Change Perspectives, Change Lives
Change perspectives, change lives. When you communicate, you’re sharing perspectives, but when you’re advocating you’re changing them. You’re helping your jury–of clients, customers, team members, students, or family-to see the world differently. And when they do, their world changes.
But you can change your own world as well, and sometimes you must. The loudest jury, the toughest jury to convince, is often made up of the voices in our own heads. And when you can help those voices see things differently, your life changes. Perspective leads to thoughts, which leads to feelings, which lead to actions and ultimately the result is outcomes. So change your own perspective, change your life.
I’ve had two clients who did just that. The first, Catherine, wanted a promotion and a raise. She came to me because she wanted to advocate for herself to the “jury” of management professionals who would decide whether she got that job and that raise. Quickly I realized that before she could change her “jury’s” perspective, she had to change her own. Catherine had to see that she was confident enough, talented enough, and experienced enough to get that job and that raise. And once she changed her own perspective, the rest was easy. She changed her perspective, then she went to work on changing others’ perspectives, and ultimately she got that promotion. She changed her life.
Another client had to change her perspective when it came to bridges. She saw them as terrifying. This woman had a phobia of bridges that stopped her from crossing them, which held her back from the job she wanted and the relationships she wanted. But once we worked together to change her perspective and see bridges differently, she overcame that phobia and her entire life changed. Change perspectives, change lives.
You are an advocate. You have the power to change perspectives, and to make people see things differently. And you can start with yourself. As we start to approach 2020, decide how you will see your year. Decide how you will see your life. Decide to make 2020 the year you will see things with 20/20 vision, with a perspective that you’ve consciously chosen. In January I’ll be sharing specific tools that will help. You can change your perspective, and then you will change your life.
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