Challenging Your Perspective

Today, let’s talk about a way to look at things from a different perspective. It’s called “Context Reframing,” and it’s a technique you can use to help shift your perspective from negative to positive.

Our past experiences influence our ability to perceive what’s happening in the world and to interpret what we perceive. However, there are many ways to experience a situation. One of the keys to living a successful life is to consistently interpret your experience in ways that support you in getting the results you want.

Context Reframing is a technique that can help you do just that. It involves taking an experience that seems to be negative and imagining how the same experience can be an advantage, if you see it in another context. Children’s literature is full of context reframing. The ugly duckling suffered great pain because he was so different from his peers, but his difference was his beauty as a full-grown swan. Rudolph’s nose, at first an object of ridicule, turned into an advantage and made him a hero in the context of a dark, snowy night.

Many parents of disabled children help their kids turn what some call handicaps into special gifts. And plenty of folks have turned failure into learning experiences that helped them succeed in a big way down the line.

So, you see, it’s not what happens to you in life that makes or breaks you. It’s how you interpret what happens to you – and that decision is completely in your hands.