Our environment shapes our fundamental beliefs. These beliefs are branded deeply into our culture. Our families, friends, and self-confirming newsfeeds and other echo chambers reinforce the prevailing thinking until we believe it to be true.
If you want to provoke profound changes in your life, you need to reevaluate your paradigms.
What is Paradigm Shift?
Paradigm shift is a change from one way of thinking to another, and can apply to anything on earth – your job, your education, your relationships, your home, your surroundings, and more importantly, your health. The signs are all around us. And what is with you, around you, within you is the same most of the time. What, however, changes is your attitude to all these. Your positive or negative, and good or bad, attitudes define the way things appear to you.
In a personal sense, a paradigm shift defines a fundamental change in how you see the world.
Changing a personal paradigm opens up a range of new lifelines for your personal and professional growth, presenting you with more opportunities than before.
Paradigm Shift : Discovery and Wellbeing
In 1962, Thomas Kuhn wrote The Structure of Scientific Revolution, and fathered, defined and popularized the concept of "paradigm shift."Kuhn states that "awareness is prerequisite to all acceptable changes of theory." It all begins in the mind of the person. Mind is central to your health. Disturbed mind gives rise to a disturbed body, and when the body is disturbed, it disturbs the mind further.
With “discovery” of this sort comes the understanding that human body is not just a machine full of different organs that would need occasional fixing if anything goes wrong, but is a noble entity that works on the delicately intricate network of emotions, thoughts, reflexes, needs, aspirations, and sensations. It is these subtle, somatic entities that help you live and understand life better, rather than various immovable organs that stay put and execute what they are supposed to do every day, every hour, every minute, and every second. Put differently, it is your mind and its paradigms and not the body that help you attain perfect wellbeing.
The following paradigm shifts will help you reevaluate your ways of thinking and open up a new outlook on life.
Accepting Ignorance
Too many think they know it all, but in reality, they only know a tiny bit of our discipline, which represents one out of thousands of topics. But the Truth is: We don’t know what we don’t know.
The world has become incredibly complex and demanding. Accepting our ignorance, and changing our paradigm from “I know” to “I know, that I don’t know,” like Sokrates famously said, opens up any closed mind.
We all have different points of view and biases as a result of our previous life experiences. Realizing and honoring ignorance creates a new level of thinking that can bridge these differences. This new lifeline paves a way to wisdom. It will get you closer to the truth. I would go so far in saying the resulting understanding is the key to world peace.
Giving Economy
he second paradigm we are about to break is our fundamental belief that we need to get more and make more to be happy.
We ask: “How much more can I get when I invest x amount of money?” or “Who is in that meeting? Is it worth it for me to go?”. What if we instead thought: how much value can I give to my business partner, to society, and the environment? How can I help that person, improve that meeting, support that movement?
The base for this paradigm shift is the law of reciprocity: the social norm that we respond to nice gesture with another act of kindness. Frequently, people react much more helpful and much more cooperative compared to the original action. The whole is bigger than the sum of its parts.
Happiness doesn’t result from what we get, but from what we give - Ben Carson -
Welcoming this paradigm shift will have positive ripple effects on your relationships, well-being, and overall life satisfaction.
Less but Better
Billboards and emotional messages tell you what you need and thereby tie you up with their golden handcuffs. In contrast, the paradigm shift from “I need it” towards “I don’t need it” will give you true freedom.
With less time spent on buying and taking care of your possessions, you have more time, which you can allocate to more meaningful activities, such as meeting friends, reading, writing,...
Did you know that the science of positive psychology found that only 10% of your happiness depends on your circumstances, including the stuff we own? 50% of our happiness is dependent on genetics, and the other 40% comes from our intentional behavior.
The “I-don’t-need-it” paradigm helps you focus on the intentional part. It switches your attention to what is vital for your happiness. It lets you experience more freedom — to be your real self and not the person you pretended to be with your stuff.
Believing in Yourself
Lastly, the paradigm shifts about believing in yourself. To go from “Who am I to do it?” towards "Who am I not to do it?".
This mind shift beats imposter syndrome like a boxer, a punishing bag. It will have you take action towards creating and working for the things you believe.
This new paradigm will help you solve a problem you care about and help other people.
We all have so much inside us to give and share, but the paradigm that others can do it better keeps us from tapping into it.
What is something that you always put off with the belief that others can do it better?
So what?
If you kept an open mind, you might have identified that evaluating your paradigms can be an effective way to upgrade your life experience, meaning, and happiness significantly.
When you want small changes in your life, simply change your attitude.
If you want profound changes, stay curious and seek wisdom, prioritize giving, live minimalistic and humbly, and take action towards something you believe in.
Comments