How To See The World Through Fresh Eyes

Earlier this week, I underwent surgery that shifted my world.

You see, I’ve spent the last two decades looking at the world through a pair of glasses.

This surgery shifted that to ensure I no longer need a pair of glasses to see clearly.

I feel like a newborn baby who is learning to see the world with fresh eyes.

Everything looks the same, yet I feel different.

There is a new sense of wonder. And sights I earlier took for granted like the flowers in my backyard or how green the leaves around me are, I’m zooming in on them again.

I still reach out to wear my glasses, the first thing I wake up. It takes me a few minutes to realize I don’t need it anymore.

When you change something that you’re used to doing for such a long time, it takes time to really adjust.

You have to create new habits, new routines, and new ways of being.

But there is beauty in this process.

Because it serves you the perfect opportunity to unlearn and relearn. To rewire your brain to do things differently. To rethink and update your views.

How you SEE the world, affects the ACTIONS you take and the RESULTS you generate.

This surgery is helping me wear a new pair of glasses (or in this case no glasses) to see my world differently.

I believe that we could all use a similar opportunity to see our world differently from time to time. To infuse it with wonder, freshness, and new perspectives.

Coach Yourself | Here are a few simple tools to see your world with fresh eyes (without undergoing surgery ;)

1. Conversations - Speak to someone who is experiencing a different world from yours. For Eg: If you are an engineer, speak to an artist and be curious about how they see their profession, their routines, and habits.

2. New Experiences - Do things that you don't do every day and see how it makes you feel. Travel to a new place, experience a new cafe in your neighborhood, take a walk in nature, engage yourself in a new hobby, etc.?

3. Disconnect to Reconnect - Take a break from your everyday work and routines and give yourself permission to disconnect. In the week after my eye surgery, I was advised to not look at any screens. I am spending a lot of time writing, reading a physical book, and playing with my dogs. Funnily this disconnection is helping me reconnect even better with myself.

5. Find A Coach - A coach can help you find a new perspective on a problem you are facing or a goal you’re looking to achieve. This helps you choose a new way of doing and being that opens up completely new possibilities for you.

It’s time to turn the lens on yourself:

1. Which aspect of your life do you need to rethink or find a new perspective in?

2. What can you do to look at it with fresh eyes? (you can refer to the ideas I shared above for inspiration)

3. What’s another way of looking at this same goal or challenge so that it works for you?

Drop your thoughts in the comments below.

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By imagining an experience through somebody else’s eyes, people are able to capture an appreciation that they had either lost or never possessed in the first place.

- Clayton R Critcher, Berkeley Research