Your perception defines how various events in life affect you.

Work a dead end job where you live engrossed in every moment, learning what you can and focused on consistently providing maximum results. This makes 'work'more enjoyable, creates possibilities that would have been impossible to see and has a natural flow on effect into the rest of your life.

It is an interesting experience to mess with the way you perceive life. Working a dead end job and thinking that it is going to take you no where, will do exactly that. During work and outside of it.

Coming home from a days work where you feel like you sold your soul for money is the most demotivating and unproductive way I have ever lived.

Most Important Rule

Regularly observe the self-talk that happens every day.

Perception is largely based around the way you think of things subconsciously in your mind.

The fact that self-talk is usually subconscious makes it an inconvenience for observation. Made even more difficult when you feel very strongly about something. It is easy to swept away in a river of thoughts about a topic without even considering the implications that the thoughts will have.

It is common to know how you want to react to any given situation. Often people spend hours imagining this.

The less common but more valuable approach is to observe how you actually react. Then understand what drove you to react in that way. With regular observation it becomes clear what your actual perception is on any given situation.

It is rare for this understanding to happen in the actual moment. This makes it necessary to reflect upon previous situations on a regular basis.

Perceived Anger

Generally when you hold anger towards someone, the time you spend thinking about it is small compared to the time you spend confronting the issue.

Anger is usually a wasteful emotion. Holding it against someone because they done you wrong actually makes the impact of their offense bigger.

Anger is repetitive and addictive.

When you think of something that angers you, is is typical to think what you've previously thought. Anger causes rational thought to leave and an unconscious pattern to develop.

I theorize that in early stages of evolution it was beneficial to hold anger against someone for there wrongs. Otherwise they will repeat their wrong doings, to your loss. In the modern day concrete jungle, society is far larger and this is no longer necessary. If someone doesn't align with you, you can simply ignore them or leave. There is no longer as much security in holding a grudge. Chances are you'll hardly ever see them again anyway.

Productive Perception

People who want to do things will do them with more ease and often better than those who are told and forced to do them.

Abuse this knowledge by ensuring you want to do your given task. Never fall victim to the thought pattern of 'how much longer must I do this'. This negative pattern will follow you throughout the rest of your day if you let it in.

When using self-talk it makes it more difficult if you tell yourself you must do something. No body likes to be told to do anything, even when you're telling yourself. A question must be asked, 'am I going to do that' or 'how will I get good at it'. Then create a basic plan for the next step required. Keeping steps short and achievable creates a flow of productivity from task to task.

Conclusion

Being aware of how you perceive your own life has a massive effect on how you live your life. Use this knowledge to change your own perception to properly align yourself with your chosen goals.