Are you aware of your ability to change how you perceive your life?

Sometimes we take for granted that there is only one way to interpret what happens to us.

There is a lot of talk about how, in order to achieve a better quality of life, it is important to change habits and adopt others that are more in line with what you want to achieve.

It is also often said that, in order to achieve this, it is necessary to be realistic and give up all those kinds of activities for which we do not have a certain talent in order not to get frustrated again and again, so that we stick only to what fits our innate aptitudes and predispositions.

This kind of beliefs, although they are partly right, are incomplete and do not serve to understand the globality of the process of personal development. They leave out of the equation a fundamental variable: the possibility of being aware of the limitations of the perspective that we have adopted and of adjust our perception of reality to help us find our potential..

Consciousness is not the default option

Sometimes the unconscious part of the human psyche is spoken of as if it were a limitation, a defect of the human mind that we have no choice but to carry on our backs, trying to make it as unproblematic as possible. In other words, we start from the idea that the ideal human being is capable of being aware of as many things as possible. But this does not make any sense.

The normal thing in any living being with a nervous system is that it is not aware of the things that happen in its body or around it. We only have to take a look at nature to realize that there are thousands of animal species that can hardly be said to be conscious.In any case, they react to chemical signals and to certain stimuli related to gravity, the position or magnetic fields of the planet Earth, and little else. And even with very few exceptions, mammals do not usually have the capacity to be aware of their "I", of their own individuality: for example, very few recognize themselves in a mirror.

This is because full consciousness, the fact of knowing that we are thinking beings located in a given space and at a given time, is a relatively recent capacity in the tree of evolution of species. It is normal to exist without being able to assume the idea of "I", because the most important thing is to have the ability to be able to think in a certain space and at a certain time.because the most important thing is to have other kinds of abilities more oriented to short-term survival.

But human beings have developed a degree of psychological complexity that allows us to access a very complete state of consciousness, and what is known as metacognition: we can think about our ability to think, and the fact that we think some things and not others given a set of circumstances. For example, we find it natural to turn off the television when we go to work, anticipating the fact that it may distract us.

This does not mean that most things remain outside our awareness (we do not have infinite and immediate knowledge about everything that exists and happens in the Universe), but it is normal for this to be so: our ability to be conscious is limited because it only exists as a resource to help us learn about our environment and ourselves.. But although it is not an unlimited consciousness, it is very flexible, and we can learn to reorganize and reorient it in practically any circumstance. We can also rethink what we thought we knew and learn from our mistakes.

• You may be interested in "Cognitive schemas: how is our thinking organized?"

The value of stopping to think

At the beginning of this article I pointed out that to improve in some aspect of our lives, not everything happens simply by embracing new habits. If by applying new habits to our day-to-day lives we mean interacting with the environment and with others in a different way (e.g., going for a run, making friends in a different way, etc.), these kinds of actions may be all very well, but by themselves do not necessarily bring us something positive.. As necessary as it is to internalize new routines to relate to the outside world and those who populate it, it is necessary to internalize new routines to manage and interpret our thoughts and emotions.

If you only consider reproducing new patterns of behavior such as going to the gym or learning to cook, you will still be missing part of the journey: ask yourself, for example, why you have come up with these goals and not others. Or stop to consider how you have analyzed your problems and needs to assume that these actions will make you happier or connect with what really motivates you.

Reframing your limitations

I also pointed out at the beginning that not everything happens by assuming that you have a series of defects and imperfections that will delimit what will make you happy.. While this idea is true in the abstract (for example, it makes no sense to consider that you can only be a full person if you learn to fly like a bird), in practice it is often a potential sinkhole.

Although imperfections and defects are there, we tend to assume a very specific way of identifying and interpreting them: it is usually through the social pressure that comes to us through the world of fashion, the impossible canons of beauty, the exaltation of extreme youth, the conventionally popular, and so on.

It is, in the end, a very rigid way of assuming what our limits are.A framework of interpretation that in no case belongs to us or fits what we are interested in, but has been culturally imposed on us. That is why many people who believe they are rethinking their goals and objectives are actually doing the opposite of an exercise of mental flexibility and creativity to define what can make them happy: they limit themselves to reproducing expectations and roles transmitted through television commercials, blockbuster movies, the mirage of influencers' lives, etc. Despite being arbitrary, these are limits that many people internalize as if they had only occurred to them.

The key is flexibility in interpreting your life

In short, in order to set new goals and give up others, it is necessary not only to adopt new routines, but also to learn to reinterpret what we took for granted about ourselves and the world around us.. What once seemed like an obstacle that we could never overcome can become something we can use to our advantage, and what once seemed like a key to happiness, when examined closely, can turn out to be a moral alibi that we use as an excuse not to do what really fulfills us.