Perspective pt. 2

As a continuation from the last episode, this episode focuses on the control that we have over our perspective. We decide how we want to perceive things by what we angle our attention to. The things we pay attention to make our mind think in a similar way to it (depending on how much exposure we have with it). 

Also, the things we decide to talk about. It's so easy to talk badly about other people because it doesn't require a skill or a hobby and it temporarily uplifts us but it actually damages our cognitive bias (our systematic thought process) to look for the bad in people. However, if we practice talking about the good, then we train our cognitive bias to look for the good in people. 

Practicing gratitude is our medicine. Gratitude makes us practice seeing things in a positive and fulfilling way. The more we practice gratitude, the more we will see how lucky we are (inspired by Roxie Nafousi author of Manifest).

It's important for us to angle our perspective in a way that reflects who we are/ help develop who we are.

Chapters

• 0:00 intro
• 1:18 we are responsible for our perspective
• 2:59 fixation - the more we talk about something...
• 5:01 cognitive bias
• 8:03 getting out of our heads
• 9:30 habit - a way of thinking
• 10:06 manifestation
• 16:59 everything is a practice
• 20:42 short term buzz of gossiping
• 21:13 conclusion

Transcript

So perspective was a theme that was talked about in the last episode and and I just felt like there had to be a continuation of that. I felt like there was just more to be said about it, because I think perspective just dictates our life to such a massive degree, and perspective just takes care of us in so many different ways and in ways that we might not even be aware about. But this episode basically looks at how we actually have so much control of our perspective and that we kind of choose to see things in the way that we do, and again, like with self awareness. And this is also just something that I always talk about, it's with self awareness that we realize that we own so much responsibility for the way that we think and the way that we do and how we act, and consider this episode to be that aid towards being self aware of the things that we actually do control in our life and in our perspective.
So we are responsible for our perspective, because perspective is also something that we angle our attention to, and whichever thing that we decide to angle our attention to defines who we are. If we decide to spend, like every day, walking in the park and walking with dogs, then we're probably gonna get a lot of dopamine from that, and we're gonna be really happy, but the more time we spend fixated on the consumption of like crime documentaries, horror movies, things that really like get us to have goosebumps, we're basically shifting our cognitive bias, and we're making our neurotransmitters want to be consumed by All these things. I'm trying to explain this in such a scientific way, but the way I understand it is that if we spend more time fixated on things such as like crime and just like negative things, and we look at the negative side of human behavior, we develop a cognitive bias that agrees with all of that kind of stuff. So we start to see the bad in the people around us, the bad in us, because we're angling our attention to such negative things that our perspective starts to mirror that, and starts to take traits off of that, and that ends up defining us as well. And when we watch dark things, we have a filter of it in us, like the way that we view life, our cognitive biases are always going to have the presumption of bad things because we've consumed it in our mind. And that's one form of fixation. That's one form of angling our attention to the things that define us, and the other way of fixating our perspective and angling our perspective is the things that we talk about, being aware of the things that we talk about is it's a kind of manifestation, because the more we talk about something, the more we bring it to life, and the more we consume it. I mean, I think there are two ways about this, but I think if we have a thought, we either decide to attach ourselves to it or just let it go and like, move on. And sometimes like, if it's a really good thought and if it's something empowering, then we should try to make use of that thought and to make sure that our mind can consume that thought and fixate on that and receive dopamine from it. And ways of doing that is by journaling, by speaking it out loud, by, I don't know, like even, I guess, like anything that brings it onto sort of physical form, like me speaking right now, this is, this is like me just having a thought and then writing it down on paper and then translating it onto this mic for people to then listen to it. I've basically manifested a thought into a physical form, but I've also done that through writing it down. And that's a form of fixation you listening to this right now is you fixating and angling your attention to something that you would hope to benefit your happiness and understanding of yourself and a form of self help. And you're opening your angling, your Yeah, you're angling, your attention to something quite self beneficial. And in the long term, the