Paradigms – what are they?
Is it a buzzword for the information age? It very well may be a buzzword – but it’s one to be seriously considered. If you’re like most people, paradigms very likely are controlling every move you make. So, what are paradigms and why should we be concerned about how they affect our everyday lives? Well, paradigms are a multitude of habits. In most cases, these habits aren’t even originated by yourself, yet they guide every move you make. Paradigms affect the way you eat, the way you walk, even the way you talk. They govern your communication, your work habits, your successes and even your failures in life. It’s also important to know, that, for the most part, these paradigms are other people’s habits – yet they remain the guiding lights in your life.
In order to replace an old paradigm that doesn’t serve you (i.e., “I’ve never been able to make more than $40,000 a year), you must lay a new paradigm over that old one, ensuring that it’s sealed from “leaking through again. When you understand how to lay this floor, so to speak, you will expose yourself to a brand new world of power, possibility and promise.
Paradigms change you to the core
Organizational culture is founded on habits, work practices, attitudes, beliefs and expectations otherwise known as paradigms. Armed with paradigms, we approach and react to the world around us, interpreting what we see and experience according to our shared understandings and those culturally determined guidelines. A paradigm, in a sense, tells you that there is a game, what the game is, and how to play it successfully. A paradigm shift then, is a change to a new game, or a new set of rules. And when the rules change, your whole world can change.
Ideally, any changes to an organization should be implemented simultaneously with a change in attitude of the members. In other words, the people’s paradigms should be shifted at the same time the organization begins its transformation. It’s unfortunate that most of the organizations in the world are not preparing their people to make the personal paradigm shifts that are necessary. There are numerous individuals who lack the understanding required to adapt to the changes that are being forced upon them.
Think of how the world has changed. There are hundreds of thousands of people walking the street today who went to school, worked hard, studied long hours, graduated at the top of their class, secured employment with a major blue-chip company and bought into the promise that just about every major corporation offered: “If you give us loyalty, we will give you security.”
Twenty years later, as these loyal and misguided individuals stood proudly near the top of their corporate ladder, shouldering responsibility for big mortgages and small children, the corporate paradigm shifted. The ladder was yanked out from underneath them and they found themselves standing on the street, bruised, demoralized, unemployed and in a state of total shock.
Now, I know most people would say, “The problem is the corporation’s lack of loyalty” … but this is not the case. A job doesn’t owe you anything. People work at a job or for an employer in a mutual sort of relationship, but that doesn’t mean that one or the other party is utterly responsible for the other party’s livelihood. Ninety-some percent of the population keeps getting the same results—year in, year out!
This is as true for students in school as it is for the person in business. If there is an improvement in the performance of most people, it’s generally minimal—just a blip on the screen and not enough to make any substantial difference in a person’s life-style.
Is there a problem? An enormous problem! It’s called paradigms.
Paradigms can be likened to a program that has been installed in your brain. But you can change that software! The same infinite power flows to and through each one of us, and if we had been taught to develop our higher faculties in the first place, we would understand how and why all things are possible.
You are going to be delighted to learn that just changing a very small part of the old paradigm can make an enormous difference in the results you can enjoy in every area of your life.
Think of the areas in your life that money affects. Imagine shifting your paradigm there to substantially increase your income before year’s end. If you have difficulty meeting people and you alter the paradigm so that it’s easy and enjoyable to meet people, this could have quite an impact on your life.
These are just two examples of hundreds that could be done in YOUR life. Today!
There will be no permanent change in your life until the paradigm has been changed. Choose one or two limiting ideas that are part of your paradigm and replace them with ideas that represent freedom to you. Consciously keep those new thoughts in your head, and act as if those thoughts are already embedded in the foundation of your life. Before you know it – you life will begin to change – and dramatically!
