Are you not where you want to be in Life? Are some things not going the way you wanted them to? Instead of energy depleting thoughts such as, “I hate it here,” what if you perceived things differently? What if you perceived things as though you were an outsider looking in? What if you said, “Okay, for some reason I’m supposed to be here? And since I’m supposed to be here, what can I experience or learn from it?”

What if everything in life was a gift for you to open and discover what’s inside? What if every challenge was an opportunity for growth? What if every obstacle set you on a path to the greatest version of you? What if every uncomfortable encounter strengthened you to achieve more than you ever imagined? This is how life is structured. This is heaven on earth. This is the existence we’re all meant to experience.

If you’re doing something you don’t want to do or are at a place in life where you don’t want to be, your beliefs are responsible for the discomfort. Your beliefs are the driving mechanism behind how you experience every aspect in life.

When confronted with difficult situations, our natural instinct is to run and in some cases we should. After all, who wants to wait around for the skunk to spray you – run like the wind. Fortunately, life is not a skunk and we can’t always be the wind – Lord knows I’ve tried.

Oftentimes, people use obstacles as a means to end their pursuit. They don’t move past the obstacles. They read them as signs saying, “You can’t do this! You’re not good enough, smart enough, or fit enough.”

What if instead we read the signs as saying, “Going through this process will strengthen you to become the “you” you’ve always wanted to be.”

By no means put yourself in life-threatening situations. Just realize that there can be a gift in any obstacle. And, it could be telling you some incredible, life empowering things. Only you know what it’s telling you – listen to it. Only you can change your lens of perception to facilitate becoming the person you know you can be.

How would your life change if you changed your lens of perception?