Perspectives, Paradigm Shifts, and Our Outlook on Life

It has been many years since I finished reading Stephen Covey’s 7 Basic Habits of Highly Effective People. I’ll never forget it’s first pages on our perspectives and paradigm shifts, an important thing to remember…

As explained here:

Before we can really understand the 7 Habits of highly effective people, we need to understand our own paradigms and how to make a Paradigm Shift. The word paradigm was originally a scientific term, and is more commonly used today to mean a model, theory, perception, assumption, or frame of reference.

—A simple way to understand paradigms is to see them as maps. Assume you wanted to arrive at a specific location in central Chicago. But suppose you were given the wrong map. Through a printing error, the map labeled Chicago was actually a map of Detroit. Can you imagine the frustration and ineffectiveness of trying to reach your destination?

—The more we are aware of our basic paradigms, maps, or assumptions, and the extent to which we have been influenced by our experiences, the more we can take responsibility for those paradigms, examine them, test them against reality, change them if necessary, and listen to others and be open to their perceptions, thereby getting a larger picture and a far more objective view.

 

—It becomes obvious that if we want to make relatively minor changes in our lives, we can focus on our attitudes and behaviors. But if we want to make significant quantum changes, we need to work on our basic paradigms – the way we view ourselves and the world around us.

It’s important to understand that whether you see a young woman…

 

…or an old lady.

That both these images occupy the same picture.

It’s a wonderful lesson I learned many years ago, and carries me well to this very day.