Your oh-so-many filters and why they’re important

In my last blog, I touched briefly on how what’s happening on your inside can influence your perception of your outside world.  I was speaking about how working through your emotions around an issue can provide you with clarity – a whole new way of looking at your situation.  Your emotions are just one filter that influence how you see your world. 

These filters are a very cool thing to know about.  We all have them, and they’re formed by our life experiences from the moment we come into this world, and some may say even before that.  Once you become aware of your filters, you can choose to change them – and therefore how you experience your world.  What happens on the inside has a huge effect on what happens on the outside!

So what are these filters?  Well, they’re a bit like a filter you might put on a camera – add a filter and the image you see looks different.  As you keep layering filters over the top your image will change again and again.  In your mind, these filters take the form of things like your beliefs, your memories, your attitude, and your focus, for example. 

When you take a life situation, such as going for a job interview, your approach to that interview will depend on so many factors:

• Your beliefs:
  • What you believe about interviews
  • What you believe about your own ability interviews
  • What you believe about your ability to do the job
• Your memories:
  • Your memories of past interviews
  • Your memories of the building you’re going into
  • Your memories about the clothes you’re wearing to the interview
• Your attitude:
  • Are you open to this interview?
  • Are you expecting yourself to fail?
  • Are you confident?
  • Are you pretending to be confident but actually feel like you’re about to be sick?
• Your focus:
  • Are you focusing on your nerves?
  • Are you focusing on your resume?
  • Are you focusing on your clothes and hair?

There are many ways to slice up this one example – but you can see what I mean.  Filters don’t operate by themselves either.  Your belief about interviews is likely influenced by your memories of past interviews, which influences your attitude and where you’re focusing as you walk into the building.  All of these things are going to have an effect on your posture, your language – to yourself and others, and most likely your performance.

You may be thinking, well that’s all very nice but that’s just the way I feel and there’s nothing I can do about it.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  What happened previously may not happen now.  Today you are in a different place in your life than your last memory.  You can choose what happens next: to hold on to that memory so you can relive it at your next interview or not.  To continue your beliefs about interviews, or not.  To retain your current attitude towards interviews, or not.  You can see where I’m going here.  If something’s working for you, keep it.  But if it’s not…wouldn’t you like to have a different experience? 

Changing your filters starts with becoming aware of what’s happening on the inside.  Start to observe yourself and your response to life.  When something great happens: run through what was happening on the inside – what were your beliefs, memories of similar events, attitudes, and focus?  How did these contribute to your response to the situation?  If something crappy happens, do the same thing – check in on your beliefs, memories of similar events, attitudes, and focus?  How did these contribute to your response to the situation? 

You can’t change what happens, but you can change how you respond to it and that can make all the difference to your experience and what happens next.

Have a think about it.  Try it on.  See how you go.
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Have a great week,
Gillian