If you want to be more successful and achieve those C-goals, then you have to understand the power of your mental faculties. Last post, we talked about the power of intuition, and in this post, I’m going to share about the power of shifting your perspective.

The Trap of Ambition and Achievement

Back before I started my personal development journey, I was always aiming for more. More responsibility. More achievement. More success. I was a leader in the military. I was in charge of different initiatives. I was high-energy and very goal-oriented. I had this insatiable desire to always be achieving more, doing more, having more.

When I started personal development work, I looked at other people and thought: if that person only did this or only did that in their life, they would be better employees, or their relationship would be better. It was always something they needed to change.

The “I’m Not Enough” Myth

I was about to have an eye-opening moment with who needed to change, when my husband and I started arguing one Saturday morning. It was about cleaning the house, of all things. At the time, I was going through grad school and taking care of my terminally ill father. I was leading different organizations, etc. I was stretched to the max. That insatiable desire to always be achieving more, doing more, buying more was driven by this inner belief that I wasn’t enough. I wasn’t smart enough. I wasn’t thin enough. I wasn’t talented enough.

On this Saturday he started cleaning the house while I was doing work because that’s just what I did to get ahead. I started to make up a story in my head that my husband thought I was lazy. I made up the story that he didn’t think I was doing enough because I wasn’t helping him clean the house. I thought to myself, Oh my God, how could he think that? In my head, I spun a tale about all of the things I was doing that would prove I wasn’t lazy. When I said something to him about cleaning the house, I had all that negative mental energy already going, and I had an attitude, which would cause us to argue.

Discovering the Roots of Perception

Around this time, I went to a three-day seminar that amped up our personal self-awareness. We started peeling back the layers like an onion, and really digging down to see what makes us tick. I came home from the seminar, and I noticed my husband had cleaned the house. I thanked him for doing this. That had never happened before. There was no more “not good enough” story. I simply thanked him.

A few days later when I was doing my Beachbody workout, I noticed our dog had gotten sick on the rug. It was all over my workout shoes. I threw them outside while I cleaned up the mess. My husband asked what was wrong. I told him that the dog got sick on the rug, and I stepped in it. Now I needed to clean my shoes. He offered to clean them instead. Because I had discovered the roots of my misperception, we communicated better—and worked together better than ever before.

Be the Change You Want to See

The three-day seminar really helped me make a shift, not because my husband changed but because I did. I changed my perspective, and how I was seeing him and his contribution to our household. Because I changed the way I saw him and our situation, my perspective also changed. That in turn shifted how I responded to him. I was no longer in reaction mode. I wasn’t acting on my deep internal belief of not being enough. I had shifted my perception to gratitude toward my husband. Instead of seeing him through my own lens of not being enough, I saw him now as being loving and helpful.

Where did that made-up story about not being enough come from? It came from my personal paradigm, which is where a multitude of beliefs are stored in our subconscious mind that impact our daily behavior without us realizing it. These paradigms come from past generations, they come from our ancestors, and through what we saw and learned before age six. Because of my paradigm, I was on autopilot. I was having these knee jerk reactions to these things around me because I never took the time to engage my mental facilities and do the hard work to make shifts. There were many times when my relationship with my husband was strained, and I thought it was him that needed to change.

But it only takes one person to be willing to change their perspective and to take a look at themselves, not with the intent of changing the other person, but with the intent of changing themselves. When you do that you set up a different energy around you. That causes people to react differently to you. It will seem like magic, but it’s not. It’s just how your mind works, and how your energy works.

An Exercise to Help You Shift Your Perspective

I learned this exercise from my mentor, Bob Proctor. On a piece of paper, write down a problem you want to work through. Then imagine you are at your dinner table sitting with people you admire and respect. People with great relationships and amazing perspectives on things. Ask yourself, what would the people around your dinner table say about this problem? Write down what you come up with. When you start shifting your perception on how you perceive situations or people, it will improve everything.

Once you start seeing your perspective change, you’ll see incredible shifts. It’s not easy, but I’ll take you step by step through the process. A great place to start would be to head over to www.ratracereboot.com and download The Six Mindset Changing Techniques to Lead a More Fulfilled Life. Taking the time to shift your perspective will change the way you show up in the world and how others respond to you. Try it—you will be amazed!