Below is an extract from the book Become Part of the Solution, explaining the importance of the 3 Ps. There is a delicate balance between perception, personality and performance and the more we understand this intimate relationship, the more we can positively influence it. Small changes in perception have huge consequences for our attitudes, the way we feel and the way we act. Read on to find out more about this fascinating trilogy…
The three ‘P’s have become synonymous with our approach. In chapter 2, when explaining the four environments, I referred to how dehydration affects perception, followed by personality and performance. These three ‘P’s are critical to understanding our relationship with time, space and events. We are always being affected by time and what’s taking place within the spaces that we occupy.
Added to this, the wider social context in which we live also influences our reality. Therefore, it’s not only dehydration that affects perception, personality, and performance. In fact, all stress, whatever form it takes, biological, emotional, psychological, financial, environmental, and spiritual, impacts on perception, personality and performance.
Perception is nearly always the first one to be distorted. If you have a terrible headache or migraine, how you perceive things significantly changes. It’s very hard to be positive and optimistic when you feel your head is being crushed in a vice. Consequently, your mood dips and the way you interact with your environment changes. You’re no longer able to give your best.
Equally, if you’re challenged financially and can’t see how you’re going to meet the bills come the end of the month, the stress skews your view of your situation and circumstances and your personality is easily wrestled into submission. You struggle to be the best you can be because you’re more depressed and down on yourself as you feel the fatigue of never quite having enough to make life comfortable.
Anxiety and panic provide a good illustration of the dynamic between these three ‘P’s. When someone is in the grip of a panic attack, hyperventilating, their heart racing, and their bowels need emptying, they are trapped in the belief that the end is nigh, and that they will never be free of the crippling fear that they are feeling in that moment. Panic steals their clarity (perception) and even common sense evades them. Personality and performance are both equally crushed.
You will almost certainly have experienced the relationships between these three ‘P’s during the last week, without actually understanding you were under their spell. Such is their all-pervasive nature.
Although it’s nearly always perception that is the first thing to be affected, personality and performance can at times be the first to show signs of fragility, causing the other two to stumble and fall.
The doom and gloom merchant who finds fault in everything and where they can’t find it, they create it, is someone whose personality is always going to be leaning in the direction of low mood. The way that they see everything is condemned by this perspective. Even if they were trying their very best, they’d simply be unable to achieve the results they are capable of. Here we see personality responsible for the decline.
Performance can be equally undermining. You may have experienced carrying out a task, feeling confident at the outset – then something unexpected derails your performance and your perception of yourself and what you’re doing rapidly changes – and with that, your personality is deflated in the process.
It’s important to state that although stress, fear and anxiety can send these three ‘P’s plummeting, it’s equally true to say that by learning to recalibrate your consciousness you can maintain your perception in the face of adversity, which means you’re able to maintain your attitudes and moods, so your personality doesn’t impact negatively on your performance.
In fact, the more you practise introspection and the many things covered in this book, the more you will find that your perception is something that you can steer in the direction you wish to go. Once your perception is strong and true, your personality can remain stable in the face of turbulent winds that would otherwise steer you off course.
There’s no such thing as total immunity. We can all be affected in some way by life’s challenges, but what we can achieve is the clarity and the strength required to become victors rather than victims.
The next time you’re challenged by a situation at work, by a physical ailment, by a difficult relationship or circumstances you would rather not face, remember that your perception will shape your personality (how you feel and your way of being) and this will in turn affect how you respond and what energy you can bring to that situation. In other words, it will show up in your performance.
By creating a culture of self-care and self-nurture, your self-respect will grow, your love for yourself will deepen and your ability to stand firm in the storm will be assured. It’s time to become captain of your ship.
It should be said for balance that the three ‘P’s also work in the opposite direction. I have explored the negative aspect because the more we understand the mechanics of this, the easier it is to turn it around and make the three ‘P’s work for us rather than against us.