Part 2: Examine your paradigm

How do you examine your paradigm; the way you see life? A first step maybe to look for times and events in your life when your world was shaken! You may have witnessed a dramtic event, come close to dying, experienced the death of someone close to you, a victim of a crime, or saw someone or something in a new light, learned new information that changed the way you think or perceive something. It may be something small or huge. You have an ah ha! moment. The lights seem to have turned on and, how you perceived something in the past, is now seen differently. This is may be the beginning of a paradigm shift. This term has its roots in the scientific field, but can be used in this case to describe the a change in one's basic assumptions about the way they see something. Try to think of an event or circumstance that caused you to question some basic assumptions you may have had in your life.

• What did you learn that changed your paradigm or basic assumptions?
• How did that paradigm shift affect your behavior? Think in terms of what you decided to do or do differently as a result of that understanding or experience?
• What results or desired results did you get?

If we relate back to the SEE-DO-GET model concerning obeying the speed limit, I can illustrate my point. AT ONE TIME, I may have seen the highway as my personal race track. I could do whatever I wanted to do, as long as I did not get caught. Let's say, one day I was speeding in a residential area and could not stop in time to avoid hitting a dog that was chasing a ball that rolled into the street. The death of the dog and the grief I saw in the little boy's face who owned the dog changed my basic assumption that the highway was my personal race track. I saw that it was also someone's playground as well.

The way I saw driving a car changed, my actions (behavior) when driving the car changed, the results will help to avoid this tragedy ever happening again. This was a paradigm shift in the way I drive. Our results are affected by our paradigms and behaviors.

Here the term principles need to be explored. Our basic assumptions about the way we see things need to be expressed in principles which keep us focused on the right course.