When we are stressed and stuck – take a break and change perspective
At some point in our life, everyone gets to making difficult decisions. Usually those are decisions for the future about the “big questions” such as family, job or where we want to live and build a home. We very often see those decisions as difficult because we have the assumption that if we get the wrong, the price for having made the wrong turn might be quite high and difficult to reverse. Therefore, those difficult decisions put a lot of stress and pressure on us - we feel like we are stuck in a hamster wheel of circulating thoughts about which path of the journey we should choose.
What is important to understand is, that the more our thoughts are circulating around this difficult problem or decisions we are facing, the less likely our ability to make a good decision and achieve the desirable outcome. It is much better to have a clear head when trying to find answers to difficult questions. We very often, however, cannot achieve this in our day-to-day life, but rather need a change in perspective such as a quiet place in nature or a skiing weekend in the Suisse Alpes. Many of us see this as “clearing our heads”. What this really means though is to take ourselves our of our daily lives, where we are often stressed and anxious, into a new surrounding where we don’t experience constraints or barriers for our thoughts. For many this literally are open spaces in nature or mountains, where we can just be faced with beautiful views and taken out of our hectic lives at home.
Changing perspective however does not mean to run from your problems. They will follow you anywhere. You cannot avoid making difficult decisions or finding solutions to core problems. You can only change the place where you will find answers to them. The answers, you still must find within you. The hard work therefore is yours to do and cannot be avoided simply by changing locations. Unfortunately, there are many people that misunderstand a change in location for finding a new perspective, with running away form hard decisions and problems all together.
Once we understood that we cannot run away, open spaces and new locations can help us focus just on the question at hand or the decisions to make, without any external disturbing influences or noise that can hinder us from having a clear mind for decision making. This is when we are strongest and closest to finding an answer to complex situations we might face. For example, you might face the decision to stay in your current company or apply for a new job or take an opportunity that already presented itself. When you then go on a hike to the mountains on the weekend, just experiencing the quiet of nature and the beautiful open space views, you will be able to truly reflect on the pros and cons of both options, take your time to think them through and come to a rational as well as potentially emotional driven conclusions. Putting yourself into a relaxing environment, leaving your day-to-day stress behind allowed you to get there. You did not avoid making the decisions, you just took the change in perspective as a chance to take your time to reflect and find an answer. You also don’t have to spend all your time on that hike to think about your issue, rather than agree fixed times with yourself and your mind when to focus on this and conclude. You will see, thinking about it more does not always make the outcome better.
It is important to remember, changing perspective can help find answers, the answers need to be found by you and only you. We all face difficult decisions in our life and feel stuck, what is important is to have the option of changing perspective on our radar if it all feels overwhelming, just take yourself out of the situation for a while. It will open new horizons of thoughts and ways to deal with problems you did not have the capacity to explore before. When you are stuck – take a timeout therefore and change perspective - it will do you good.
