Stepping outside your bubble: the power of perspective

When you look at a situation, do you see the view or a view?

 How often do we make judgements about a person or a situation when we just see things from just one perspective?

 Two stories spring to mind from recent travels.

Travelling in Uzbekistan and looking up to a hillside graveyard, my friend and I noticed a woman seated in black sitting in front of a graveside, head bowed. A few feet behind her, a tourist was taking a photograph.

Or that’s what we thought we saw.

Unimpressed with the tourist’s insensitivity, we walked on a while and then just happened to look back and up again. This time, we could see that the woman was not in black, she had just been sitting in shade. She was not at a graveside, she was sitting in front of an easel painting the view across the town. This is what the tourist was taking a photograph of. We had made a quick and inaccurate judgement having witnessed the scene from just one perspective.

And just a couple of weeks ago, I was on safari in Tanzania when we saw a female cheetah sitting facing a lioness who was on the prowl. Wondering why she was just sitting still, instead of running away, she suddenly ran at the lion, swiping her with her claws. We could not understand her behaviour until we got closer and could see her four cubs about 20 feet away in the long grass. She was not attacking recklessly; she was defending her family.

This story ended well for all and gives me the excuse to share my favourite picture of the trip – mama cheetah escaping with her four cubs!

Perspective is everything and as Anais Nin says...

“We don’t see things as they are. We see them as we are.” Anais Nin

We often get stuck in our own perspective without considering alternatives.  In life, perspective has power. It creates our view of the world around us and influences our day to day interactions and our decision making. It can keep us stuck in a narrow train of thinking or it can open up our minds to seeing the world differently.

As a burnout coach, I work with many people who feel stuck. Perhaps they have a decision to make or are frustrated about some interactions at home and work, perhaps are blaming others for their situation and cannot work out how to move forward.

Feeling stuck can feel like standing at a crossroads in the fog. No pathway looks clear and some paths may even look a bit risky. So, we often stay where we are, not because it feels right but because we can’t work out the right way to go, searching for a clarity that seems tantalisingly out of reach.  

However, when we feel stuck, it’s rarely because there are no options. It’s often because we’ve lost sight of them – caught up in internal fog. As humans we tell ourselves stories that we’ve formed over the years based on our experiences, our upbringing, our environment and our interactions with others and they become part of our history. We naturally only see situations through our own lens, which will never be exactly the same as another person. Almost by definition every perspective is a unique perspective.

Where this can be problematic is when the stories we tell ourselves about what is possible, or what the motivations of others might be, narrow our vision until we can no longer see the full picture. We have lost perspective.

A couple of years ago, a relative from the USA was visiting. After exhausting my self-made tourist itinerary of our heritage and coastal beauty, I had been showing her the centre of St Helier. At the end of the afternoon over a coffee, she remarked on what a beautiful town centre it was. I have to admit, I looked at her disbelievingly and dared to disagree. Then she showed me the pictures she had taken. The town I’ve known intimately for years looked very different from her vantage point.

Through different angles and looking upwards she had captured the colours and variety of the central market and the variety of the facades above the shops. My familiar town that I walk through most days looked very different through her camera lens. Some buildings were obscured, others I rarely looked at were visible and it looked totally different from different heights.

I had not only stopped noticing these features. I had stopped looking for them.

I come across these cycles of thought in coaching all the time; whether it relates to work or home. We see ourselves, our workplaces or the people in our lives through the filter of own judgements, assumptions and doubts. So it can be so helpful to have someone who isn’t caught up in your story or your history to support you to see things from a different perspective. Someone who can hold up a mirror and ask different questions. Someone who can see the strengths and possibilities that you have stopped noticing.

Put another way, as Carl Jung stated, 

“It all depends on how we look at things, and not how they are in themselves.”

Things can change when you’re given the power of perspective. It’s not about pretending everything’s fine – or not. It’s about realising that things might look different if you step out of your bubble.

So, I ask again. When you look at a situation, do you see the view or a view?

Our view is rarely the only view but it’s not always possible to understand how someone else views a situation because we don’t have the same experience of it. Whether you are working with a coach or not, you can ask yourself some crucial questions to try and understand alternative viewpoints of a situation. I often ask my clients (and myself!) versions of the following questions:

·      What else could be going on here?

·      Is there another way of looking at/dealing with this?

·      What would the wisest person I know say about this situation?

·      What would future ‘you’ thank you for thinking here?

·      If I was standing on a balcony looking down at this situation, what would I notice about how I and others are acting?

You can do this with friends, colleagues or with a coach. Or reflect in a journal perhaps. Involving others, if you can can, helps create a more comprehensive view of a situation that can reduce the risk of misunderstandings, save relationships from being ruptured and support better decision making.

The answer isn’t always to think harder but to think differently; to zoom out. Look at your life, your work, your next step… from outside your usual bubble.

I invite you to see your dilemma as someone else might, with fresh eyes, possibility and with curiosity instead of judgement.

I wonder what might become possible if you stepped outside your bubble and saw your situation through someone else’s eyes?