result of that, if we keep on angling, our attention to these good things would be that we would attract good things to our life, and we will become the good things, and we will take that energy in. But the opposite of that is when we translate these thoughts that are negative, and we hyper fixate on these negative things that essentially change our cognitive bias to act against us or to act. A very negative way. And also I just kind of want to explain what I mean by cognitive bias. Cognitive bias is when you walk into when you walk into a room, like, what is the first thing you think of? Is it negative, or is it positive? And that is essentially determined by the things that you have done to Program Your Mind. For example, I've been waking up, I've been starting to realize this about me. When I wake up, I'm always unhappy, like I'm always negative. I have the weirdest dreams that are linked to, like, bad things, and I wake up and I actually just can't really get out of bed because I'm unhappy, and I just want to stay in bed. That's like a thing that I've realized about I think human behavior. I think it's harder for people to get out of bed that wake up unhappy, whereas people that wake up happy are so excited to get on with their day and they want to get out of bed. So that's a cognitive bias, and that has been made by habits. I mean, in the past, I'd have to wake up so early to go to school because it would be so far away, and I think that has programmed my mind to wake up and not want to get out of bed. So now my mind still does that, and now I kind of need to be aware of that, and I need to just force myself out of that. That's the only way to get out of that. That's the only form of shifting habits and to change my cognitive bias of waking up every day unhappy. So that is a cognitive bias, and that has been built on fixating, on not wanting to get out of bed. So now my mind just does that automatically. And other things that I've been doing to try, like get out of that is sleeping with my phone outside my room, like not going on my phone, making sure that I get out of bed and I get myself ready. And even gratitude, I've been practicing gratitude, but I want to get to that later, because that's also a form of changing our cognitive biases.
I don't know if you hear that, but the whole building is literally like collapsing right now. There's banging and everything. I literally went upstairs and I said, I'm recording something. Can you please stop? And they couldn't, because they're replacing a window. I literally my this whole room is contaminated by carbon dioxide. It's not good, like, what if I faint? I won't, I'll be fine. So we basically choose what we want to be fixated on. And I think over time, it's hard to actually understand that, because we've maybe built a form of happiness alongside of that. Like people that like watching crime and horror movies have obviously built some form of excitement towards it. And they like, they like the, I mean, not they we, we all like some sort of mystery, some sort of thrill. But there's obviously so many negative outcomes of that and to be to be surrounded by so much negativity, will cause us to embed that negativity and to mirror that negativity, and like to just view the world in that thing, because we're always opening our minds to that. So choosing not to talk about negative stuff is actually a very beneficial thing to do. But on the other hand, sometimes we have a thought that is so consuming in our heads, and it can cause us so much difficulty, and we could be struggling with this, and I don't really know what that can really be. I'm trying to think of an example maybe we've I'm right now submitting a portfolio for an application, and I think this is actually quite a good example, because I would be so stressed out about it, and I would think, like, I only have three weeks left. It's not gonna get done in time. I still need to do like, X, Y and Z, but like me actually saying that out loud and then speaking to someone about it, I'm basically letting go of that thought being so big in my head, and I'm just speaking it out, and I'm letting it out of my mind, and then speaking it out would make me realize how small that issue is, and how much time I actually have, and how big I'm making it in my head to actually be when it's really just not a big deal, and like I have all the time in The world, and it's the strength of the thought that kind of determines whether or not we should express it. If we're just naturally saying negative things, we should just let go of it, and we should move on to something more positive, and we should surround ourselves with positive things. But if we're actually having something in our minds that's consuming us, and if letting go of it and like not communicating and just dropping it isn't an option, then journaling and communicating it is one of the most beneficial things to actually do. So what we've decided to fixate our attention to has created a habit for us, in our minds, to think in a certain way and to have a presumption of certain things and have a filter covering the way that we see things. Our perspective is always something that is developing and changing, but to make sure that our that we're setting ourselves up in the