“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” – Albert Einstein
Here’s a thought to ponder over: there’s no such thing as success or failure, only our perceptions of success and failure, and our perceptions are all relative to our beliefs. You see, everything is relative to something else. Something is only big in relation to something that’s small, and something is only fast in relation to something that’s slow, so success and failure can only be relative to your perspective – nothing in life has any meaning other than the meaning we give it.
Only you can decide how you view your circumstances. Your perspective is your choice.
If you’re comparing yourself to others, you might consider yourself a “loser” compared to those you consider to be “winners”. Let’s say you’re in a dead-end job that you hate, and you compare yourself unfavourably to someone you know who has a high-flying career in a job they love. You see yourself as the loser and them as the winner, but what if they’re comparing themselves to someone they know, someone who has a “dream job”? The person you consider to be a winner considers themselves to be a loser compared to someone else… How you define yourself or your circumstances is purely down to your perspective.
“The optimist sees the doughnut; the pessimist sees the hole.” – Oscar Wilde
Your life is a reflection of what you see, so do you see the doughnut or the hole? All it takes to change your circumstances is a change of perspective. Here’s another thought to ponder over: if it takes you three attempts to pass your driving test, are you a success or a failure? If you apply for six jobs and only get an interview for two of them, does that constitute success or failure? Everything is relative to something else. Compared to someone who sailed through their driving test first time around, you might consider yourself a “failure”, but to someone who is about to take their driving test for the sixth time, you’re a total success. Not getting interviews for four of the jobs you applied for might constitute failure from your perspective, but to someone who has applied for hundreds of jobs and not received a single invite to interview, your invite to two interviews constitutes a huge success.
When you open your mind to a different way of thinking, you gain a different view of life – a whole new perspective.
Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to slip into comparing yourself negatively to others. When you think negatively, you begin to see only what you don’t have or can’t do compared to others, and your negative mental attitude generates negative energy that surrounds every element of your life. You believe you’re a “loser” or a “failure”, so you get stuck in that negative place, effectively blinkered to anything positive in your life. All it takes to get out of there and move on is a change of attitude and perspective. What do you have, and what can you do? Switching your focus from what you don’t have to what you do have is a powerful way to keep things in perspective and generate the positive mental attitude you need to begin believing in yourself as a success in the making, irrespective of your current circumstances.
Don MacNaughton is a High-Performance Coach and has worked tirelessly to help clients achieve success in the world of sport and business over the past 15 years. The next, highly popular, NLP Diploma and Life Coaching Certificate course starts in April 2019. Click here for more information or to sign up.