What is a Paradigm Shift and How Can It Change My Life?
Have you ever felt that you should be living your life differently, but every time you try, you end up back where you started? This has to do with paradigms. When your life is on a path and you try to veer off course and improve your habits, paradigms will act automatically to bring you back to past behaviors. To change the paradigm, all of your thinking must change, which will change how you live your daily life.
A paradigm is a mental program in your subconscious mind that controls almost all of your habitual behavior, and almost ALL of your behavior is habitual.
Paradigm shifts most commonly occur after a crisis. This can happen in an array of scenarios, whether it be technology, world views, or personal life. But you can do it intentionally as well, without the need for a major crisis or hitting “rock bottom”. So how can you change your paradigm? Keep reading to figure it out.
How do paradigm shifts work?
Paradigms will affect how we perceive ourselves and the world around us. Our beliefs and values shape our decisions, behaviors, and interactions with others.
For example, if someone has a negative paradigm about their ability to succeed in life, they will be less likely to take risks or pursue opportunities that could lead to growth and fulfillment. On the other hand, if someone has a growth mindset paradigm, they may be more willing to try new things and persist through challenges, leading to greater success and happiness.
When we start to recognize the paradigms that are controlling us, the shift can begin. There will become a new theory or paradigm that we will believe in. For example, before I quit drinking I only knew myself as “Party Girl Maggie”, and believed that if I changed that, no one would want to be around me. But I changed my path by saying “I am Strong Girl Maggie, I am Happy Girl Maggie,” and my entire paradigm shifted to those new beliefs and behaviors.
How long do paradigm shifts take to change?
Changing anything in life takes time, that is no different with paradigm shifts. People try to resist change and will try to veer back onto their path, but with consistency, there will be a new path to follow.
A change in someone's paradigm will take time and will be dependent on the person making those changes. If a person wants to change their behavior but does not fully believe that they can, they will be stuck in the original behavior. In order to change anything, you need to believe that you can and make the appropriate changes to do so. It is not as easy as just wanting it.
There’s an analogy of a pool that we use at Magnify:
Imagine walking into a natatorium and seeing an olympic size pool. The bright blue water has been polluted, though, and is now a murky brown. It’s obvious that the pool is not clean. But there’s a filtration mechanism on the pool, so in time, little by little, the polluted water will be filtered out, and the clean, swimmable water will replace it. The more you keep adding pollutants, though, the longer it will take (ie, the more you return to a belief that you can’t do it, the more difficult the process becomes).
Your mind is that pool, and it’s got all the potential to be clean and healthy, and in time and with constant spaced repetition of the healthy ideas and beliefs, the bad will be replaced by the good.
The negatives to paradigm shifts
Maybe you thought that paradigm shifting sounded easy, all you have to do is think and be about the things you want to change in your life. Although it may sound like a walk in the park, it is far from it. Shifting the way you think involves challenging existing beliefs, values, and practices that you have most likely lived by for most of your life.
Challenging the way you think can be met with some resistance that may be too attached to the old way of thinking and acting. As you disrupt your status quo, it can be met with chaos and uncertainty until the new systems become the new norm.
These negatives are what you could be met with throughout your life, they are not selective because you want to change your thinking specifically. Think when you buy a pet for example, it changes the way you need to live your life, you now need to think about walks, play time, what to do if you go on vacation, ect.. But that does not stop you from getting said pet, instead you change your schedule around.
The same will happen when you change your thinking and belief systems, it will be challenging, but with time, they will be implemented enough that you won’t need to think about them.
The different types of paradigm shifts
Social
A social paradigm refers to the way that someone was brought up and how they see the world through different topics, including family structure, gender roles, economic models, and cultural practices.
Social paradigms will change over time. Consider how important it was to have a family meal together, but with the advancement of t.v’s and cell phones, it's not as common for families to sit around a table and eat together. As society advances and improves everything it has, we need to also advance ourselves with it.
Structural
Structural paradigms help us understand the importance of structure and keep us organized. Being organized helps us stay on track and it is easier to understand the order of different scenarios.
Cognitive
This paradigm relates closely to us at Magnify, as it is the main paradigm that plays a role in mental processes, such as attention, memory, reasoning, decision-making, and shaping behaviors.
It changes when we change the way we think. It is the main paradigm in shaping behavior, so with a change in this paradigm you will see a change in behavior and learning. This paradigm is seen throughout the psychology field in understanding why people are who they are based on external stimuli and internal thinking.
Transformational
Every person is able to transform into what they want, with the transformational paradigm each one of us can change any situation we are in with personal development. We build upon who we want to become and are encouraged to develop our fullest potentials.
Transactional
A transactional paradigm is the interaction between people, it is the theory of human behavior being seen as transactional. The interactions between people can include verbal and nonverbal, such as gestures, facial expressions, or spoken words.
Eric Berne who founded this paradigm believes that there are 3 egos, parent, adult, and child. Each one has their own traits and will influence the communications and behavior leading to different outcomes in interactions and outcomes in relationships. In this paradigm individuals develop self-awareness, improve communication, and resolve conflicting issues.
The effects they can have on your life
The different types of paradigm shifts will have different effects on your life and how you may view the world. Paradigms shift the way that we perceive interactions, they affect our decisions, our behaviors and personal growth and development.
If you take my story for example, growing up a child of an alcoholic (COA) and now an adult child of an alcoholic (ACOA), it led me to drink at a young age because that's what I believed we did. Alcohol to my mom was a medicine, and so I also saw it as such for a long time.
Until I began to change my paradigms, I would have been stuck in that life, thinking that if my mother was an alcoholic, then I by association was also. But it does not have to be like that; you can change your paradigms and create the life you want while still having those influences, but looking at them as something you don’t want to be instead of thinking that it's what you have to be.
Final Thoughts
A paradigm shift represents a significant change in the way we think about or understand something. Paradigms can also limit our thinking and impact our personal lives by shaping our beliefs and values. You never have to be stuck in the way you are thinking. There are many exercises and outreach programs that can help you in changing the way you think, behave, and interact with the world.