When You Can’t Change Things Try Changing Your Perspective

Change perspectivesAny given situation can be looked at, or interpreted in different ways.  Your experience of life is determined not by your circumstances, but by your perspective of those circumstances.  Quite often we are unable to do anything about our circumstances, which may be lead to suffering on our part.  But with a little conscious effort and consideration we can change out perspective, which can move us away from suffering as a victim. Instead we can appreciate our situation for the lessons it may be teaching us and enjoy a happier feeling of freedom.

This changing of perspective is known in coaching lingo as Reframing, and is a highly empowering technique.  A fellow ICA student, Oscar from Peru (www.coachingperu.com), uses a wonderful metaphor of being like a bird soaring high in the sky, all the time moving it’s head from side to side as it looks around and takes in the different views.  We too have to be always ReFraming our perspective if we want to take in all the opportunities that life offers us.  Only then will we also have that bird-like sense of freedom that comes with being able to change one’s own perspective.

One of the tasks of a coach is to work with the client to help them see clearly their current perspective of a given situation and then enthuse them to shift to a more empowering one.  Some typical negative perspectives which can be debilitating include: Struggle, invalidation, doubt, criticism, fear, blaming, “I’m not good enough”.  positive perspectives can be: Respect, truth, trust, action, adventure, exploration, creation, challenge.

Some questions which you can ask yourself to help you Reframe a perspective might be:

  • How could this be fun?
  • What will it take to reach the perspective you would like?
  • What is most enjoyable about this?
  • What’s missing here, that once it is included, will make the situation flow?
  • What would you do if time/money/skills were unlimited?
  • If you could develope a new perspective to help you through this what would it be?

During my coach training at ICA I remember being asked by the trainer to look into my own life and see how I can put into practice this technique of Reframing with the following exercise:

  1. In your view, what are the three most powerful perspectives from which someone could live their life?
  2. What is a disempowering perspective you have been using lately?
  3. Pick an area of your life where a problem has persisted for some time.  Discern the perspective, and then ReFrame it.

I challenge you to take a little time to do these three exercises.  Are you ready to become a master of Reframing your perspectives, and learn to live in that empowering freedom of the bird flying high in the heavens?


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