The Beauty of Reframing Your Perspective, Choose Your Lens

"The key to transforming anything lies in our ability to reframe it" - Marianne Williamson

Have you ever felt stuck or paralyzed in indecision? I know I have! Well, not to worry, there is always a way. And one of those ways is reframing your thinking. In today's post, I will offer a quick tip to get you thinking about how to create what I call a beautiful reframe in your life.

Change your lens, change your future!

The Beauty of Reframing Your Perspective, Choose Your Lens

As a coach, I often guide people to reframe how they look at a problem or at their current situation when they feel stuck. It is something I use in my own life all the time, and it is simple to incorporate. When I feel stuck, and I don't see the solution, I like to step away from the problem and look at it from a different perspective. The simple pause and then change in perspective allows for fresh ideas to surface. BOOM! New options start to appear. This is the most powerful moment - it is like magic when the solution comes to you!

It is completely normal for people to get stuck. We create mental models of the world in order to function, and these models are the frameworks in which we see and operate in the world. Reframing allows us to replace an existing framework with a new, more functional framework. But, how do you do this? There are many ways to reframe your thinking, and you can begin by asking powerful questions like "What is another way to look at this issue? What is the real problem you are trying to solve?"

When I think of reframing, I often think of Edward de Bono, the physician, psychologist, author, inventor, and philosopher who became known for the concept of lateral thinking. In his book "The Six Thinking Hats," he offers a practical approach to making decisions and exploring new ideas. De Bono helps to organize the thinking process into "six thinking hats":

• White Hat: Neutral and objective, concerned with facts and figures
• Red Hat: The emotional view
• Black Hat: Careful and cautious, the "devil's advocate" hat
• Yellow Hat: Sunny and positive
• Green Hat: Associated with fertile growth, creativity, and new ideas
• Blue Hat: Cool, the color of the sky, above everything else-the organizing hat

By role-playing as a group or working through this alone, you can look at a problem from several different "hats" to get the best thinking and ultimately the best solution.

Since I am not a hat person, I choose to use the concept of looking through the eyes of different people. I often ask my clients, what lens do you want to see the problem through? Do you want to approach the problem as the business person, the artist, the scientist, the parent, or the child? Each of these individuals has a unique perspective on the world, and they will challenge you to think in a completely different way. Ideally, it helps to try each one of them so you can uncover multiple options and then choose which one you feel suits your situation best.