THE POWER OF PARADIGM SHIFT

A shift in paradigm is basically a change in the one way/normal way of thinking or doing things. Thus, understanding why some things happen not because its normal but there are reasons for which they happen.

A quick one; Steve Covey in his book "Seven Habits of Highly effective people" cited a good example from a mini paradigm shift he experienced. He was waiting for a bus with others at a subway in New York. Some were reading news papers, some lost in thought and others resting with their eyes closed.

It was a calm and peaceful scene.Then suddenly a man and his children entered the subway car. The children were so loud and rambunctious that instantly the whole climate changed. The man sat down next to Steve and closed his eyes, apparently oblivious to the situation.The children were yelling back and forth, throwing things even grabbing people's papers. It was very disturbing and yet their dad did nothing. It was difficult not to feel irritated and unbelievable that their dad could be so insensitive as to let his children run wild like that and do nothing about it, taking no responsibility at all.

It was easy to feel that everyone else felt irritated, too. Finally, with what Steve felt was unusual patience and restraint, he turned to him and said, "sir your children are really disturbing a lot of people. I wonder if you couldn't control them a little more?"The man lifted his gaze as if to come to a consciousness of the situation for the first time and said softly, "oh you are right. I guess i should do something about it. We just came from the hospital where their mother died an hour ago. I don't know what to think, i guess they don't know how to handle it either.

"Steve's paradigm shifted suddenly. He saw things differently now and because he saw things differently, his thought, feelings and behaviour was also different. His irritation vanished and he didn't have to worry about controlling his attitude or behaviour and his heart was filled with the man's pain. Feelings of sympathy and compassion flowed freely. Then he said to the man, your wife just died? Oh am sorry! Can you tell me about it? What can i do to help? Everything changed in an instant.

Many people experience a similar fundamental shift in the way they think when they face a life-threatening crisis and suddenly see their priorities in a different light. As humans we spend time to try to change our attitude and behaviour to suit our personality ethics but that cannot be compared to the spontaneous change that occurs when we see things differently.

It therefore becomes obvious that if we want to make relatively minor changes in our lives, we can perhaps appropriately focus on our attitudes and behaviours. But if we want to make a significant quantum change, we need to work on our basic paradigms. This starts by seeing things differently especially when what is happening is unusual.

By Mercy Tetteh