The coffee machine was more crowded than usual. Something had happened. Tuning in to the chatter of software engineers, I soon discovered the topic of the day. Their project had been scrapped and they had all been moved to a new one.

“What’s up!”, I inquired of the first techie to walk by me. “Three months of effort just went down the drain”, he cried. “What are we gonna do?” he despaired as he dragged himself away.

Before I could stop him, his teammate mistook me for a bowling pin. “Sorry”, he said excitedly as we picked ourselves up. “We were just moved to this huge project. It’s so important that they shelved the one we were working on, to get us involved. I can’t wait to get started”, he gushed as he ran off.

The same thing had happened to both of my coworkers. But one was on top of the world, while the other was crushed under it. The difference was how both looked at the situation. Their viewpoints had changed their reality and hence their response.

Pick any topic or situation and think about it for two seconds. You will realize that you have a viewpoint on it. And often, you will call it the truth.

But a viewpoint is simply how you see something. It is a belief, an opinion. One based on who you are, your values, your life experiences and a million other things all related to you. Sometimes what you believe is based on a life-long learning, sometimes it’s just your current frame of mind.

Our viewpoints run our lives and drive our actions. But when we confuse them with reality, we stop looking beyond them. We begin to believe that just because we are thinking it, this is how things must be. By focusing on just one viewpoint, we limit our options. So, it’s important to be aware of different viewpoints and choose the one that empowers us instead of holding us back.

Let’s look at some examples and notice how the alternative viewpoints have a different energy about them, a more positive one. That’s the energy you will feel when you step into them.

A limiting viewpoint	An alternative viewpoint
I am too old to take on something new.	I am going to use my experience in whatever I do next.
I am afraid to do it.	I am curious what will happen if I do it.

So, the next time you find yourself saying “That’s just the way it is” or “There’s nothing I can do about it”, pause and look for other viewpoints. Look at the world from different lenses and it just might look more beautiful.