When you look at the world, yourself or others, do you know what color your glasses are for each person and situation? Are you a perpetual “Rose Colored” person? Or do you have different colors you wear for each situation or person? What color are the glasses that you perceive yourself? How comfortable with these perceptions are you?

There truly are no right or wrong answers to these questions. It’s more about perception, attitudes, beliefs, experiences and self esteem. Along with the width of our blinders we wear as well. We all have them, it’s part of the uniqueness that makes us human and understanding our glasses and blinders can help each of us understand ourselves, the world around us and how to change what we desire to improve.

I’ll admit what irks me personally is the extremes of those with rose colored glasses and those who live with extreme dark glasses. I can more broadly say it is extremes of all kinds. I live both professional and personally in a world of grey glasses which means, being black or white are not concepts or lifestyles I believe in or practice. I do have my own boundaries and lines I won’t cross, but generally see the world and myself as open opportunities and possibilities.

When I work with clients, I often encourage them for both growth purposes and self awareness to explore and find out where they are on this scale. Most important, is when we put on those glasses and look in the mirror, who stares back? Do you see a confident, intelligent person with many gifts and talents or someone else? To take this concept further, ask yourself, why do you see this particular person? However you see yourself, it is important to understand why you have this viewpoint.

Such as, is this self perception based on what others say and have told you in your life or what you truly believe is you. How do you feel about what you see? If you aren’t happy with this version of yourself, how can you change it and move forward? Even further how open and willingly are you to going on the path of self improvement?

These can be difficult questions and thoughts to explore and ask oneself. Often we don’t like the answers we can find, but brave souls can venture where others fear to go. I ask myself these questions when I feel challenges, aren’t happy with a situation I’m facing or just know it’s time for some self evaluation.

These are also useful tools for learning and truly understanding how we self sabotage ourselves when we are working on both growth and maintaining stability in all aspects of one’s life. All of us have moments, times when our lives become upside down or we catch ourselves slipping into old negativity habits, and this self check can help us keep from sliding into a rut.

In the beginning of this post, I asked broad questions about both self perception of yourself, others and the world around you. I purposely narrowed the scope to how you see yourself, since understanding yourself is the key to understanding your world as a whole and yourselves within it. In self exploration, we take apart the pieces of one’s life, starting with ourselves and then using this to help shape and understand all the pieces of our lives.

Making improvements isn’t always easy and at times the process can be difficult, but if we truly want change, it’s worth it.