So, what is perspective anyway and why should we care? Defined by Oxford below, I chose definition two for this blog:
perspective |pərˈspektiv|
noun
2 a particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view
• true understanding of the relative importance of things; a sense of proportion : we must keep a sense of perspective about what he’s done.
In my coaching practice, I often use this real life example of the power of perspective:
I know of a woman who has a personal narrative or story that she does not matter, she can’t ask for what she needs and she bothers people. This is a belief system that arose out of false conclusions she made when she was about 8 years old.
The year she was in third grade was a difficult one for her family in every way. The family dynamic was survival mode and she began to feel very emotionally needy. This manifested as pretending to be sick at school often. By the fifth or sixth time her mother had to leave work to pick her up at school, it was obvious she was “crying wolf.”
Then one day, she really was sick and the nurse called her mother at work just like all the times before and her mother did not want to come and get her and told this to the school nurse. When the nurse hung up the phone, she turned to the secretary and said, “what kind of a mother wouldn’t come get her sick child at school?”
The young girl overheard this comment and immediately began to ask herself that question and her conclusion was that a bad mother would not want to pick up her sick child. And what kind of a child would have a bad mother? A bad child, she concluded.
Eventually, the girl’s mother did pick her up and dropped her off, to spend the afternoon sick and alone. She made it mean that she did not matter, she bothers people (she was clearly bothering her mother) and it was not safe or acceptable to ask for what she needs.
She could have chosen to make it mean that she was a big girl who could stay home alone for a few hours until her mom could come home. But she didn’t.
And this is the power of perspective. When it comes to what we make things mean, or perspective, we really do have a choice. The choice of our perspective is powerful because it is another example of personal responsibility about how we see the world and our place in it. It is the doorway through which we must walk on our journey to create our greatest self.
Taking responsibility for how we choose to view the events and people in our world is like opening the door to a beautiful spring morning that is full of possibility. It creates the opportunity to experience the scope of untapped possibility within us.
Tap into the greatest source for transformation you have, the power of perspective.