right place, is to obviously hold some sort of awareness onto what we are angling. Our attention to and what we're spending time enjoying and consuming and doing on newlyweds. I don't know if you might know it. You might not. It's a podcast by Jamie Lange and Sophie kibu, and they brought in this woman that actually inspired me so much. She looks so well put together. And the podcast episode was about manifesting your dream year, like for 2025 and she basically talked about her past, and she said that she basically hit rock bottom. She was struggling with addiction of 10 years, and when she hit rock bottom, she had no choice but to immerse herself into self development. And now she's really well put together. She's helping so many people in their lives. And she has a couple books, I think, or one book all about manifestation and all about basically what I'm kind of talking about, and how to shift your perspective and how to change your internal thoughts and stuff like that. And she said, if there was one thing that you had to listen from me, like she said, I don't care. Like you don't need to listen to anything I say, but this you have to. And she says that to everyone. She says, bringing gratitude into our lives is the most life changing thing ever, because it changes our neurotransmitters and it changes our cognitive bias to appreciate more things and to be more content. And the more we practice that, the more we change our habits in our mind, to start thinking in a more happy way and in a more positive way, in a way that works for us. And I've started doing it like after. After that episode, I really thought, Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna bring this back into my life. And I used to do it, but it was not so meaningful. And she actually advises to be to write a whole gratitude of the day that has just happened, like, look back on our looking back on our day, and thinking about all the small things the most mundane, like small, small things that have, oh my god, I can't deal. I actually can't deal. Okay, let's just use this as an example. I'm grateful that there is not a wall falling on my head right now. I am grateful that I am going to Brighton today and I don't need to deal with this shit, I am
I am grateful.
I don't really know how to be grateful right now. I'm grateful that when I asked him to shut up, the guy was really nice to me, and he apologized, and he said that he couldn't but yeah, so she she recommends to just be grateful about all the small things of our day, looking back on our day, and just picking out the small, unique things that have happened in that day, as well as, like, the standard things. So I've done that, and then I've also have done, like, unique, different gratitudes. I've been like, last night I wrote a whole gratitude of, like, the last two months and like how much I felt like I've achieved. I felt like the last two months have been the most productive two months of my life. I feel like I achieved so much in that the last two months, and I just wanted I listed out all the things that I achieved and that I'm really grateful for it, and that I know that good things are gonna come just stuff like that. And then sometimes I write gratitude things about, like, the people in my life, and it really changed, like, the first time I properly did it, I just felt this huge flush of happiness that I felt like I always limited myself on and now I feel like I constantly have that in my life the more I do it. I mean, it's not like a constant thing. I've only been implementing gratitude for, I think, two weeks, but even that has such a strong impact, and it's so interesting how even doing it for the first time, if you do it properly, if you don't just write, oh, I'm grateful to have a roof over my head, like stuff like that. Like, if it actually means something to you, like doing gratitude that is meaningful. It has such a strong impact on the way that we feel. It has instant results. Instant results. I don't do it every night, because I feel like, if I did, I would feel like I'm obliged to do it, and then I would be put off by doing it. But I do it a couple times every week, at different times, sometimes before I go to sleep, sometimes during the day. The thing is, when we're not grateful for stuff, nothing will ever feel enough. We could be motivated to want to do great things. Thing is, the two main motivators for like doing stuff, a genuine motivation and like passion for something. But I don't feel like a lot of people can have that if we are not grateful. So the alternative to that is by feeling like we need to give some sort of revenge, we have to be great, because we have a big ego, and therefore there's no other alternative. And if we're following that route, then whatever place we're in, and no matter how much we've achieved, it's just never gonna feel. Like enough, because we just don't know how to be grateful for things we don't. Yeah, see, I'm I'm starting to accept this noise. This episode has made me be one with the noise. I'm very one with the noise. I'm very accepting of this loud noise.
Let's just give it a minute.
I will be back after this noise decides to stop.
Okay, so
