Expand Your Vision with Fresh Thinking

Woman riding a bike on the beachI’m sure you’ve seen highly magnified photographs of everyday objects and had no idea what they were until you were told.

This is just what happened to me when I noticed some interesting spiky fruits growing on the trunk of a palm tree. I didn’t know what they were until I saw a more mature tree with similar fruits, and suddenly realised they were baby coconuts!

Suddenly, something quite ‘ordinary becomes magical, as details, colours and shapes previously unseen by you come vividly into view.

And when you seen them you can begin to realise how looking at something from a new perspective can be truly transformational.

While you can’t take an electron microscope to everything in your daily live, at least you can be open to look at things in different ways so that your old ways of thinking don’t keep you stuck in a rut.

Now is actually a great time to put your life under the microscope and to start to see things from another angle. Why’s that?

Because the holiday season is upon you. And that means you have the opportunity to ‘escape’ from the world you know and to explore a totally different one.

Suddenly, you’re in a new culture, surrounded by different people, who do things a different way. You can’t take anything for granted. And that can be tremendously stimulating, if you let it be. Here’s how to maximise your vacation time, while expanding your thinking.

Search for new destinations.

Go to new places with open eyes, and stretch your mind by observing how other people live. You may not always agree with or even understand what they are doing, however this will give you insights into your own culture and expand your sense of the world.

Have fun with creative communication.

If you can’t speak the local language, find new ways to communicate – draw, gesticulate, use your hands – anything that will help you connect. If there is a will, there is a way. So wake up your creative self and have some fun.

Awaken your senses.

Take the time to really experience what is around you. Allow your senses to be awakened by sounds that you are unfamiliar with, like the calls of birds you don’t recognise, or the leaves dancing with the wind. Let these sights, sounds and smells of a new place bombard your senses forcing you to be present and to look at things differently.

Discover the excitement of the new.

Do things you don’t do at home. Get yourself out of your comfort zone. Holidays are times when you can stretch your wings so what about doing one of those sport activities you have thought about, or taking a workshop in Batik, Thai cooking, wood carving, kite making or something that you feel curious about?

Take your learning to your everyday.

And if you discover something you like, why not pursue it when you get home? One of the great joys of going anywhere new is knowing that your time away has helped you grow as a person. After all, you can learn so much more when you are open to different cultures and alternative ways of thinking and doing. And when you return home, relive the memories, using them as triggers to bring a fresh perspective to what you do and so create new habits in your everyday life.

So this year take the conscious decision that your holiday is going to be far more than just an opportunity ’to get away from it all’. Make it a truly life-enhancing experience instead by really engaging with a world that you’ve not known before, but has always been there, just waiting for you to discover it.

Author Bio

Maite Barón is a multi-award winning author passionate about courageous leadership, happiness and wellbeing. She is a co-founder of The Corporate Escape, which specialises in helping professionals rekindle their passion for life and reinvent themselves as business owners. She’s an international speaker and a regular contributor to the influential Huffington Post, Global Banking and Finance Review (GBFR) and Entrepreneur.

Visa - WeAreTheCity - Pioneer 20 - nominations open
WeAreTech Festival 2024 advert

Upcoming Events

march, 2024

Job Board Banner

Related Posts