The Common Sense Law of Perspective

The world expects a lot of us. And, we expect even more of ourselves. I'm not about to suggest that we can change what is expected of us, at least not overnight. I will suggest, however, that to a large extent, we are responsible for our own overload. Many of us don’t even see it because we have become complacent and frankly, our expectation is to be overwhelmed. But what if you could control the expectation? What kind of difference would that make in your life?

Overload is directly related to the relevance, or the perspective that we assign to each and every thing we do. If everything is perceived as important (value) and urgent (time based) then everything will be important and urgent. Rest assured, it will also be a direct line to exhaustion and burnout. At the same time, if everything is perceived as urgent, regardless of importance, then urgency will run your life and it will still lead to exhaustion and burnout.

I used to say that I missed being able to focus on what was important rather than what was urgent (everything). I was being pushed to the limit, not only by my own sense of urgency but by the urgent requests of others -- both personally and professionally. Were they really urgent requests? Or was the urgency driven by someone else's agenda that I allowed to become my own? It took RELAX. SET. GO. to realize that urgency is often manufactured and that someone else's agenda didn't automatically have to become my own. I also realized that urgency is compounded by stress. Less stress; less urgency; more importance. And of course, stress is compounded by time based expectations.

I finally realized The Common Sense Law of Perspective. It's the true "secret," and a key tenet to RELAX. SET. GO. The Common Sense Law is this simple fact: Perspective drives the reality we create. But what drives perspective? More importantly, what do we let drive perspective? How much thought do we actually put into perspective? If we don't think about it, question it and shape it, then chances are that we are not in control of it . . . and therefore not in control of our reality.

RELAX. SET. GO. will teach you to be both the observer and driver of your perspective and therefore, of the reality you create. A positive perspective will always trump negative and the ability to create what I call "pocket perspective" will always trump chaos. Pocket perspective is simply being able to relax and pause in order to apply positive perspective to a specific matter at hand. Think of it as the "one thing at a time" method of perspective.

The beauty of perspective is that we really can change it in an instant. It may take a little practice but it's easy with RELAX. SET. GO. Perspective alone, allows you to adjust, not what the world expects of you, but what you expect. This doesn't mean trading high standards in exchange for mediocrity. To the contrary, excellence is exactly what we are striving for here; an excellent life, to be exact.