“To ignore the power of paradigms to influence your judgment is to put yourself at risk when exploring the future. To be able to shape your future, you have to be ready and able to change your paradigm.” ~Joel Arthur Barker

I’ve recently become a fan of James Arthur Ray and have been working through his Science of Success program. Although this article isn’t a product review, I will say that the program is really remarkable and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is serious about making positive changes in their life. Since I’m currently working through the program, you are sure to hear other references to it.

What I am writing about today is paradigms. Paradigms are those pesky mindsets that we own that can sometimes help us along in life, but more normally hinder our development. They are the little voices that tell us that it can’t be done; that we aren’t good enough or smart enough; that life is hard; that money is the root of all evil; that it’s hard to find the right person. We accept these thoughts as our own, when, in reality, these thoughts are usually inherited from our families, our religions, our schools, and our cultures.

As the queen of the analogy, I’d like to compare my mind to my first apartment. When I got my first apartment, I had nothing of my own. My family and friends were kind enough to give me things to use. I inherited a couch, a chair, a bed. There were hand-me-down dishes in my cupboards. Pretty much everything I owned had come from someone who loved me and wanted to help.

Trust me…some of the things were NOT pretty. But did the ugly couch mean that my parents hated me and wanted me to suffer? Absolutely not! My parents really love me and would do nothing intentionally to make me unhappy. They were giving me what they had to give me. That held true with the other hand-me-downs, as well.

I think it’s important to recognize that most of the paradigms we have were not given to us to hurt us in any way. A child falls off his bike and his mother, not wanting to see her child hurt again, tells him that he should be more careful or he could fall off and break his neck. A broken hearted teen is told that love is hard. A young man is told that “money doesn’t grow on trees”. All of these little statements leave a lasting impression on our psyche’. We grow up thinking that it is dangerous, and possibly fatal, to take risks. We believe that love is hard, so expect very little from our partners, or settle for less than we want because we feel we might not find anything better. We have continuous money issues and worries, because we know that money is hard to come by. Pretty much anything short of telling you that you are a being of supreme power and without limits has planted a limiting paradigm.

Probably the hardest, and the most important, thing that we need to do to move on in our lives and personal development has got to getting rid of these paradigms! Until recently, I didn’t even realize how many limiting thoughts and beliefs I actually had. Once I did realize, it was a bit scary! Um…do I have to empty my brain?

Replacing your paradigms is a lot like replacing that old furniture. Sure, you can empty your entire place out and go on a mega shopping spree to get all new stuff. For most of us, that’s not really practical, though. It’s a lot easier to just replace things one at a time. Move a nice new thing in, move an old worn thing out. Keep doing this and taking care of your new things and it won’t be long until you have a really nice place that you love to be in.

Keep in mind, though, that nature abhors an empty space. So, if you are taking something out without putting something good back in, the space WILL be filled, just not necessarily with the best. So work on making conscious choices about what goes into your brain and make sure it doesn’t have limiting attachments.. You don’t want to replace a negative mindset with another, different, negative mindset.

No matter what sort of “positive thinking” exercises you may be doing to get your life on track and achieve your goals, they are absolutely worthless if your current paradigms are limiting you. Take a step back and take the time to understand what makes you tick. Make conscious efforts to replace negative mindsets that limit you with positive mindsets that allow you to achieve anything that you want in life.

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