…To produce dramatic and permanent results, you have to change the way you think. Unless there is a paradigm shift, any change or improvement will be minimal and/or short-term.

My friend and mentor (even though I’ve been lax lately) Melissa Miller-Harris sent an email the other day outlining a critical step in what she terms The Science Of Success. I think it’s an important point that many of us miss when we’re trying to effect lasting change in our lives.

Let’s examine the word ‘paradigm’ first:

American Heritage Dictionary - par·a·digm (pr-dm, -dm) Pronunciation Key
n.

1. One that serves as a pattern or model.
2. A set or list of all the inflectional forms of a word or of one of its grammatical categories: the paradigm of an irregular verb.
3. A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline.

For our purposes, a paradigm is the set of rules you have that guides your life.

Your Paradigm

Whether you’ve consciously adopted them or not, you have a set of rules, or a paradigm, that you live your life by. Not external rules, but the ones you’ve established for yourself. Your rules (which are based upon your beliefs and values) are what your mind uses when it evaluates a situation. Your mind is spending its day answering the question, “What does this mean?”, which it asks itself in response to any stimuli it receives or thoughts that you offer.

When you embark on a path of self-improvement, much of your effort will be in overcoming or changing the rules that have shaped your responses. The good news is that they can be changed, with a little bit of effort and perseverence.

What often happens, though, is that even when we succeed in changing one or more of our internal rules, after a period of time the change disappears. Why? Because the rules that you’ve changed are in conflict with other, more established rules that you haven’t changed yet—rules that you may not even be aware of. What you’ve changed is in conflict with your overall paradigm.

The Recipe For Lasting, Major Change Calls For A Paradigm Shift

From the Wikipedia:

Paradigm shift is the term first used by Thomas Kuhn in his 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions to describe a change in basic assumptions within the ruling theory of science. It has since become widely applied to many other realms of human experience as well…

…The term “paradigm shift” has found uses in other contexts, representing the notion of a major change in a certain thought-pattern — a radical change in personal beliefs, complex systems or organizations, replacing the former way of thinking or organizing with a radically different way of thinking or organizing…

What we are looking for, then, is a “major change in a certain thought-pattern — a radical change in personal beliefs”. When you make such a major change in your ruleset, you’ve performed a paradigm shift.

How To Make A Paradigm Shift

Making a major change in your beliefs and values system is not a particularly easy thing to do, in that it takes some effort. The change can literally come in an instant; your mind is that powerful. But the changes also need to be conditioned so that they stay.

The steps:

• identify the value or belief that you must change.
• associate massive amounts of pain to the old beliefs
• identify a new, empowering belief
• associate massive amounts of pleasure to your new beliefs
• condition the change

I encourage you to pick up a copy of Tony Robbins’ book, Awaken the Giant Within : How to Take Immediate Control of Your Mental, Emotional, Physical and Financial Destiny!, or his audio program, Tony Robbins’ Get the Edge,to learn the essential distinctions and skills you’ll need to develop to implement the above steps.