When You Change The Way You Look At Things, The Things You Look At Change!

In this article I’m looking at another of my quote images, and a great quote from Wayne Dyer…

I took that image down at Herne Bay, on the North Kent coast here in the UK. It had been on my ‘to do’ list as part of my sunrise/sunset photo trips, so when I finally got round to going there, I was surprised to see that the pier was in two pieces!

The pictures I had seen had the pier in one piece, or had shown the part of the pier out in the sea, which I had mistaken as something else altogether!

The broken nature of the pier increased the nostalgic air that can surround seaside places like this, and I enjoyed being able to get some snaps of a lovely sunset.

Of course, being a seaside town, along the prom they had the telescopes, where you put the coin in and get to use it. I was half tempted, but seeing one family get about 20 seconds for a one pound coin made me decide to just enjoy seeing the telescope itself.

I toyed around taking some photos, and that quote occurred to me from Wayne Dyer –

“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

It’s all about perception.

The science of vision is that the light comes into our eye, and then that feedback is sent to the brain, and our brain turns that information into ‘sight’.

Here’s the important thing though – the brain doesn’t make a new, full image creation from the information received. Because that would take too long, the brain saves time, by comparing the information received to internal models *already* there.

This is key brain science, because it basically says that our brain is looking to validate what we already think is true. It’s why optical illusions work.

So, when we look at things, anything, we are looking at them with preconceived ideas. This applies if we think of ‘looking a things’ literally, like a broken pier at the seaside, or ‘looking at things’ in the way of considering things – our opinions, for example.

In the case of looking at the pier, we could look at it as a wreck, something that should just be given up on, an eyesore that should be demolished completely.

Or, we can look at it with that romantic, nostalgic angle, evoking childhood memories, or enjoying the thought of children present and yet to come running up and down, yelling and having fun, eating too much candyfloss and being sick as they ride the helter-skelter at the end of the pier.

An eyesore, or source of pleasure?

2 totally different ways of looking at it, but the actual fact of the view is exactly the same either way. You can’t change the information coming in through your eyes, but you *can* change the way your brain interprets that image.
So, can you do this when it comes to looking at things to do with your opinions, your life path, how you view yourself? Well, you won’t be surprised to hear me say ‘of course!’

The internal brain models can be changed.

Now, I’m not saying this is easy, in fact it can be incredibly difficult. That’s because these models have been built up for many years, without us knowing it, with a duel force of the outside world *and* ourselves doing the building!

So if we are set about changing the models, we first need to realise that we have them, and then what they actually are – what are our opinions, how have we formed them, why do we still hold them?

If we do that, we can then set about moving from positions of negativity, to positions of positivity.

For example, we can move from thinking that we can’t, to thinking that we either can, or can learn.
From thinking the world is set against us, to thinking that it isn’t!
From thinking that everyone will laugh at us if we say or do what we really want, to thinking that they might not or it doesn’t matter even if they do.

You get the idea! If you do this, the world around you might be exactly the same, but because you view it differently, because you *perceive* it differently, the impact the world around you will have on you changes completely.

This is why Wayne Dyer’s quote is so powerful. It’s a nicely crafted phrase, it’s an easily understood concept in such a short form, and when looked at (see what I did there) a bit deeper as I’ve just done, it’s shown to be an idea that really can be life changing.

So, if you looked through one of those old fashioned seaside telescopes, how would see the pier?
More than that, how would you see your life? Consider that changing the way you look, changes what you look at, and consider how different you might see things – it can be life changing, it can be transformational.

Ok, as ever I’d love to hear what you think – do leave a comment!

‘Til Next Time,
Health & happiness,
Gordon
P.S. If you think you could do with a hand changing the way you look at things, and what you might then do about it, grab my free 8 step goal achievement formula!