tool I return to when life tilts negative.

I’ll be honest: optimism has never come naturally to me. I have a sharp eye for what’s missing, what’s broken, what could go wrong. It’s useful in business and creative work, but it can be brutal on the inside. A few years ago, that lens nearly swallowed me whole.

I had lost a career opportunity I thought defined me. A close friendship fell apart at the same time. The professional network I’d built suddenly felt like it had evaporated. I wasn’t just disappointed, I was convinced I’d peaked, and that life was now downhill from there.

How negativity compounds

Negativity isn’t just a mood. It shows up everywhere. For me, it meant getting sick more often, training harder than my body could handle, and sinking into a depression I tried to hide while still producing content meant to “inspire” others. The gap between what I was projecting and what I was feeling made everything worse.

What finally shifted me wasn’t a dramatic turning point, it was a simple question from a friend: “When people leave a conversation with you, how do they feel?”

It landed like hard. And I realized my internal state was leaking out. No matter how much I tried to hide it, people could feel the heaviness I was carrying.

A spark from an unlikely place

That same friend sent me a book the next day: Today Matters by John Maxwell. Normally, I would’ve dismissed it. I wasn’t a “self-help” type. But one chapter on attitude spoke to me. And I hadn’t felt that kind of resonance in years. It was the same jolt I’d felt when I first committed to working in fitness and media.

It gave me permission to stop pretending I was fine and to build a ritual that would keep me from sliding back into that hole.

My daily attitude reset

I created a short document that I still return to today. Every morning, I read it. Quietly to myself, if possible. It isn’t complicated but the consistency is what matters.

Here’s what it says:

• Forget the bad things that happened yesterday.

• Find the positive in today’s work, no matter how daunting.

• See the good in people and trust more.

• Drop negative words before they leave my mouth.

• Notice when depressive thoughts creep in and balance them by listing what I’m grateful for.

It doesn’t erase hardship. Some mornings, I resist it. But every time I stick with it, my outlook shifts. I feel lighter. More productive. More capable.

Consistency changes everything

When I practiced this daily, I noticed a cascade: my workouts came back on track, work opportunities reopened, and my mood stabilized. When I let it slide, I slid backward. It was proof that a few intentional sentences, repeated consistently, can redirect an entire day.

Why this matters now

In a culture obsessed with hacks and shortcuts, the real breakthrough is consistency. A daily reset doesn’t require an app, a supplement, or a 30-day challenge. It requires noticing when your inner dialogue is dragging you down — and choosing, sentence by sentence, to redirect it.

If you’re in a hole of your own, start small. Write down a handful of statements you want to believe about yourself, your work, or your relationships. Read them every morning for a week. See what happens.

It might feel awkward. It might feel forced. But give it time. Because the same way negative thinking compounds, so does positive reframing.

If you ever feel stuck in negative loops like I did, I built something to help. It’s called The Mood Swinger — a GPT designed to ask the kind of reframing questions that pull you out of spirals and back into clarity. Try it here.

And if you want something deeper, check out The Simone OS. It's my personal operating system for navigating health, performance, and creativity. It’s designed to give you the same kind of resets I relied on, but across every area of life.