When I speak to groups, I often share this “life principle.”
The way you enter a situation has a lot to do with the way it will turn out.
Your perspective, prior to entering a situation, matters. It matters for at least two reasons: 1) It might need to change, and 2) It (You) might make the situation, once you’re in it, much better.
If I have a lousy perspective prior to entering a situation, it’s unlikely the situation will be positive and productive. I will likely taint my actions and my experience with my negative perspective. If I think it’s going to be bad, chances are good, it will be. This is why it’s important to become aware of your perspective before entering a situation–whether it’s a meeting at work or a night with friends. If you’re aware of a negative perspective, you just might be able to change it BEFORE the moment. That’s a big deal. Why? Because you’re really awake and conscious. Not many people can say that.
If my persepctive is positive a, prior to entering a situation, it can become the fuel for shaping the moment. If I see, in my imagination and mind, myself as wise, strong, compassionate, funny, magnetic or anything else the upcoming moment might need, I increase the possibility of it “happening” when the moment arrives. I literally shape the future, by my perspective of it in the present.
Think of a moment that’s coming up for you. If you’re dreading it, try and change your perspective. What makes it dreadful? What could change it? Or better yet, how do you need to change in order to SEE the situation with different eyes?
If the upcoming moment is neutral to positive, what can you do now to make it even better? Imagine yourself in that moment. How do you want to be seen? What will that moment need from you to make it better? How do you want the moment to have gone when you are leaving it?
See it first and you are more likely to live it later (in “real time”).