2 min read

You’ve probably heard the saying “perception is everything”.  Like many sayings, it is very true.  Although your perception of a situation may be incorrect, it becomes your reality.  For example, if you are walking down the street lost in your own thoughts and curtly nod your head when I say hello to you, my perception may be that you are mad at me for some reason.  Why else would you have been so rude to me?

Perception becomes reality.  I walk away thinking that you are mad at me and you walk away vaguely aware that someone spoke to you while you were lost in thought.  One situation, two realities.

So if we take this one step further, if perception is reality, then you can change your reality by changing your perception.  This is a pretty cool idea.  It gives you way more control over your life than you may have thought you had before.

For example, you may be wishing you had more money to buy the things you want.  This creates a perception of want, of doing without.  This perception creates a reality of feeling that you need more, of not being happy because you can’t get what you want.  However, if every time you start to think about what you don’t have, you make a conscious choice to think about what you do have, you move from a perception of want to a perception of have.  In actual reality nothing about your financial situation has changed, but your perception of it has changed and in the process changed your satisfaction and happiness level.  Kind of like Scrooge not being able to figure out how Bob Cratchit and his family could be so happy with so little.  It’s a state of mind, it’s perception.

So the next time you feel unhappy about something maybe you could step back and look at the situation objectively to see if a change in perception is all that is needed to change your reality.