Perspective: Altitude and Attitude
Posted on March 13, 2016 by Jay Powers, One of Thousands of Executive Coaches on Noomii.
Perspective can help us see things in right relationship to each other, create awareness by challenging our present state, and inspire change.
I live near a golf course in North Carolina. The view is beautiful and requires countless hours of care to keep it that way. Walking the course awhile back I reflected on how the course appears from different vantage points. The course looks perfect from high altitude, say 25,000 feet. If a second pass was made over the same golf course at 3000 feet, the golf course would still look nice but flaws of any consequence would now be more visible. Again, If we were to walk the greens and fairways, any irregularities, neglect, or disrepair, would become acutely obvious.
Often it takes getting on ground level or even below the surface of our lives to notice areas in desperate need of repair, maintenance, and improvement.
Perspective is vital to successful change. There must be deliberate, intentional decisions made to create awareness and motivation to begin growing in the right direction. Movement requires vision and true vision requires movement.
Vision can be defined as the power of sensing with the eyes. It is seeing. It is vision. The definition for this article is, “the act or power of anticipating that which will come to be”. Andy Stanley states that “Vision is a clear mental picture of what could be, fueled by the conviction that it should be." In other words, vision is a preferred future. Vision and perspective go hand in hand.
In addition to having vision, there must be movement. That movement is change. Vision alone will not produce movement toward your desired outcome. A decision must be made for personal growth to occur and the decisions must be intentional and deliberate. A wise Hebrew once said “Where there is no vision, people are unrestrained and out of control.
Ask yourself; what part of setting goals, motivation, and movement toward my goals are within my control? Did we control what seeds (positive or negative) were planted in us as children? No. Do we control our attitudes about those seeds? Yes. Do we now control what seeds we allow to take root in our lives? Most certainly. Do we control our own decisions and choices? Absolutely.
Coaching can be an invaluable resource for helping with important choices and decisions. The coaching process has proven to aid in creating a space for reflection in one’s mind, resulting in sound decision-making. In collaboration with you, a trusted coach is a partner in creating awareness, movement and action. Helpful conversations between you and your coach can bring powerful change; change that you can learn to deliberately acknowledge, accept and act upon. Coaching challenges status quo thinking.
Samuel Grafton said, “A penny will hide the biggest star in the Universe if you hold it close enough to your eye.” Perspective, our point of view or attitude toward something, makes all the difference in the world.
