Can You Really Create CHANGE in Your Life?

Each of us has multiple maps in our head, which can be divided into two main categories: maps of the way things are, or realities, and maps of the way things should be, or values. We interpret everything we experience through these mental maps. We seldom question their accuracy; we’re usually even unaware that we have them. We simply assume that the way we see things is the way they really are or the way they should be. And our attitudes and behaviors grow out of those assumptions. The way we see things is the source of the way we think and the way we act. Trying to change outward attitudes and behaviors does very little good in the long run if we fail to examine the basic paradigms from which those attitudes and behaviors flow.

Paradigm shifts—which create powerful change—move us from one way of seeing the world to another. Our paradigms, correct or incorrect, are the sources of our attitudes and behaviors, and ultimately our relationships with others. If we want to make relatively minor changes in our lives, we can perhaps appropriately focus on our attitudes and behaviors. But if we want to make significant, quantum change, we need to work on our basic paradigms. What we see—our paradigm—is highly interrelated to what we are—our character. We can’t go very far to change our seeing without simultaneously changing our being, and vice versa.

We are not our feelings, moods, or even our thoughts. Self-awareness enables us to stand apart and examine even the way we “see” ourselves—our self-paradigm, the most fundamental paradigm of effectiveness. It affects not only our attitudes and behaviors, but also how we see other people.

My self-awareness, imagination, and conscience, can help me examine my deepest values. I can realize that the script I’m living may not be in harmony with those values and that I have not proactively chosen my path, but rather I have deferred to circumstances and other people. But I can change. I can live out of my imagination instead of my memory. I can tie myself to my limitless potential instead of my limiting past. I can become my own first creator.

To begin with the end in mind means to approach my roles with my values and directions clearly in mind. I am responsible for my own first creation—ensuring the paradigms from which my behavior and attitude flow are congruent with my deepest values and in harmony with correct principles. It also means to begin each day with those values firmly in mind. Then as challenges come, I can make my decisions based on those values. I can act with integrity. I don’t have to react to the emotion, the circumstance. I can be truly proactive, value driven, because my values are clear.