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Strength of the Week – Perspective

As we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.it 2 Corinthians 4-18

If perspective is one of your strongest character strengths, chances are you may not think of yourself as wise, but your friends may see you that way. They may value your point of view on different issues and turn to you for advice, often.

Perspective recognizes and considers many sides of an issue before decisions are made. People with this strength can see the bigger picture and can make sense of the world in a broader context. They can see the gist of difficult matters; seeing the “woods and the trees”. It allows people to address questions about the meaning of life, and allows us to work well in teams, communities and societies – knowing, valuing and caring for each other. People with this strength help their group to navigate challenging circumstances, as they are rational and perceptive in identifying opportunities.

Research from Values in Action indicates perspective is associated with the ability to learn from mistakes, and balance the short and long term consequences of actions. It is particularly linked to wellbeing in older adults, more so than other factors such as physical health and socioeconomic status. It’s helpful in identifying and counteracting negative thoughts and beliefs and so it helps us to keep emotions in check, counteract anxiety and depression and promote resilience. Perspective helps us to broaden our view of situations and counteract our negativity bias. And that is so very important to our wellbeing.

On a professional level, Linked In asserts that There are many work-related benefits to leveraging perspective. These include:

  • Increasing the ability to regulate our emotions and practicing more empathy
  • Expanding our open-mindedness to respect differences
  • Improving our analysis of people’s personalities so we can better relate to them and employing different parts of our own personalities to foster more positive and effective relationships[1]

Here are some questions we can ask to help invoke perspective:

  • What is the best thing that could happen here? What’s the worst? What’s the most likely?
  • What are the other people here thinking and feeling? What might be going on that I don’t see? How might their background/context impact this? What does this person/situation need?
  • Am I making some kind of unhelpful assumption or thought error such as catastrophising/ black and white thinking/ jumping to conclusions? Is there another view?
  • Will this matter tomorrow/next week/ month/year?
  • What is really needed here? What is the most helpful response? How does this connect to my values?
  • What is the conflict e.g. relationship vs justice/control? (Is it more important to be kind or to be right?)
  • Is this one of my blind spots? Am I over-emotional?
  • Does this issue need addressing urgently, would it be better to reflect?
  • When have I dealt with a situation like this before? What helped?
  • What would I/you say to a friend in this situation?
  • What would the wisest person I know say about this?
  • What strengths or strategies can be brought to bear here?
  • What supports or resources can be used to help here?

Wishing you a happy and healthy weekend ahead, with abundant opportunities to view life from many perspectives. 

Tonia Carfora, Year 7-9 Wellbeing Initiatives Leader

[1]Pollit, I (2018) Perspective: Use The Force of This Strength to Increase Your Success. Viewed at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/perspective-use-force-strength-increase-your-success-polit-di-paola 31 August 2021