Shake Up Your Life: How to Change Your Own Perspective

Most breakthroughs in life don’t come from changing our circumstances, but from changing how we see them. Perspective is everything, it colors our thoughts, fuels our emotions, and shapes the way we respond to the world. But when routines numb us, relationships stagnate, or careers plateau, it’s a sign: your lens needs a shake-up.

Here’s how to change your perspective, not just for the sake of it, but to find clarity, courage, and a fresh sense of purpose.

Step Outside Your Story

We are all unreliable narrators of our own lives. Our brains filter reality to match our beliefs. So when you feel stuck, ask: What story am I telling myself, and what am I leaving out?

Are you the victim, the rescuer, the perfectionist? Flip the narrative. Instead of “I failed,” try “I experimented.” Instead of “I’m behind,” ask “Compared to whom, and why does that matter?” Reframing your story is not denial, it’s direction.

Try journaling your current situation in third person. Imagine you're the protagonist in a film. What would an outsider notice that you're blind to?

Change Your Physical Lens

Literally change where you are. Get on a train, walk a different path, visit a museum alone, or work from a new café. Novelty rewires the brain. It shakes us out of autopilot.

This is why retreats work. This is why heartbreak feels different under a new sky. The unfamiliar invites curiosity, something routine environments suppress.

Set a 24-hour challenge for yourself. Go somewhere new (even if it's just the next neighborhood), try a cuisine you've never tasted, or attend an event where you know no one.

Talk to Someone Radically Different

Conversations are windows. Talk to someone whose life experience is nothing like yours, someone older, from another country, another profession, or a completely different worldview. Listen to learn, not to confirm.

Their worldview doesn’t have to be yours. But exposure to it can stretch yours in ways that theory never can.

Reach out to someone from your alumni network, or volunteer in a setting outside your usual social circle. Ask questions that start with “What surprised you the most when…”

Pause to Zoom Out

We live reacting to moments. A rude email, a bad meeting, a missed opportunity. But these micro-moments don’t define your life unless you zoom in too close.

When overwhelmed, ask: Will this matter in five years? Often, the answer is no. And if yes, then act with intention, not reaction.

Do the “5x5x5” exercise: Write down 5 things that bothered you this week. Now next to each, write: “Will this matter in 5 days? 5 months? 5 years?”

Create Before You Consume

Social media floods you with other people’s lives. Algorithms manipulate what you value. But nothing reclaims your sense of agency like creating something, from a doodle to a startup idea.

Creating breaks the passive loop. It makes you the source, not the subject, of meaning.

Start your day by quickly jotting 5 new ideas each morning on your WhatsApp notes. Don’t aim for brilliance. Aim for consistency. Bonus Content: What is my WhatsApp Notes? Simple and easy because let’s be real, we all use WhatsApp more than we use our own bodies these days. Just create a group, add one friend, remove them immediately, and voila! You now have a private WhatsApp space to jot thoughts, voice note your ideas, and save links on the go.

It's my pocket therapist, brain dump, and idea board - all in one.

Reflect, Don’t Just React

In a hyper-connected world, silence is rebellion. But in that silence, reflection happens. It’s where we find the roots of our beliefs, the core of our fears, and the seeds of courage.

Chose that one day every week, keep it consistent and ask yourself three questions:

What did I learn this week?

What made me feel alive?

What do I want to do differently next week?

Redefine Strength Through Unlearning

For many of us, especially those brought up in dysfunctional families or rigid societies, changing our perspective is not a motivational slogan - it’s survival. It’s work. It’s years of peeling back layers that were never ours to begin with.

I grew up in a world where roles were enforced, not chosen. Where silence was encouraged over expression, where gender, success, and self-worth were defined by someone else’s playbook. And it took over four years of consistent therapy to even begin understanding the unconscious biases and societal norms embedded in my mind.

Unlearning is a slow revolution. It's crying through conversations with your therapist. It's forgiving those who shaped you too early. It’s holding a mirror to yourself without flinching. And every step of that healing has changed how I see people, pain, power, and possibility.

If you’ve never done therapy, consider giving it a shot. If you have, revisit your earliest belief systems. What did you absorb as “truth” that now feels like a cage?

Perspective is a Daily Choice

Changing your perspective isn’t a one-time transformation. It’s daily practice. It’s choosing to stay curious when you want to judge. It’s choosing empathy when you want to react. It’s choosing to write your own script when everyone else hands you one.

As Esther Perel says, “The quality of your life depends on the quality of your relationships.” That includes the relationship you have with your own thoughts.

And as Farnam Street reminds us, “The best thinkers constantly revise their understanding, reconsider problems they thought they’d already solved, and re-evaluate conclusions in light of new evidence.”

Perspective doesn’t always need a life crisis to shift. Sometimes, it only needs a gentle nudge. A new habit. A deeper question. A moment of stillness. A willingness to be wrong.

If you're feeling stagnant, uninspired, or overwhelmed, don’t just change what’s around you. Change what’s within you. That’s where the real shake-up begins.

And when it does, the world, quite miraculously, starts to look different too.