what I was saying was, when we focus on what we don't have, we don't bring anything to ourselves. So not only will we never understand how to be grateful for things, we will always be carrying this energy that we lack and we decide that. We decide whether we want to be chasing something or if we want to be bringing something to ourselves. And I feel like we can all feel that with the people around us. We know when someone's very content with themselves, because we feel that they radiate such a strong energy. And we can feel that in ourselves as well. We can feel when we are in this content place, in this place where we are grateful, where we see the good in our life that has such a powerful energy. And once we're in that place, other people are also going to see the good in our life and will want to be in our life because we are so content with it, and we see so many good things in our life, and we naturally express that, and people will naturally see that, and that's manifestation. That's how we attract things into our life. We can never attract things
if we're chasing it.
Um, anyway, I'm sure I've spoken about this a lot, and yeah, I did just I wanted to end this episode by saying that gratitude is a practice. It's something that we bring into our lives, not by just doing it once, but by continuously doing it. And I think that's with everything like everything in our life is a habit. We always need to be consistently doing and producing and waking up, planning our day and like practicing, every life is just a practice. Life is us doing. And once we stop, all of our results stop as well. So we kind of want to angle our perspective to the things that make us happy, and the things that not only make us happy, but also make us radiate and practice on these things and embed them in our life. Everything is an act of doing like such as gratitude you can't just consume. I mean, even watching a movie or watching something, but gratitude isn't something that you watch. It's something that we all actively do. And I feel like the more things that we do that are practical and do require us to engage with it and do that for certain thing, I feel like I've said, do so much. The more we consume it, and the more we take it in, and the more it actually defines us, because we are doing it, and attention is our biggest asset. And I'm sure I've mentioned this in the other episode about consuming so much social media, but it's just so true. And if we want to really define our character and define who we are and express our uniqueness, it's so important that we do create that space in our life to actually express that. And one boundary that I put on, which I already talked about, was leaving my phone outside of my room. And it's such a healthy boundary, because I have that space to wake up and to get ready and to think about the things that I want to do, and to just appreciate the simple things. And it's just such a massive difference, because I think going on your phone fast thing, you have so much access to so much media being thrown at the you. And then when you actually get out of bed, you're just so consumed by it all, and you just can't see your life clearly, and you can't really take the necessary steps to make this day meaningful to who we are crafting ourselves to be. And if we do decide to pick up our phones first thing, we just have so much things being thrown at us, and we don't actually have a second to be with ourselves. We don't really care to get ready. We're so consumed with the things that are going on on our phones, and we might not put in as much care and dedication to getting ourselves ready, and then that whole day, we will just feel quite sluggish and like just quite gross, because we haven't planned out the small things that actually define us so much. Short term and long term have two huge effects on us, because if we get used to enjoying things that give us short term leisure, then we don't necessarily. Primarily really have what it takes. Like, sounds bad to say, but if, if we love short term feelings, and if we, if we always try to look for the short term goal, then we are never really going to gravitate towards changing, because change is very uncomfortable, and change is something that is a long term success and feeling uncomfortable, I feel like we all have a little kid inside of us, and it's just easier to see it in that way, because we can better plan things in our life if we think about it in that way. And yeah, like everything is energy. The things that we think about, the things that we speak about, it all has an energetical force, and if we decide that a bit of gossip is going to give us short term happiness, and if we're tempted to feel that short term buzz of just putting someone else down because we feel down, then we're going to be consumed by that negativity. Often we're making our cognitive bias focus on everyone's flaws, because that is what we like to talk about most, because it gives us short term satisfaction, and then we end up judging ourselves as well, because we're programming ourselves to look at the bad and things. So in conclusion to this, it's just so important to angle our perspective in a way that reflects who we are, and also helps develop who we are, rather than who we are not, and following instincts that do not lead us to who we want to be. Do.