21/12/2022
PERSPECTIVE SHIFT
Don’t we all have our daily routines?
These routines become our reality and our truth, which can sometimes be self-limiting.
Yet, what if by changing our perspective we could be happier, more confident, and we could take rigour out of our day-to-day?
And instead, we could use that energy in other ways.
Shifting perspectives will give us a wider view of most situations and, with practice, expand the options for how we perceive our self-made reality.
To start with, we want to ask ourselves: How do we know if our perspective is proper, accurate, or too rigid?
Let me give you an example:
For the last 30 years, I had been travelling the world workwise, and I know China, Hong Kong or South Korea better than my own home country. I never stayed at home for more than 3 months, and taking a long-distance flight was identic to taking the bus.
Recently I decided to change my life radically taking care of my Mum who can’t live on her own anymore. So, I moved to her place, a little island in the Mediterranean Sea.
Since then, everything has changed. For the time being, I’m taking care of the home, the garden, and the pets, I cook and do the grocery. I’m running my business from home. If I forgot to buy milk…uff, big issue because it means another 20min extra drive to the next supermarket.
But this week I had to do some admin stuff on the mainland and wasn’t at home for two days.
Now, being back, I had a huge realisation!
Since my daily routines and therefore my reality has changed, I have adopted some unhealthy habits without even realizing them:
The dishes had to be at their specific place on the shelf, the dog bowl had to be cleaned and stored away right after its usage, the cushions on the sofa had to be arranged in a certain way, and so on, and so forth. I think you’re getting the point.
If it wasn’t the case, I got upset.
Ridiculously unnecessary waste of energy, don’t you agree?
Now, because of the distance, and the time off, I can clearly see that I started to adopt unhealthy habits which were causing unnecessary stress for myself and for the people around me.
As a consequence, I made a list where I state my current perspective. On the other side of the list, I developed two alternative perspectives and I stated the changes when looking out at the situation through this new perspective. If it feels good, I will from now on think and act this way.
I put the list on my fridge so that I get reminded so I don’t fall back into old ways.
ISN’T IT PRETTY COOL? I CAN NOW USE MY ENERGY ON DIFFERENT THINGS.
What habits could you change and instead invest the energy gained into something else?