Don’t Lock Yourself

“Fake it till you make it!” Almost all of us have heard this some time or the other. Maybe from a struggling friend that is trying to turn things around or someone who is just looking for a change from their routine, or someone who wants to move ahead into a better version of themselves.

Whatever may be the case, it’s evident that the above quote was created to set us free from some kind of bound that was put on us psychologically. Contrary to common beliefs, change isn’t easy, if we could be whatever we wanted to, it wouldn’t require “faking it” initially to get there. Life rejects change and most of the times, we sabotage our efforts at changes.

Importance Of Perception

Has it ever happened? One day you tell a few people something, say you hate classical music. Sooner or later, you end up listening to classical music that might be good but your mind wouldn’t accept it because your mind feels it’s not a genre it likes.

This is a very powerful tool if used correctly, and a very destructive one, if not used properly.

Your perception of yourself matters just as much as your perception in the mind of someone else. Your perception of yourself determines what you do when you are not surrounded by other people and only have you to judge yourself. Your perception in the mind of others determines what you do when there are other people around you to judge your actions.

One of the most powerful ways of building or breaking habits, at least for people who are influenced by what others think of them, is to tell them that you have already built or broken the habit. Say one wants to quit smoking, they should go and tell people “I don’t smoke.” not “I am trying to quit smoking.” The first statement asserts that they have already left smoking, and since the person has now told people about it, there’s no going back.

Similarly and unfortunately, it is also a destructive tool that can sabotage your growth as well.

Beware the Lock

Perceptions and thoughts can be built almost asynchronously, while you’re walking and you hear someone say something bad about something, in particular, you might not pay attention to it, but it tends to stay in the back of your head that might come back later to bite you.

Many people might say “Then have firmer beliefs” and that’s correct, but this is basic human psychology, even if one person is saying the answer to something is 65, opposed to our 71, we would start to doubt our answer instead of doubting theirs. The problem with having rigid beliefs is that they are very difficult to change, which over time become a big problem, and have been the cause of most of the conflicts in human history.

Lack of open-mindedness is a big problem most people face as they get older, it is hence also important to start with proper perspectives, but also walk on a fine line to not have perspectives lock your mind in a thought-bubble where no old thoughts go outside and no new thoughts enter your mind to freshen things up.

Examples Of Perspectives

Let me give you a few examples, where perspectives have played a big role. The most important is the discrimination of ethnicities, it is all because of the perception of those ethnicities people have, even in the developed world, this leads to lower chances of employment and benefits.

A personal example of perceptions playing a life-changing role is my perception of startups always being better than big companies work for, sure, startups are a great place to work, but just the way not all small companies are lean, efficient and open, not all big companies are bureaucratic and political. I might have missed many good opportunities by simply not applying to them in the first place. And as most of your life is dependent on a single decision (You might not agree, and that is fine), these decisions might create a completely alternate timeline where you could have been in a completely different place.

These kinds of thoughts affect deeper aspects of life as well, it is infinitely harder for a person to adapt to daily life in a different country because most of what they thought were norms back home are no longer considered the norms to the place they have come.

Similarly, it can also play an elevating role in life, if you keep telling yourself you are great at a certain skill, your mind will eventually validate it by making it easier for you to learn in case you don’t know it. It doesn’t mean you don’t have to put in efforts to learn the skill, it just means it will be slightly easier. It doesn’t come in a day and you will have to practice it day-to-day for it to take effect.

It can also be a locking factor, if you keep telling yourself you are a Full Stack “Web” Developer, you will be limited to just the “Web” part of tech, just changing your description to Full Stack Engineer can have a huge impact in the long term because you are no longer locked into the perception of being a “Web Developer” anymore, even though at the core, most full-stack engineers do exactly that, but keep their options open for opportunities outside the web development domain and are hence not “locked”.

Things that you might be telling yourself such as “I am not very good for this job.” or “The work I am currently doing is okay for me, and I might not get any better anywhere else.” might be bogging you down, in fact, you might be good for that job and there might be better places or things for you to work on. Don’t lock yourself.

Conclusions

So, in life, a lot depends on how you feel things are. Entire ideologies have been built around what people think is right and wrong. On a micro day-to-day level, they still influence most of our decisions, from buying packaged food over unpackaged food to settling for less because we think we don’t deserve more.

Most of the solutions to everyday problems we seek are merely in realizing that we are a product of our perceptions and even though it takes a lot of effort to change them, being open-minded, and letting opportunities come to us without any bias is an important aspect of life, worth putting in the extra effort for.

With that, go ahead, evaluate what you have thought as written in stone for a long time that is not written in stone, and can be changed for the better.