Changing Your Thinking and Perspective

By Jayaram V

Your thinking and outlook are always influenced by where you live. Your past has no real existence, but it lives in you as part of your memories and thinking. You are always shaped by your surroundings and the world that you build inside with those numerous experiences, perceptions and impressions which you gather as you grow up.

If you live in a small world such as a village, an island, or a community, your world inside will be smaller and your thinking, interests, outlook, and relationships will remain limited to the place. You will not think much about anything, except what happens there or what happens to you and to others.

If you have ever watched the Survivor reality show, you will see how, for the duration of their stay, the participants become increasingly critical and paranoid about others and remain focused on the activities of the group. They temporarily forget their homes and the world outside and become lost in the little world which they create in their minds, thinking mostly about their survival and how to manage others. At the most, they may think of their families or what they may do when they return. Other than that, they remain preoccupied with the game and the little group of people on the island. Minor incidents, little setbacks, failures, quarrels, alliances and betrayals consume their minds and limit their thinking.

The same happens to people when they work in organizations and business establishments. Their homes and work places become their little worlds. They become preoccupied with personal and family matters or their work related problems, politics and deadlines. Whatever happens in those little worlds influence their thinking, actions, behavior and relationships.

If you want to change the way you think or live, you have to break free from the world that you construct in your mind and become its prisoner. You must change your habitual thought patterns and the barriers which you build around you as your sanctuary or little escape. You cannot progress in life or change your destiny, unless you widen your thinking, vision, outlook and perspectives and unless you cultivate interests outside your world to grow and experience newer things in life.

Your inner world and your perspectives, or your ways of thinking and choosing, determine how your life is going to be, and what experiences you may attract into your life. If your world is small, your thoughts and interests will remain limited, and you may be consumed by small matters and petty problems which will prevent you from seeing the bigger picture or living a better life.

If your life has fallen into a certain routine, it may be because you have become accustomed to live in certain, safer and secure ways and you are unwilling to move out of your comfort zone, or face new challenges. When you see the world from the ground up, you may not see much. Your vision will be blocked by many barriers. The same is true for any perspective in which you may become stuck. Your view will be obstructed by many defenses, which you build for security or which the world builds for you as part of your identity.

If you want to grow in your life both professionally and mentally, you must keep expanding the world in you and keep stretching your mind, thinking, vision, knowledge and intelligence. If you are not happy with your life or not satisfied with your success, it is time you take a look at the world which you have built in you.

See what needs to be changed, removed, improved and how you can expand the boundaries of that world so that you can be a better thinker and visionary, and more confident, courageous, energetic, and optimistic in your thinking and attitude.

It does not matter whether you work for a small company or a big company, and whether you occupy an important position or not. The best way to change the quality of your life, perceptions, experience, and relationships is by changing your thinking and perspective. It will change your inner world and your outlook so that you will have more opportunities and possibilities of achieving success, peace and happiness. It is the same as what happens to a company when it breaks out of a small market into a bigger market. Its challenges will increase but also the rewards.

You can widen your world of activities and your limits of influence by stepping out of your comfort zone, viewing your life, actions, relationships and problems from different perspectives, and overcoming habitual thoughts and self-limiting beliefs that confine you to a set of beliefs and a routine life. Your world and your life are very much shaped by your thinking, interests and choices and by changing them you can change the course and the quality of your life.

You can change your thinking, and thereby you life, by cultivating new interests, establishing new goals, forming new relationships, breaking old habits that limit you, visiting new places, acquiring new knowledge, and transcending your selfishness, self-limiting beliefs and self-centeredness. You can increase your knowledge by reading books, taking interest in new subjects or joining a college course which can help you professionally or personally to be good at what you do.

You are what your think and do in your life. You are the sum of your thoughts, actions, knowledge, desires, interests, relationships, experiences, interactions, perceptions, perspectives, fears, hopes, and expectations. They are the architects of your inner world and the quality of the life which you lead.

By improving any of them, you can expand the boundaries of your knowledge, wisdom, perception and awareness and thereby your inner world. If you want to improve your life and chances of success and happiness, you must see it happen.